Waterskiing and running for my life with the guy behind Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

Everywhere Joel Jewett goes in Ovando, Montana, someone says hi. At the town bar, Trixi’s, and the town diner, The Stray Bullet, and even in front yards as he drives by in his truck, someone stops him. It’s not because he’s famous — he isn’t, really. It’s not because he had a hand in three billion-dollar video game franchises — according to him, people here don’t care about that. It isn’t because he knows Tony Hawk.

It’s because in Ovando, everyone knows everyone. In a town of about 71 people, that’s just how it goes. When you go out, you see the same people. The cook that made your breakfast that morning is your drinking buddy that evening. The lady handing out wristbands for tonight’s show — a three-piece country cover band — also watches your dog when you go out of town.

It’s a simple place with a slow way of life. A tiny town tucked into the mountains, full of cows, ranches, and a whole lot of not much else.

Unless you’re a Jewett, in which case Ovando is a no-rules playground where drinking Coors Lights at 10 in the morning, out-running hail storms on mountains, waterskiing on secret lakes, lighting off fireworks, and looking for bears is as common a daily occurrence as saying hi.

Out here, everyone knows Joel. But they know the Joel that lives in Ovando on White Tail Ranch. They don’t know the Joel that co-founded Neversoft Entertainment, the studio behind the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, five Guitar Hero games, cult-classic western Gun, the 2000 Spider-Man game, and part of Call of Duty: Ghosts. For Joel, those things are in the rear-view mirror — five years almost to the day when I show up to meet him on his sprawling property.

He’s retired from the game industry now, having left in 2014 when Activision folded Neversoft into Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward. After more than 20 games in 20 years, these days, he does whatever he wants.

I meet him around 7:45 a.m. on a Friday in Ovando on his ranch to spend two days with him, his wife Sandy, and their son Connor, seeing what life is like for the storied developer post-Neversoft. We drink some coffee, make small talk, then along with Connor pack into a truck to begin our day. As we drive, Joel tells me one of his life mantras: try to do two cool things everyday.

At first blush, it sounds like the kind of saying that might adorn a coffee mug or inspirational poster. What I don’t know is just how serious Joel — and myself, by extension — will take this motto over the next two days. What I don’t know is that everything I do with the Jewett family over the next 36 hours or so will be exhilarating, terrifying, and the type of experience that, for most people, is reserved only for vacations.

Mr. Bastard

Our first morning begins with waterskiing. Where we go, I can’t tell you. I promised the Jewetts and other locals I wouldn’t spoil their secret.

Let’s put it this way, though — not too far from the Jewetts’ ranch is a lake hidden from anyone who doesn’t know it’s there. The Jewetts know about it, obviously, and so do the people that live in the 16 properties surrounding it. I, too, now know about it, and so does my accompanying photographer Levi Ryman. Barring us, ostensibly, not too many other people know about this lake, and there’s even a locked fence blocking people from stumbling upon it while driving through the trails. I’m told, by Sandy, there are people living in Ovando that don’t know about the lake.

It’s all weirdly secretive for a body of water. Until you see the secret lake. Then it kind of makes sense. Maybe a mile-and-a-half in length, and about 75 feet at its deepest, the lake looks like a Manifest Destiny-era painting come to life. The water is clear, untainted by litter. It’s cold, but not too cold. Not on a day like this, where the sun shines high above your head, baking your skin and warming the Earth around you. You’re surrounded on all sides by mountains, green with trees growing on them, and bigger than your brain can comprehend. If it’s not already comically picturesque, a bald eagle flies overhead scanning for food. The few locals lucky enough to know about this place row kayaks off in the distance.

Joel, 56, is decked out in a wetsuit, sitting on the back of his boat fitting the skis to his feet. He’s quiet as he gets himself ready to get in the water, and I’m not sure if he’s taking in the sights around him, or enjoying the calm before the storm. Maybe the latter, because when Joel gets in the lake and gives Connor the go-ahead, the boat revs up with a loud roar, shooting to 30 miles an hour, and pulling Joel to his feet where he rides along the water’s surface.

