Initially, I was a bit intimidated by Bode Merrill, mainly due to his 6-foot-3-inch stature. But that feeling quickly faded as we got to know each other. He usually offers up a mixture of deadpan humor and unwavering sweetness. We both joined the Salomon Snowboards team in 2009. It wasn’t obvious then that Bode would become one of the most prolific snowboarders of all time, let alone that I’d get to witness a lot of his feats firsthand, but that’s what happened. And because Bode’s dedication to filming video parts is second to none, the body of work he’s produced in his decades-long career will forever stand the test of time. 

For the most part, Bode seems unassumingly normal. Grown in beachy Santa Cruz, CA, his first love was skateboarding. His parents split when he was still young with his mom, Toddy, staying in Santa Cruz while his dad, Bob, moved to Park City, UT. For a while Bode spent winters in Cali and summers in Utah to support the skate rat lifestyle, but in his teens he opted for the opposite. Naturally, his skateboarding roots led to snowboarding in the Wasatch where he fell in love with the mountains. He took to snowboarding quickly, started filming and established himself early on in cult classic videos like The Catfish Chronicle’s It Ain’t Easy (2006), and also by winning contests like the World Quarterpipe Championships in 2008.

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