Mason Mashon: A Life Less Ordinary
The old saying is…“adventure is what happens when your plans fall apart”
…but for Whistler-based photographer/adventurer/teepee brother Mason Mashon the trick seems to be keeping your plans pretty loose and let the adventure unroll whenever and where ever it wants.
“I just finished replacing a brake caliper in a NAPA parking lot though,” Mason says on a call from somewhere in Northern California. “That wasn’t really what we were thinking of, but we got it done!”
Along with girlfriend Diane Lepage, Mason is currently entrenched in a 7-week, no-hard-plans, bike-surf-moto-photo road trip through the western US and into the Baja. There are friends to meet, photos to shoot, places to explore and waves to catch, but other than a bike rendezvous in Utah with a couple of pro photographer buddies, it’s all very “see how it goes.”
In the outdoor sports world, Mason is a quadruple threat —an incredibly talented photographer who can also write and ride at a professional level—on mountain bikes in the summer and a snowboard/pow surfer when the snow falls.
This diversity of talent opens the doors of adventure, and employment—Mashon often publishes photos and articles in magazines, shoots campaigns for brands, stars in commercials and always seems to be off doing something awesome, often with co-conspirator/teepee brother/skier (and Airmail guest) Rory Bushfield. In June the duo flew in Bushy’s single-engine plane from Squamish to Alaska.
“It was the craziest trip I’ve ever been on,” Mason says.”
“Just flying around in some of the most remote wilderness with a plane full of all our favourite toys and things—we had splitboard, skis, two surfboards, two mountain bikes, all our camping gear, survival equipment, axes, machetes, my cameras, batteries and solar panels. We were basically self sufficient”
With skis on the wheels of his plane “Seagull Feather”, Bushy has been landing on glaciers and snowfields around Squamish for the past few years, often with Mason as navigator. This trip provided a chance to explore new mountains and make new friends.
“We went fan boating with James Spikes—we had never met him in real life, just chatting on Instagram—but we flew four hours out to his zone and, yeah, fanboating is the most amazing thing, how shallow of water you can take it in.”
The June skiing and splitboarding wasn’t exceptional but with a “loose” schedule and minimal sponsor commitments, Mason says there was no shortage of fun to be had. “We were surfing past midnight, camping on beaches, ripping around iceberg lagoons and flying over the wildest landscape.”
Mason holds a degree in geography so flying up and down the west coast of Canada in a small aircraft was especially rewarding. “I don’t know what more you could ask for in an Alaskan adventure. I’ll look back at that trip and always remember how insane it was—trip of a lifetime.”
For the rest of the summer, Mason stayed close to home. Riding bikes in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton. “I think it was one of the best bike riding summers we’ve had in a long time. Once a week we’d get ten mils of rainfall and it would keep the trails perfect. Such good riding and no smoke [from the forest fires that have plagued BC in previous years].
I am fortunate to be able to travel to a lot of beautiful places, but I think the Sea to Sky will remain home for me for a long time.”
“The combination of epic backcountry and riding and the community of people in this area is awesome. Everyone is so fired up. ”
Of course, a home away from home never hurts either, and with a freshly sourced fiberglass camper on the back of his truck, Mason and Diane are likely somewhere in Utah right now, riding hard, catching all the good light, and letting the adventure find them.
“I’ve always wanted to do a long trip like this,” Mason says. “We’ve got surfboards, fishing and diving gear, a moto on the front of the truck and 3 bikes on the back. I haven’t been to Utah since I was 18 or 19 and Diane has never seen some of these places so we’re just heading down to ride bikes, shoot photos and check out the landscape.
There’s no rush to get to the next zone, no pressure. “This is bucket list trip number two for me this year. I’m going all out.”
Follow Mason Mashon’s adventures on his instagram here, or checkout his website here.
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About the Author:
Feet moved to Whistler with his family at age 12 to live the dream. After time on the Island at University of Victoria, Feet returned home to the mountains where he co-directed and produced the seminal Canadian ski film Parental Advisory Vol 1. Feet also makes short horror films for fun, hosts many Whistler events, writes a weekly movie column, freelances for numerous top outdoor mags, and has been the editor of Mountain Life – Coast Mountains since it’s inception in 2006. He and his family now call Squamish, BC home.