It’s a serene moment cut by harsh noise, whipping wind, and, fittingly enough for Joel, action sports. Sure, the mountains around you are still beautiful, but you’re flying by them too quickly to take in any detail, and the boat’s too loud for you to have anything resembling a contemplative moment. It strikes me as a pretty good metaphor for Joel’s life — a man described by his wife as “intense” in a place defined by beauty and slow pace.

Joel grew up not too far from here, about two and-a-half hours away in a town called Great Falls — a big city by Montana standards, he says, with a population of 65,000. Much like he is now, growing up, Joel was very much into the outdoors. He went hunting, and loved to read pocket books by Louis L’Amour about cowboys and travelers. “I’m all like, ‘Man, I wanna be a freaking cowboy,’” he says about his early life.

He was enamored with horses, and was dying to ride them growing up. The first chance he got, though, ended in disaster, as he learned he had “pretty extreme” allergies to dust and pollen. “And so then my throat would close up, and it was like, ‘Ope, off to the emergency room, give him a shot of adrenaline, make sure his throat opens back up.’ Fortunately, over time I outgrew the allergies so I could get into the horse thing.”

And then there’s everything else that defined Joel’s career — skateboarding, partying, and rock and roll — all which played big parts in his early life.

One of the first real rock songs he recalls hearing was around 1972, when British glam rock band The Sweet put out their song “Little Willy.”

“We’d just fucking rock on that on the AM radio going up to [the Missouri river] with gramps — we called him gramps — to go fishing,” Joel says. “It started there, and then I just naturally liked things like harder rock and roll.”

“What do you think it was about that side of the music that spoke to you,” I ask.

“I dunno, that I can curl my fucking lip,” he replies, laughing.

Skateboarding came a few years later, entering his life in ninth grade in the summer of 1978. It was a transitional time for the sport, when, instead of using metal wheels — easily snagged by rocks on the pavement — people were starting to fit their boards with softer urethane wheels. Better trucks were also being made, allowing for easier turning than the kind that came strapped to rollerskates. Joel’s friends spent the entire summer skating around and building ramps; it’s just what you did that summer, he says. He never let it go.

The first time Joel partied was in the fifth grade, with his cousin who was two years older than him. His cousin taught him how to make what he calls “Mr. Bastard,” by taking shots of all the liquor in a liquor cabinet and pouring it into one bottle. “Then you just go off with your Mr. Bastard and your buddy and you fucking drink it,” he says. “Then you’re fucking hammered as a fifth grader trying to ride your fucking bike.”

“Then I got busted and I got fucking grounded for being a drunk fifth grader.”

Arguably it was getting into trouble with drinking that got him to where he is today. But this time he’d be in trouble with himself. After getting a full ride academic scholarship to The University of Montana, Joel spent the first three years of his college career partying heavily until having a change of heart moment. “I woke up to reality one day, [and] I’m like, ‘Woah, pissed three years of my life away. Not cool,’” he says. “At that point I’m like, ‘Need to make your fucking comeback, motherfucker.’”

Joel threw himself into business school — specifically accounting because it was the “hardest” option. He says the choice was a form of penance for his past three years of excess, likening it to how Flagellants whip themselves as a form of repentance. He gave himself a goal: get a job right out of college. Which he did, in California, at the public accounting firm Deloitte Haskins and Sells. One of his clients was Malibu Comics, who had a video game division called Malibu Comics Entertainment. After getting a taste of the video game industry, Joel decided to join Malibu. There he met Mick West and Chris Ward, who ended up joining him in founding his company, Neversoft, in 1994.

The rest is kind of history, well told throughout the 25 years that have followed Neversoft’s founding. It’s hard to work on three billion-dollar video game franchises and not have reporters — including myself — wanting to write about it over and over again. Joel’s told that story.

But what came next?

