The following article was originally printed in the December 2025 Issue of Slush. To get more articles and subscribe, click here.

Photos: Oli Gagnon

It’s hard to imagine what you’ll talk about with somebody during an interview. You have a couple of points you want to hit, but you’re never quite sure how those dots will connect. Though I suppose that’s the point. If I know everything, then what’s the point of the interview? I mention this because about a month ago, I went over to Noah Peterson’s house, a cozy little place with a large backyard, the exact kind of flat, one-floor home that litters the neighbourhoods of Salt Lake City (if you’re from here, you’ll know what I’m talking about). We sat on a couch out in the sun on one of the last warm days of fall. Noah’s hands were in a constant roll, twisting a never-ending line of spliffs. My hands held a notepad with some questions that—sure—we ended up talking about. Most of them, though, didn’t make it into this interview.

Noah and I found ourselves in a world of tangents, him guiding our conversation with a fervor I found impressive, considering Noah’s spent nearly his whole life in the world of snowboarding. He’s kept a love for the sport even though, or perhaps because, he’s more than happy to acknowledge the many shortcomings, and that shows in his riding. There’s a purity to what he does, even when it’s soundtracked to the kind of angsty, at-times-aggressive music Noah likes to ride to. And there’s the dichotomy: quiet and aggressive, kind but unafraid to point out the hard truths that come with this thing so many of us have given our lives to.

We spoke at the tail end of premiere season, a time when Salt Lake’s morale dips as low as the serotonin levels on the partied-out boarders. Noah, while no stranger to the social difficulties this time of year—as you’ll read—seemed in better spirits than most. He offered me a seltzer water while mentioning, almost as an aside, that he doesn’t drink. I had wanted to ask Noah about his reputation of being low-key, almost mysterious, though I hadn’t yet figured out a way to do that without being rude. But Noah was giving me an in, and so I took it.

You've never drank?
I mean, I can't say I haven't had a few sips of beer, but I've never been drunk, never had any real alcohol. I kind of figured this would come up. It comes up a lot.

We don't have to put it in.
No, I'm down to talk about it. It’s become a thing about me that people know.

I honestly never knew this.
It just started as being like, That's gross. I don't want to do that, just never truly having the interest to do it or the inclination. And then I started smoking weed and was pretty happy with that. As the years went on, I just never wanted to. All your friends start to know you as the kid who doesn't drink. So then it turns into them never—I can't say I haven't been peer pressured, but never made to feel bad about not drinking by any of my friends. When you’re known as the person who doesn’t drink, you get the opposite of peer pressure. I feel like if any of my friends saw me drink, they'd be like, What the fuck is going on here?

As you get older, you see more and more what drinking does to people. And I think being somebody who never drinks, it's a lot easier for me to be like, Oh, it doesn't make any sense for me to start drinking now, you know? But I don't have anything against people who drink. I just—I don't really know how to put it into one thing. I’m not Mormon or religious. I know that’s a lot of people's first thought.

Well, especially being from Utah, people probably assume that.
Exactly. But I was just never that into it at all. I can't say I'm antisocial, but I'm much more inclined to not be social when the activity revolves around drinking, if that makes sense.

I feel like sometimes people who are like that, not the most social, use it almost like a—
A lubricant, for sure. I think now that I’m getting older, I find myself being more selective about when I choose to go out. I think the reason I find myself not going to bars or going out more is because I end up just outside smoking most of the time. That's my social fix, gotta have something. But then I just end up being the person outside seeing who’s gonna be on the cig cycle.

This time of year is so fun, but it can be hard and weird. It's just a lot. I feel like we spend the whole year actually building up and anticipating this two-week period. Everyone's gonna work all year to make a video, and then everyone comes to Salt Lake City and watches all the videos, and that's everybody's time to celebrate the whole thing. I’m obviously excited for that, but also just overwhelmed by the idea of it. It is such a weird mix of waking up in the morning, day of a premiere, and being like, I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this. But also I'm kinda nervous and not looking forward to this right now. Just going back and forth between the two.

