Teton Gravity Research's Origin Story Is As "Core" As It Gets

This story originally appeared in the print magazine POWDER 2026 Photo Annual. Copies are still available while supplies last. Click here to get yours.

Rigging the Game

There’s a few different versions of the story depending on who you ask, but deep in the annals of TGR lore, the tale starts in a smelly snow cave occupied by four ski bums outside Valdez, Alaska in the spring of 1995.

Heli guiding season had just wrapped up, and young brothers Todd and Steve Jones squeezed a winter camping trip alongside their close friends Dirk Collins and Greg Von Doersten into the few weeks before the commercial fishing season started. On the menu was a shortlist of ski objectives that would challenge even today’s hardos, but the trip was about much more than that. It acted as the perfect venue for this group of kids to do some serious soul searching, and try to find the answer to the question every ski bum has asked themselves: What am I actually going to do with my life?

“We shared a dream to make a living out of skiing and snowboarding,” says Todd Jones, “and spent every day on that glacier trip talking about how we could set ourselves up to do just that.” Todd, Steve, and Dirk had spent the past few winters skiing in front of the camera for photo and film shoots in between guiding paying clients alongside Doug Coombs. Feeling that the pioneering and cutting-edge nature of Alaskan skiing at the time wasn’t being fully captured on film, they figured they could do it better. 

That September, a brand-new 16mm Arri S film camera showed up at the Jones family home in Vermont, bought from the cash Collins and the brothers earned from fishing that summer. While the type had been around since the Vietnam era (used to capture generation-defining war footage on the battlefield), it still stood as the pinnacle of camera tech in the 90s: it was lightweight, rugged, and could hold up to the elements. Perfect for skiing. Perfect for Alaska.

The following year, the trio of friends re-connected and shot what would become the first-ever TGR feature film: 1996’s The Continuum. The one-hour film stood for more than just a representation of skiing in Alaska and Jackson Hole, it represented the reality of a fringe lifestyle that would quickly turn into the modern ski industry. 

Now, 30 years and 30 annual feature films later, Todd is back to the soul searching. 

“I’ve lived through this insane time where the film world existed without change for so long, and then all this change happened so quickly,” says Jones. “The cost of entry was really high back then, but then the internet happened. At this point, I’ve seen every innovation except the advent of color and sound.”

The early days of TGR was the era of no re-dos, where film would be shipped away to be developed and the shots couldn’t be reviewed for months. If you missed the shot, if the lighting was off, if the lens was out of focus, that was it. No do-overs. That forged a confidence of “I need to get this right first time” that permeated into how TGR grew.

“Part of the reason we decided to start TGR was because we started our careers in front of the cameras as athletes and guides,” says Jones. They had learned to stack the odds in their favor, and that background gave the crew the confidence to get into truly the craziest places and know that once the skiing started, things would work. Today, Jones likes to call it rigging the game.

In our current era of instant internet gratification and oversharing, falling back onto that learned experience helps keep Todd sane. “I do miss the simplicity of my world and my life back then,” he says. “The Matchstick crew, McConkey, Kreitler, Coombs…we were all hanging out together. The movement was starting. The clothes were lame and we thought they should be cooler. There was an undeniable pioneering element. When you’re in it you never know you’re in it, but looking back, it’s special. I’m proud to see where it’s come and know that we played a small part.” 

“But, I still love what I do,” Jones continues. “I feel very blessed that my son is now a big part of it. That multi-generational experience keeps me going. I actually really like how most things have evolved. I mean, come on, if you told a 15-year-old me that marijuana would be legal and that big mountain skiing, skateboarding and surfing would be in the Olympics I’d be like, ‘Get outta here!’”

This story originally appeared in the print magazine POWDER 2026 Photo Annual. Copies are still available while supplies last. Click here to get yours.

Related: More From The Skier’s Magazine