In 2014, after helping develop Call of Duty: Ghosts with Infinity Ward and Raven Software, Joel retired from Neversoft and the video game industry. Since then, he’s mostly fallen off the face of the planet. Sure, he still sees old Activision friends when he’s in California, and just a few weeks before our visit he partied with around 80 ex-Neversoft employees in celebration of the five year anniversary of the studio’s closing. “I just put the credit card up, made sure I had enough side trays of freaking tequilas and shit to keep them all still standing,” Joel says, laughing. “We all fucking drank from four til seven, and I looked around and we were having so much fun, I just kept the credit card out until nine. Fortunately these days we have Uber.” And yeah, he does still see Tony Hawk from time-to-time. “I’m pretty sure he thinks I just fucking dissapeared into the wilds of Montana,” Joel jokes. But, other than that, Joel has nothing to do with video games anymore. He hasn’t picked up a controller in years, he says.

When Joel gets back in the boat, he’s glowing. Where most people need caffeine or maybe a hot shower to wake themselves up, Joel seems to thrive on adrenaline. Waterskiing in the morning, he says, is a near-daily routine for him in retirement. And with his morning ritual out of the way, and after giving Connor a go at waterskiing, it’s time for us to actually begin our day.

Lawless land

“Mr. Spady, what’s happening,” Joel asks, rolling his truck window down.

“How you doing,” Mr. Spady says.

“Doing well. Going to get my morning exercise.”

“There ya go! You might as well enjoy it.”

“Yep!”

The two talk for a little while. As Joel begins to drive off, Mr. Spady calls out, remembering to tell him about his evening plans.

“I’m going to have a beer with Jay tonight,” he says.

“That sounds good,” Joel tells him. “[...] Well, we were crazy over the fourth so tell him I’ll make contact soon.”

“OK!”

“We had my wife’s side of the family, bunch of nieces up and everything. Got fucking hammered drunk for, like, five days. You know how that goes.”

Conversations here are kind of slow, with long pauses before replies. It’s a stark contrast to the kind of life and career Joel’s known for having — one in the city, leading a team of skaters, metal heads, and artists, all working and playing hard. There’s an immediate juxtaposition when comparing Ovando and Joel, a man who’s intense, fits in the word “fuck” seemingly wherever he can, and the kind of guy you’d generally expect to run a company that throws televisions off office building roofs, gleffuly show off what he blew up on the fourth of July, throw two journalists on a speedboat minutes after meeting them, and tell lots of stories prefaced by drinking.

“But I just fucking love this place, I just trip out on it. See that little deer back there,” Joel says as we drive back towards his ranch.

The Jewetts moved to Ovando about 15 years ago, around 2004, spending time here in-between shipping games. Their ranch is a sprawling complex, with three houses, a large work garage, a horse arena, a horse pen and, most recently, a brand new, massive two-floor barn that’s still being built when we visit. The family’s property leads right up to a whole host of mountains on either side, leaving the family with an embarrassment of riches with its views.

These days, the Jewetts split their time down the middle between staying here in Ovando and Newbury Park, California, about 30 minutes from Woodland Hills where Neversoft was based. “We’re trying to get it so that it’s six months here and six months there,” Joel says. “That’s kind of my goal. My wife would lean more towards three [here] and nine [there], if you asked her.”

Joel’s wife, Sandy, meets us outside when we get home. Compared to Joel, his wife is much more subdued, quiet, and soft-spoken. She is, as she puts it, the woman that lassoed a tornado.

Sandy, originally from the San Fernando Valley, met Joel in Missoula when she was living there with a friend. Joel came into her life after his stint with excessive partying in college and while he was pursuing his 4.0 GPA in accounting. “[He didn’t] look like the guy from three years [before]. I didn’t know about that guy,” Sandy says.

“That guy would’ve scared a lot of people,” Joel says.

Despite the quiet state around us, the Jewetts are quick to correct my assumption that Joel comes out here to relax, to decompress from the hectic work life he had back in California. On the contrary, he comes out here to be, as he puts it, “twice as fucking out of control.” And he brings Sandy and Connor along for the ride.

“There’s no fucking laws here, dude,” Joel says.

“This place is fucking hardcore.”