Obviously you're aware, you know what you do. You're not the most social. Do you ever feel like you have that reputation? I don’t mean this in a rude way, but when we were talking about doing this interview I just was thinking that I really don’t know much about you in the way that I know a lot about some of my other friends.
I agree. Especially lately I've been finding myself in a weird spot where I've gained the reputation of being the person who doesn't drink, which I think gets misinterpreted as the person who doesn't want to hang out. I love my friends and seeing everyone, but going to a bar feels less inviting and gets old when you don’t drink. I think I definitely have, in a weird way, dug myself into a hole of being deemed antisocial when I want to be around people and like being around for things. But then also having a lot of days where I don't feel so social. It's hard. You get FOMO when you aren't around, but also you're like, Would I have gone in the first place? But you still want to be included. It's a tricky balance.

I will say, I feel like it's kind of nice—at least for what we do in the winter, you end up being with people every single day, for a month at a time or whatever. So you do get that fill for sure, at least a little bit. But then you have these times a year where everyone's just going nuts for a month.

A hundred percent. Especially on Dustbox trips because we spend like three months with each other every single day. We're with each other every day and I'm like, Yeah, these guys are my best fucking friends. They're family. They're like my brothers. I've never been around a group of people or with people who know what I'm thinking, and I know what they're thinking without them saying a fucking word.
But then there's this period where everyone kind of doesn't have that one thing that holds us all together so much. Everyone starts doing their own things. I end up playing and hanging out with the music homies a lot more, like Keyan [Adams] and Justin [Phipps]. We all have a lot of separate interests, live in different places, etc., so maybe we don’t see or talk to each other as much. But I know the second that we're all together, those differences mean nothing.

You can also look at that from the other side where maybe it's good that you’re not spending an aggressive amount of time together all year round because you’d all probably fucking hate each other.
Yeah. We were talking about living in Utah and I think it's just—end of the summer, you've done all the things that you're wanting to do. For me it’s: I'm gonna skate, I'm gonna play music. You do all these things where you're excited to do them, but then you start being less motivated towards the end. And especially when snowboarding's kind of our thing for a lot of us to feel productive, to feel like we're achieving something and really working towards what we wanna be doing. We have to be snowboarding to do it.

This could be a whole separate topic, but it's one I've really wanted to explore in some way. I feel like some people can get in the mindset of—and I know I feel this way sometimes—the mindset of, I only feel useful from November to April because that's when I'm really doing it. And then the rest of the months you're like, Well, what do I have to offer in this world?
That's what it comes down to, just figuring out those things that make you feel like you're being productive and worth something. But it's just hard when something is your career and it’s something you've put so much time and effort into. It's like those other things can only get you so far sometimes. I definitely don't see it this way for everybody, but I feel like at least for me, I just get to this point where I love doing all these other things so much, but this—snowboarding—is the thing that I've worked my whole life to create. So, yeah, you just get eager. That's why it's so fun to start working on the video and doing all that shit because you start getting back into it again.

But on the flip side of that, most of us are over it at the end of the winter. I can't say no one wants to keep going, but you get to a certain point where you're like, Alright, let's relax for a second.

So, I always love the fall because I get this regained excitement that hasn't been around because I haven't been thinking about snowboarding. And you remember this is the shit that we go and do every day and it makes us feel so good and accomplished, and it’s what we work all year towards. It's just funny, because if any of us go and talk to somebody who lives a—I don't wanna say normal life, but a life that doesn't have anything to do with traveling, snowboarding, and doing what you love for four to six months out of the year, they’re like, What the fuck? They can't even understand it a lot of the time. And then you're like, I'm an asshole for feeling bad about anything.

Well, it definitely puts it in perspective, but at the same time it's hard to—I was in therapy the other day talking about work and, by extension, snowboarding, and I said that I feel like an idiot coming in here and talking about snowboarding. And my therapist said, Why? This is your life and people can have problems in their lives regardless of the type of life they live.
Yeah. It's hard but important to fight the battles, especially to be grateful of the crazy life we get to live. But also being able to give yourself the appreciation and room to be like, This is stressful and draining and can still be a lot on somebody. It's the same feeling when you're on a trip in some insane place and you're just like, I’m homesick and tired. It's just giving yourself the grace to feel that.

We mentioned Dustbox earlier and maybe you're still too involved to feel sentimental about anything yet, but after all these years how does it feel to A.) just see everybody’s separate evolution and B.) see the evolution of the organization, or just the fact that it's still existing?
I think this year more than any year has really put it into perspective, mainly because of Team 11. We got to play their video last at our premiere this year, which really felt like a passing of the torch. This is the first time I'm not necessarily feeling like the young, up-and-comer, you know? All of a sudden I've gained the perspective to say, Oh, we're in it and established. I can't really diminish it or play it off. I can actually see that we’re older and now seeing Team 11, I get so excited for them, but I realize that we're not them anymore.

