“We want to move quickly through here,” Forrest Shearer says.

He turns and scampers up a few steps carved into a dilapidated bulkhead, past a no trespassing sign, below a multimillion-dollar Malibu mansion off California’s Pacific Coast Highway. He hunkers down and moves quickly, bouncing barefooted across seaweed and barnacle-encrusted cobble as I scramble behind him. There’s a wave around the corner that’s hidden from the crowds.

Forrest knows this dance well. He’s been doing it for decades. Whether in the mountains or the ocean, he treads lightly, letting his actions lead the narrative at the right place, the right time. He finds space apart from the crowds—he cultivates distance by design.

Despite a pro snowboarding career that’s been going strong since the mid aughties, Forrest has never been one to present a precise public persona. We’ve known him primarily as a big mountain splitboard aficionado and environmental advocate with a knack for moving with the flow. But speaking firsthand, even after multiple trips together—two weeks in New Zealand, snow camping on Oregon’s South Sister, lift accessed days at Mt. Bachelor, Mt. Baker and beyond—I still feel like I don’t know who Forrest is, at his core. We’ve had some good times together, but we haven’t had many conversations of personal depth. From the outside he seems like the cruisiest dude alive. Some kind of Spicoli-influenced John Muir character. There must be more, right?

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