“When I’m here,” Joel says, “I’m like, ‘I’m gonna put three weeks of vaca[tion] into a week, no problem. It should be easy.’”

“Which is why I’m always so tired,” Sandy jokes.

Sandy was Joel’s “unspoken” business partner throughout all of Neversoft, running the company’s human resources department. Five years removed from their lives as video game developers, they’re still working together — albeit in a much different field. But getting to his new venture required making one of the hardest decisions Joel’s ever made: leaving his crew behind after 20 years, and not joining them in going to Infinity Ward. “Probably, like, in my career the hardest thing I ever did was left,” he says. “Hands down.”

“I was there for all that,” Connor says. “It was definitely heavy. It was the heaviest thing I’ve ever watched him go through.”

“I had a final Christmas party that I was the only guy that knew it was the final Christmas party,” Joel says. “That was a fucking hard night, that one. For sure.”

Joel says he still has dreams sometimes that he’s bought a new office space, and began assembling a development team. Him and Sandy even joke about maybe starting up a new studio out here in Montana, though when pressed on this Joel says it’s not a serious thought. Besides, the game industry is a lot different now than when Neversoft started. Despite the fact it was making large-scale AAA games for the time, for a lot of its history, Neversoft was a small, tightly-knit group; you didn’t need 1,000 people back then to make a video game.

“I really enjoyed making video games all the way up to [when we] had 150 people,” Joel confesses. “At that point, I could know everybody by their first name and everything, if they walked by, say hi to them. When it got over 150 — and we even did over 150 for a while with Guitar Hero because we were so crazy during that period of time — that’s when suddenly I’m like, ‘Fuck, who’s that?’”

He’s going to stay retired.

Joel spent his first two years out of the game industry doing whatever he wanted, he says. He went to Europe, didn’t worry about working, and, as he does, partied. Talking to the Jewetts, I get the sense it was a hectic time for them, but one Joel had earned after 20 years of constant development — like a vision quest to find out who he wanted to be after Neversoft, but with a lot more Coors Light.

His next venture would be less than an hour away from where Neversoft’s office was located — in Newbury Park, California, where the Jewetts now ride show horses with their new company, White Tail Ranch Performance Horses.

Joel and Sandy now compete in what’s called Reined Cow Horse, a type of livestock competition centered around working a cow in an arena, cutting cattle, and riding in a reining pattern. The husband and wife duo work with another husband and wife training duo that take care of their horses, and teach them how to be better riders.

The two-story aforementioned barn Joel’s building on his ranch is for bringing the show horses to Montana — which, at least when we visit, hasn’t happened yet since the barn is still being built. It’s a mammoth of a structure, with horse stalls, showers, and a second floor clubhouse that’ll have a bar and foosball tables. There’s a second floor balcony, too, that overlooks the family horse arena. Getting the barn built is the Jewetts’ current big project, and the first thing Joel told me about when I approached him for this article.

The horses here in Montana are older, used for riding up into the backcountry behind the family’s ranch. Which, much to my horror, is the second cool thing Joel has planned for us.

Inside the horse pen, Joel, Sandy, and Connor fill up large troughs with food. We’re told to stand out of the way of the troughs — a welcome warning, as when they let the horses in they all come barreling through to eat. With the horses fed, brushed, and saddled, the Jewetts put me on a 20 year old equine named Drifter, quickly explaining how to ride, steer, and stop the creature. I guess I’m visibly nervous — it’s my first time on a horse, an animal I’m terrified of — because Joel and Sandy tell me several times Drifter is a docile horse that’s ridden this trail “thousands” of times.

Off we go.

Our first destination is the expansive field directly behind the ranch, where Joel tells us his wildlife cameras have taken shots of several bears. As we ride along, the horses naturally falling into their pecking order and we get closer and closer to the mountains, until we stop at a narrow path leading up a hill. To my nervous mind, I’m taking the horse up a 90-degree incline, breaking all laws of physics as I try to pretend my heart isn’t beating out of my chest. To everyone else, I assume, this is the beginning of our trek through their favorite countryside.