But that's classic, with anybody aging. You see somebody younger than you and you say, Oh shit, I'm older than that now. But more than any other year I've become sentimental and I value what we've been able to do. This is our shit. We can't let anybody dictate or determine what else this is gonna be. We've had some conversations this year just about how we have something special here. We're able and have the opportunity to keep doing that in a way that feels true and special to all of us. I think just doing our best to keep it as genuine as possible.

Is it bittersweet in a way to see your homies come up and get opportunities that are great, but that take them outside of the Box?
More than anything I'm proud of them, excited for them. At the end of the day—I mean speaking for Cody and Reid—we're like, Yo, you guys get to film for a Videograss video? That's fucking legendary. That's one of the reasons all of us started snowboarding. On a personal level it's so easy to be hyped for them and so proud of them. Obviously being more established in snowboarding, you understand what people have to do just to get paid and just to be able to keep doing this. I think all of us get more and more understanding when people say, Yo, I have to go do this team trip, or I have to film for this team video this year and I can't be a part of it. Most of us are being put in the same positions. But I think that's why I’m so grateful for the Dustbox—for the homies who maybe aren't having those same opportunities—to know that they're not just gonna be stranded, they'll always have something to film for, something important to do.

But I can’t say it’s not hard to watch an older video with all of us in there because that’s the video I wanna make every year, you know? But at the end of the day, we all have to get paid. It is nice though because everybody in the Dustbox is in the same boat: if we have a choice of what we're gonna be a part of and don't have other responsibilities, we all want to film with the Dustbox.

I think just because we're talking about evolution, I want to say that yours interests me a lot. I think you more than anyone in the Dustbox have been in the backcountry. You just bought a sled. And I feel like from an outside observer, if you had just been some random kid watching Dustbox videos since they came out, you're probably seeing that being like, Where did that come from? How did that happen? Is it just like being from Utah and growing up riding Brighton?
I would have to give most of the credit to that. I grew up riding at Snowbird, that was the resort I learned to snowboard at. So that was the type of snowboarding I was into. Anybody who's known me for a while knows that I idolized Blake [Paul]—and now it's cool because Blake and I are great friends. But I was definitely much more into that side of snowboarding, that's what I was around more. I don't know if this is the point, but at some point in the interview I have to give just like a huge shout out to Milosport and people like Jeff Richards, Justin Clark, Trevor Brady, Max Raymer, Jonas Harris, Griffin Seibert, Jack Stevens, Benny Pellegrino, Morgan Jennings, Andrew [Aldridge], Sam Taxwood, and all the people who worked at Milo in that era. I grew up like four blocks away from Milo, right back in that neighborhood. I literally grew up there. I'd be there every single day, would show up after school with my homework and they would help me. I would hang out there all day until they closed, skate in the parking lot. Looking back at it, trying to think about myself in that position, I probably would've gone insane. I hope and pray that I would have the patience and the care and the understanding that all those guys did for me, just being a little snot in the shop every day. But I'm so grateful for it. Before the Dustbox moved here, none of my hometown friends really snowboarded. I didn't really have anybody to snowboard with except for that group of people. Jeff or Cale [Zima] or Trevor would pick me up from my mom’s house bright and early and basically babysit me all day. Those were my homies, they were hanging out with me since I was so young and would just bring me along, show me the ropes.

I'd just go to Brighton every day with those guys and for a while was like, Fuck the park. I'm not going in. I'm not hitting a rail, I'm riding a powder board. I definitely had a phase where I was like that just because that's what was happening here.

