Backcountry
For Wyoming skier Teton Brown, Clean Slate began as a simple desire to do things differently. After years of filming in the familiar sidecountry around Jackson Hole, Brown said he felt the creative walls closing in. The terrain he loved and skied so often had become too well-known to him, too mapped, too documented. He needed to break pattern.
“I’m starting to feel like I’ve kind of skied everything around there,” Brown told me in a phone interview. “It’s hard to find new things to do in films around the resort.”
That sense of restlessness shaped his third personal project, a film that expands far beyond Jackson’s lift-accessed periphery. Clean Slate chronicles a season of wide-open exploration: deep Wyoming backcountry, storms in the Tetons, and ultimately the towering faces of Alaska’s Thompson Pass.
Early in the winter, Brown’s film didn’t have a clear direction until he met cinematographer Marcus Honey almost by accident. Honey, sitting at the other end of a bar talking about snowmobiling and filming, immediately caught Brown’s attention.
“I was like, who are you? I’m looking for someone who is good at both those things,” Brown said. “We ended up becoming good friends and worked together all season.”
What followed was a half-season of sled-access missions into new Wyoming zones, sometimes hours from Brown’s home in Jackson. Snowmobile access had long been a tool in Brown’s kit, but never the backbone of a full film.
“I made it a priority to explore a bit more, go a little further into the backcountry,” he said.
Midway through the winter, Brown felt the pull of Jackson Hole again, just as TGR was preparing a project focused on sidecountry terrain. The timing aligned perfectly.
“I needed to film for my project too,” Brown said. “And they were like, no problem. We’ll just do both.”
Despite his deep knowledge of the resort’s terrain, Jackson delivered limited film windows. Visibility came and went. Storms arrived half-formed. Yet Brown pushed through, even after a violent crash during a front flip attempt off a rocky cliff.
“I miscalculated. I twisted my body to try and match the fall line, but there was no way I was going to land it,” he said. “I tumbled over some rocks but I wound up being all right.”
Sometimes trying something new means accepting the consequences.
Alaska
The film’s defining segment nearly didn’t happen. Brown long wanted to shoot in Alaska, but the logistics—sled transport, weather windows, timing—seemed overwhelming. Then a friend stepped in.
“I heard you’re trying to go up to Thompson Pass,” Brown recalled his friend saying. “I’ve got extra beds in my toy hauler and extra sleds for you to rent.”
That offer changed everything.
Brown flew north in late April, chasing a narrow weather window most locals thought wouldn’t materialize. When he arrived, the pass had been socked-in for two weeks.
“Everyone in the parking lot was like, ‘Just get ready to wait,’” Brown said.
But then the next morning went blue. Two days of perfect light gave Brown some of the strongest shots of his career. Conditions shut down again, then opened once more after his cinematographer had to leave. Brown and a friend filmed each other, capturing footage that ultimately became the heart of the movie.
“It blew my mind,” he said. “It’s so beautiful up there. It’s pretty easy to get good shots.”
Brown spent three weeks in Alaska and skied only five days—proof of how fickle the region can be, and how rewarding it is when everything aligns.
The Creative Process
Clean Slate continues a trajectory that began with Brown’s first film, Hyper Focus, and his second, Organized Chaos. Each project taught him something new about structure, planning, and adapting to changing conditions.
“It’s always going to change as the season progresses—you’ve got to be ready to pivot,” he said.
While his past films followed a full-season arc, Brown hinted that future work may lean toward shorter pieces built with tighter planning and clearer story structure.
A Name That Sealed His Fate
Born in Germany and raised in Seattle and later Sun Valley, Idaho, Brown said the nickname ‘Teton’ came long before he ever imagined living near the Tetons. As a baby, he struggled to pronounce his given name, Tristan.
“My grandparents are actually the ones who gave me the name. Apparently it sounded like I said ‘Teton’ instead of ‘Tristan.’ It just stuck. I liked it, especially as a young skier. But I never knew I was going to move to the actual Tetons.”
Brown said Clean Slate wouldn’t exist without the people around him—particularly Honey, editor Stephen Humphreys, and the Jackson Hole community.
“I was super happy how it all turned out. Marcus did an awesome job. Stephen crushed it with the edit. And Jackson Hole has been so supportive,” he said.
He hopes the film inspires others to pursue their own reset, however that looks.
“If anyone ever has questions for me or wants advice, I’m always happy to help out someone who loves the sport,” Brown said.
Clean Slate is now available to watch online. The film reminds us that sometimes the best rewards come from letting go of the familiar and stepping out of your comfort zone—where life truly begins. Opening up in this way, often courageously, is often the most direct manner for things to line up in order to achieve something great. In the words of the late American writer, lecturer, and ethnobotanis Terence Mckenna:
“Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed…”