Up the hills and mountains, the horses and Jewetts never second guess where we’re going as we ride through thick forestation, often having to push branches or limbs out of the way. I have no clue how anyone could possibly know where we are. Do we have a flare to shoot through the forest canopy when we have to inevitably admit we’re lost, a victim of our own hubris, daring to think we could ride through this no man’s land less than a mile from the Jewett ranch? Maybe I die here?

Joel, Sandy, and Connor, on the other hand, look at ease on their horses, as I bob up and down on mine, trying to pretend I haven’t almost fallen off numerous times. Joel and Connor drink numerous beers. We don’t talk too much as we ride.

When we reach the top of our trail, we’re looking down on the secret lake. We’re now above the bald eagle that once flew over us. We sit here for a while, looking down at the lake, and around at the taller mountains surrounding us. Joel doesn’t strike me as anything but a happy person, but this moment seems different, sitting here with his family, on horses, two of his favorite things that he’s worked alongside his whole life, in the state he calls home, that he romanticizes.

We ride back, the Jewetts only telling me after the fact that that was an “experienced” trail. They say I did well during my first attempt at horseback riding. I beg to differ.

After dinner, it’s time to head to the town bar for more drinks and to listen to some live music. Joel never slows down. With two cool things under his belt, it’s time to party. The day isn’t over yet, so neither are we.

Confused about Hell

“Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee, it gets hotter than a hoochie coochie. We laid rubber on the Georgia asphalt; we got a little crazy but we never got caught.”

Tonight at Trixi’s, in this moment, Alan Jackson’s words about getting drunk and trying to have sex in Tennesee carry more weight than the Ten Commandments — and everyone here knows more words to the former. The singer of this cover band may as well be Jackson himself, as the patrons dance around, singing every word with him in the small, dimly lit bar.

Tonight isn’t the type of night where Connor could — maybe even should — get up on the stage and do a set. Not on a night like tonight, where everyone is happy. Not for a guy who sings country songs with lyrics like this:

I’m a little bit confused about Hell

Was it supposed to be so accessible?

So easy to fall down a rabbit hole. Well, I guess I thought I was doing well

I’m a little bit confused about Hell

And this:

I don’t like going around dresser drawers

Feels like I’m looking in on another man’s soul

I don’t recognize the tokens he holds, and it’s hard to tell him what he already knows.

I don’t like going around dresser drawers

Connor was born right around the time Neversoft got going. He talks about its former developers as if they’re family — almost like he has more than 100 uncles. Neversoft was his first job, starting there at 16, and working in departments such as multiplayer and testing. Like Joel, college took him seven years. Also like Joel, he has a degree in accounting.

“I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do for a while,” he says. “I had the accounting thing the whole time. Then I added a film degree for a little of it because I thought I wanted to go into video games. I was doing both of them for two years, and then it just didn’t seem like — it was going to take a whole ‘nother year to get the film degree. And I was like, ‘OK, just get the accounting one and get out.’”

Connor only recently graduated college, having gone to Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Where he and his father’s stories deviate is their post-college lives. Rather than getting a job in accounting right out of school, like Joel did, Connor’s spent his time focusing on music. He’s trying to make a go of the music industry, putting out songs on his Bandcamp page and just beginning to play shows.

He’s played guitar since he was around 10 years old, but it’s only recently that he’s been taking it seriously, coming, he says, further as a musician in the last three years or so than he did in the decade before them.

“Probably a couple years ago,” Joel says, “one of our neighbors, literally almost next door here, she’s a painter, and she told me this story of how, ‘I always wanted to paint and I finally just decided I have to do this. So I bought a hundred canvases.’ And she’s like, ‘I’m gonna paint a hundred pictures and at the end of it I’ll know, either I should be doing this or I should not be.’ And now she’s actually doing quite well. Pretty cool. So he and I, I was just joking with him, I’m like, ‘Dude, just fucking write a hundred songs, man.’”

“Did you do it,” I ask Connor.