And then the Dustbox moved here and all of a sudden I was like, Oh wait, this is cool. And that's when I went on the first street trip, which for me felt so foreign because those dudes, they all grew up with the other side of snowboarding. When I started hanging out with them, I just so quickly got swept up into all that. It was an overload of information. But it was all we did all day, watch snowboard videos and talk about it, and all of a sudden I was on a street trip. This is crazy. I have no idea what a hard way cab 270 is, I barely know how to hit a fucking rail. Not to say I didn't know how to hit a rail, but I would watch—even to this day when I show up to Woodies with those guys, I feel like I’m on such a lower level than them when it comes to jibbing. But I can appreciate it because I get inspired every day by them. I still feel like I have so far to go in that sense. But it was definitely funny to be thrown on a street trip and be like, Oh shit, what can I do? But I also think that helped me a lot. I feel like I look for things that are just different than what a lot of the homies look for. I do get excited when I see a kink rail, but for a while when I saw a rail I was like, Get me as far away from this thing as you can. I'll do anything else.

It’s interesting to hear you make sense of that. I feel like every Noah Peterson part has some sort of wall ride, if not like multiple. Is that part of it?
Yeah. Just when you're doing the math in your head and you’re on Google Earth, you gotta slim it down to what you're looking for. You have these few things that you know you can find, and so being myself, I say, Okay, I'm not looking for a rail or a stair set. The types of spots that I find interesting and I think are fun and cool definitely involve a wall ride most of the time. I guess now that I'm more educated, I'm consciously looking for a wall ride. But I think it just naturally came from looking for spots other than rails—I mean it just comes down to Google Earth.

Are you good on Earth?
I think in the Dustbox we all had to be pretty good on Earth. I can't say I'm the best, but it's a dog-eat-dog world in the Dustbox when there's around 13 of you. That's the same as going to a city with four other crews, but you're all in the same van. You can't always hit the same spots. So, if you're not on Google Earth, you gotta just be fucking praying. Everyone wants to film, everyone wants to snowboard; if you don't have a little bank, you're kind of just waiting until the right moment happens where you're like, Oh, I can hit that spot. Then it's a whole other thing when the filmer sends a spot in because it's whoever likes it first, or whoever claims it in some way.

It’s like Hungry Hungry Hippos, just tossing some spot out into the center and letting the jaws come down.
Exactly. And not to say that I got put into a box with wall rides or things like that, but when you have that many people, when you find a spot, everyone kind of knows what everyone else is into. Say I find a kink rail; if I'm not trying to hit it myself, I'm going to hand it to this person or that person. We all know each other well enough and are real enough with each other to say, This is for you.

I mean, you said it earlier, you feel like you’re brothers with all of those guys, and stepping out of that, going on a team trip, maybe you don’t know the personalities of everyone else as well. And that’s hard.
That's the biggest thing for me when I’m going on a trip with anyone besides the Dustbox. In snowboarding at this point, we're all friends. We all pretty much know each other. So anybody I'm going on a trip with, it's not like I'm gonna have a problem hanging out with them for a week or two. But there's nothing like having the Dustbox around to have that trust when you roll up to a spot, to ask somebody, Can I do this? and know they’ll be real with me. Say you're on a trip with a brand and not your friends, you end up doing a lot more of that for yourself and a lot more decision-making for yourself and speaking up for yourself more. You have to say the things you wanna do. There’s just a confidence and even an emotional state, almost like telepathy with the homies. Just by how somebody's looking at the spot, you can probably tell how the rest of the day is gonna go.

I just want to jump back real quick and talk a little about your move into the backcountry. Do you think—actually how old are you?
23.

So, you're starting to get a little older and usually when people get older they get less trigger-happy film-wise and more selective of what they want to do. Do you think that getting more mature is maybe a factor in you saying, I want to explore this now?
For sure. I think the biggest decision in buying my sled was just having a real moment of, I want to do this as long as I possibly can. And I want to film street snowboarding as long as I possibly can, but I know there comes a point where you don't want to do that all year, but I still want to be passionate about snowboarding and have a way to still make that my life and my career. I just wanna do this shit for as long as possible. I want to be able to get that knowledge young and do it as much as I can now so I don't find myself at the end of a street career faced with this huge decision of if I fully pivot and do this new thing or just go and do another passion.

And snowboarding does give you so much room for other passions too. At the end of the day, we're working for six months at the max, you have so much time and room and energy to put into other things in your life; with so many other careers you don't get to do that. People work so much just to have time to be able to do those things at the end of their life. I think maturing, growing older, allows me to see how lucky I am to be able to do this and wanting to be able to do it for as long as I can in a way where I still feel productive and passionate about it. And I'm super passionate about filming in the backcountry and riding the mountain, so it seems like a good time to explore that more.

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