‘Full Pull’, The Runge’s 3rd ski film featuring Camden Williams, Scott Deneau, Luke O’Brien, Eric Nicholson and Timo Berg. This crew absolutely gets after it form the streets to the backcountry. They put in some serious work for this one and we saw their effort first-hand up Little Cottonwood as they put in the time and effort to build, and rebuild, Chad’s Gap, allegedly the first session of skiers to hit it since Tanner’s redemption eight years ago.
Interview with The Runge’s Timo Berg on his Chad’s Gap mission last spring
Powhub: Hey man, thanks for taking some time for an interview. I guess the last time I saw you was right after you got your redemption on Chad’s and the energy was through the roof, incredibly stoked for you to land that one. Let’s start off with a question about The Runge, how did you guys become a crew?
Timo: Four years ago, Camden and Luke started it, it was their baby. They’ve been skiing together for a while, and were both on J Skis, so they became good friends when Camden moved out here (to Salt Lake). And that first year it was just them with Scott and their other friend who isn’t really involved anymore. I helped them with a few spots that first year and got a clip with them at Brighton in the spring and also hit Pyramid Gap with them that year. And after that season, they asked me if I wanted to join full-time and was super stoked to do that. I met Scott working at Mount Hood four or five years ago and he introduced me to Camden. It’s funny that Camden, Scott and I are all from Michigan, but we didn’t meet until we moved out here.
Powhub: If you had to only choose one for this upcoming season, would you choose street, park or the backcountry?
Timo: I would choose backcountry for sure. Street is fun, park is also fun, but there’s just something different about the backcountry that really gets me excited. It’s mainly because I grew up watching backcountry video parts from films like ‘Attack of La Niña’ ‘The way I See it’ and all those Matchstick Production movies that had a bunch of backcountry segments. Those were my inspiration for getting into freestyle skiing so now to have the access to the backcountry here in Utah, that’s kind of what my main focus is. Especially being with Rossignol this year, they don’t really make a full-on designated park ski, they have the ‘Sender Free 100’ that I’ll use in the park & streets, but definitely going to focus on big mountain. So if I had to choose one thing, I would definitely choose the backcountry.
Powhub: How did the idea of Chad’s come about? Of course it’s in the back of every skier’s brain but how did the idea actually get set into motion?
Timo: We got the idea after hitting Pyramid. The idea kind of started there and began to form in our brains a little bit. And then at the start of last summer Luke was always making jokes like ‘I’m gonna put it in your contract that you have to hit Chad’s gap this year’ and I was like ‘oh yeah totally’ and the more we talked about it, the more I started to realize this could actually happen. It’s been something I wanted to do since I was like seven years old. But it never really felt like I was actually gonna hit Chad’s until we were there building the jump and I started to see the lip formation come in and I was like ‘oh shit I’m actually doing this’.
Powhub: How did you end up linking with a Trey to hit Chad’s? I know his shots came out in a different film project but how did it come about that you guys planned to built & hit it together?
Timo: Yeah, I was thinking about hitting Chad’s and was like I don’t really wanna hit it alone so I was thinking of people who would wanna hit it with me and Trey was the first person that popped into my mind. He likes to go big and when he hit Pyramid Gap with us, he landed every single trick that he tried on that jump and I was like he is the perfect guy to hit Chad’s with. Originally, since we were hitting it together that first day, we were gonna try and feature his hits in our movie as well but since I didn’t end up getting my trick that day and everything looked so different on that day I went back, it just didn’t really fit to have Treys clips in there too.
Powhub: Side question, do the rumors hold true that you guys were the first skiers to hit Chad’s since Tanner’s redemption session eight years ago, aside from a couple snowboard crews?
Timo: I know Sage Kotsenburg hit it in 2019 and then another snowboard crew hit it in 2023. I’ve heard that there might’ve been another skier that hit it in the past seven years but I tried to look for clips online and I couldn’t find anything. So that’s the rumor, I guess that we were the first ones to hit it since then.
Powhub: How did it come about that you guys let 14-year old Christian Stokely (Crispy) hit your jump?
Timo: So we did not exactly let him hit the jump. Luke is one of Crispy’s coaches and he invited him up there just to kind of watch the session because he was thinking about hitting it one day. Then he started talking about wanting to hit it and Trey and I both told him that we didn’t want him to. For one, we didn’t feel comfortable with him hitting that jump because he’s so young and we didn’t want him to get hurt, and two, he didn’t help with any of the building. So we were kind of just like yeah this is my and Trey’s jump and we should be the only two who are hitting it. Of course anyone else that helped build for the majority of the day could’ve also hit it if they wanted to. Crispy wasn’t there for any of the build days and we know he’s an amazing skier, he’s better than I think I’ll ever get at freestyle, but he’s 14 years old and no 14 year-old has the leg strength to hit that jump, luckily his air awareness saved him that day. There were some people there that I don’t really know who were friends of friends who were egging him on which I think gave him the confidence to go up there and and do it. He asked us and we said no, and he still went for it. I remember right as I was up at the top of the inrun I heard on the radio ‘Crispy dropping’ and I look up and he’s dropping in and I was like ‘well I can’t really do anything anymore at this point so let’s just see how this goes’.
Powhub: And we certainly saw how that went. Alright, couple more questions. You started to answer this when we were talking earlier but what was going through your head those first few days after that first session, then the next couple weeks when you weren’t sure if the forecast would line up for another attempt, and then those few days leading up to the second session when you were rebuilding the jump and thinking you might get another shot?
Timo: Those first few days I was just really really mad at myself. Mainly because two years before when I hit Pyramid, I hit it three times and I ate shit all three times and ended up getting concussion so I never went back to hit it again. And I was thinking I can’t let that happen again with Chad’s. I just wanted it so badly I was just really mad. Then the two weeks leading up to the the second session and I was kind of just starting to plan if it would be possible to go back and hit it again, then I had the Silver Belt Comp at Sugar Bowl which helped get my mind off Chad’s a bit. I kinda just didn’t think about it for that whole week and then when I got back to Salt Lake, I started looking at the weather and saw that that next weekend was lining up to be sunny with almost no wind and maybe little new snow. I don’t think we ended up getting any snow but those three days before the second session I was just like I need to land this. I’m not gonna let myself not land anything on this jump, I’ll hit it all day if I have to. I’m stoked I landed it when I did because we ended up having a decent amount of headwind that day and it was getting so warm. If you’ve seen the video I almost came up short on that last attempt and I don’t know if there would’ve been speed to hit it again.
Powhub: You were certainly working against the clock that day and we were all incredibly stoked to see you put it to your feet. Do you have any desire to hit it again? Are you good on it or is your brain thinking of another trick you could throw on it?
Timo: Yeah, I definitely wanna hit it again. It sounds like a lot of people want to go hit it this year so I might sit this one out if a lot of other people are gonna do it. And then maybe come back next year because I do have a trick in mind that I would really like to land on that jump; a misty or double 10, I don’t think anyone has ever done that before so that would be really cool. I have another idea for what I want do this year on something something different.
Powhub: Speaking of plans for this year, is there anything particular or different that you’re looking forward to this season?
Timo: Yeah, I’m definitely looking to do some more actual backcountry skiing. I feel like I’ve only ever really done backcountry jumps. It would be really awesome to get some actual lines in this year’s film. And then yeah, I have this one idea that I’m gonna keep secret for now.
Powhub: As you should
Timo: But yeah, I think it’s mainly just trying to get more backcountry lines, some cliffs and I definitely wanna hit some big jumps.