“I’m at 99,” he says, laughing. “Almost there, but now I don’t wanna call the hundredth one unless it’s, like, really good.”

The thing to know about Connor — and something he’ll tell you repeatedly — is he writes sad songs. Which is the reason tonight here at Trixi’s wouldn’t be an ideal gig for the young singer-songwriter. He jokes about it as we stand around the bar nursing drinks — water for me, numerous beers for everyone else — coming up with a hypothetical situation where he addresses the crowd with something along the lines of, “Y’all having a good time tonight? Well, here’s a song to ruin that night.”

Take a peak at Connor’s SoundCloud, and it’s clear he isn’t exaggerating about how sad his music can be. Littering the page are nine songs all about lost love, drugs, and, well, Joel.

“He has one song where he called me on the fact that we don’t fucking hug here in Montana,” Joel says.

“[Joel’s] a super intense guy,” Connor replies. “Yeah, one of the songs has a line about that.”

“I’m working on that,” Joel says.

“See, he learns.”

“I can learn.”

But the depressing nature of his music aside, Connor’s no joke of a musician. He’s a competent guitar player, sharp lyricist, and sings with a confidence much beyond his years. His talent isn’t lost on his family, especially Joel, who says getting Connor’s music career off the ground is his next goal — after finishing his brand new barn.

“I want to see this guy be successful, so then we have to learn all about the music industry and how to get promoted in the music industry,” he says. “That’s a completely foriegn land for me to read about, you know, and try to figure out.”

“My next dream project is this guy freaking playing music,” Joel says.

“Oh, well, uh, shux,” Connor says to him, laughing. “Thank you.”

“I love it, man.”

Where Connor will take his music, he’s not sure right now. Maybe he’ll move to Nashville, Tennessee — “music city,” as it’s called — the country music capital of the world. Maybe he’ll move back to Los Angeles, where there’s less competition in the genre he plays. For tonight though, it’s beers with his dad, cracking jokes, laughing, and listening to happy music. Joel and Connor are best friends, basically inseparable from the time the former drags the latter out of bed to go waterskiing each morning with him, before moving on to horse rides through the back country, and other “cool” things the two do together before ending a lot of nights here at Trixi’s.

After several rounds of drinks, and a beer for the road, Joel drives us all home. With as much activity as the Jewetts pack into days, I figure no one around here ever has trouble sleeping. I sure don’t, as I immediately crash the second I hit the guest room bed, not knowing anything about tomorrow other than I’ll do another “two cool things.” If I would’ve known the danger I’d have to outrun the next day, at the very least I might’ve woken up and brought more appropriate clothes.

Coming to terms with dying

I’ve accepted I’m going to continue being hit in the face. Really, the only thing left to do is run. If Levi and I die right here on this mountain, we’ve had a good go of the whole life thing.

In retrospect, I admit I was irrationally afraid yesterday slowly riding a horse around some trails. Today, right now, I’m not so sure.

Our second day with the Jewetts begins like the first. Joel and Connor go waterskiing to wake up. The secret lake is just as beautiful as before. Joel continues his daily search of fun and adventure. Our second and last cool thing we’ll do today before leaving the ranch is hopping on some four wheelers and going up into the mountains, higher than we went on the horses. Connor hops on one. Sandy hops on the other with Joel, and Levi and me are put on a Side By Side — imagine a golf cart that goes fast and can go offroad.

We ride up the trails around Black and Stonewall Mountain, climbing up about 5,000 feet, stopping periodically to look down at the vast Montana land that stretches beneath us. Aside from being in a plane, I’ve never been this high up in my life. When we left, it was hot. Now here, in the higher altitude, it’s cold. I wish I’d brought a jacket.

When we make stops, sometimes for the aforementioned overlooks, other times so Joel and Connor can grab a beer from the Side By Side’s truckbed, Joel tells us about where we are. We see trees still burnt from last year’s wildfires, patches of land where trees once stood that have been cleared by avalanches coming from the snow chute through the mountain peak about 3,000 feet above us. Trees don’t stand a chance here is what I gather.

