First Descent

"First Descent" chronicles the rebellious, inspiring and sometimes controversial rise of snowboarding as seen through the eyes of the snowboarders setting the standards and breaking the boundaries of this worldwide phenomenon. The film spotlights a handful of snowboarding's early pioneers (including Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, Terje Haakonsen) and some of the ultra-sponsored superstar phenoms at snowboarding's current cutting edge (Shaun White and Hannah Teter) and literally takes them to the edge -- the snow blanketed mountains of Alaska --where these five icons face some of the most challenging and hard-core natural terrain on the planet. The five come for different reasons -- Perata and Farmer to see if they still have what it takes, Haakonsen to add another credit to his Big Mountain resumé and White and Teter to undertake their first Big Mountain ride ever -- and yet all seek to challenge themselves to accomplish the best snowboarding feat of their lives down peaks of powder no rider has ever descended.