The Jewetts know the area well; they come up here, and higher, on horseback often. Camping in the mountains and — sometimes — dealing with the inclement weather first hand. But today, right now, the sun shines above us. Yeah, there are some gray clouds in the distance we keep good pace ahead of, but they don’t seem like they should be that big of a bother. We keep going on the gravel trail, big enough for about one vehicle, with no guardrail between us and drops straight down the cliffside hundreds of feet down. Every turn has a new view, each better than the last.

Our last stop is another secret lake, this one high, high up in the mountains. The water’s clean, and cold. We sit around for a few minutes, talk, then all try our hand at skipping rocks. The clouds we’ve been outpacing catch up with us, the sound of thunder indicating maybe it’s a good time to head back down the mountain, back to the ranch.

As we drive back, we drive a little faster than before. The clouds get darker. No one seems afraid, but no one seems keen on staying in one spot. It’s colder than before now, and when the rain drops start to fall it makes it even worse. The storm comes quick, and I think it’s weird that the rain hurts as it hits my skin. It’s really loud, too. It takes Levi and myself a few moments to realize we’re being bombarded by marble-sized hail. I also now realize the Side By Side has no windows or roof.

Taking cover from the storm is a fool’s errand, but we all try, jumping from our vehicles and under trees. The rain and hail have completely waterlogged our clothes. My loose shirt and jeans stick to my skin. It’s freezing. But, under this pine tree, I feel relatively safe. Joel, Levi, Connor, and me all breathlessly laugh at our predicament. It’s bad luck, being stuck in the storm, but it seems fine. Until Sandy, assessing the situation, says, “We need to get off the mountain. Now.”

From here, what seemed fine at first takes on a sense of urgency. It’s not going to be fun, or pretty, but we have to keep driving through this storm. As we drive the temperature continues to drop. My hands go completely numb. I’m now steering a vehicle on a mountain in a hail storm with hands I can’t feel. My face is pelted with hail. My only choice is to turn my hat around, slightly tilting the visor forward, so that the majority of it is deflected. Levi and me, driving as fast as we can, laugh at how ridiculous this all is. And dangerous. It’s that, too. If we both die, Levi and me agree we’re fine with it. This is a hell of a way to go out, we tell each other.

I’m not sure how long this goes on for. It could’ve only taken us 10 minutes to get back down the mountain, but it feels like hours. As we get closer and closer to the Earth, it slowly warms up, until finally we get out of the storm, the sun hitting our skin like an old friend.

Back at the ranch, everyone is out of breath, laughing, and, at least in my case, saying quick prayers of thanks when we get off our respective vehicles. I smoke a cigarette with my lifeless hands and Joel says he’s considering picking smoking back up after that whole ordeal.

It takes a few moments for us all to get our bearings again, standing around in amazement of what we just went through, and still shaking in our cold, soaked clothes. We made it down the mountain. We’re alive. I am relieved.

When we walk in the house to all take warm showers, to get our blood pumping again, Joel stops us in the doorway. He’s beaming. He lives for this kind of adventure. What we all just went through, that rush of fear, adrenaline, and powerlessness over nature, that’s what makes Joel tick. While I was coming to terms with dying up on that mountain, Joel was feeling truly alive. He starts high fiving everyone.

“Fuck yeah,” he yells. “That was fucking awesome!”

A few weeks later, I get a text from Joel. “We went on a couple more adventures since you left,” it reads. “We just got done riding 14 miles behind our house and camping for a few days … good times in the back country!” He sends along multiple pictures of himself and Connor leading their horses up trails thousands of feet in the sky, and of waterfalls they found off the beaten path.

Joel, never slowed down, is already on to his next adventure.

Update 8/22: We originally reported that Joel discovered rock music on his way to Missouri, and that Sandy met Joel in Great Falls. Joel discovered rock music on his way to the Missouri river and the two met in Missoula. We also referred to Trixi’s as “Trixies” and The Stray Bullet as “The Silver Bullet.” We have corrected the story.