 What's up? My name is Patti Graham. I'm a backcountry freestyle skier. Today on Shredhacks we're going to show you how to build one of these, a backcountry jump. You're going to need this and you're going to need these. So building jumps can be as easy or as hard as you make it yourself. I like to be an engineer, you know, think forward because it's going to make things easier in the end. Think about how high the jump needs to be and think about how wide it needs to be. That's why you have to be very careful when you pick your spot. There are lots of types of jumps you can build in the backcountry. You can build pretty normal ones. You can build step downs. You can build hips. You can build step ups. You can build quarter pipes. You can build anything that your imagination will allow you to. It's just going to take time and effort. Always make sure to check landings before you build a jump. There needs to be clear of any kind of obstacle. You don't want rocks or trees in there. You need a nice smooth outrun so you're not going to hit anything and it's not going to be dangerous. The first thing that I like to do is the side step. It's going to compact the snow and it's going to be easier to work in and it's also going to create your in run. So it's going to take a bit of time and it's a bit boring but it's a must. Once you've found your jump spot, what I like to do is make a little base camp. This is where you're going to have rests and eat lunch for example and it's out the way. A good tip for you when building a jump is to bring two sets of gloves. Always have a bit of duct tape handy. You can use it for anything. You can repair your gloves or your jacket, boots. Who knows when you need a bit of duct tape. What I like to do is just make these little side flaps on my sunnies. Put that on and then it just stops the sun coming up. What you need to think about whilst building a jump are the foundations. You want to use big blocks in order to make your structure and then fill it up. It's like building a house. Block, block, block and you can do rows and go higher and higher and then you just throw all the snow into the jump to fill it up later on. So when I say building blocks, the best thing to do is to remove some of the top snow that's already here and underneath the snow is usually a bit harder and then you can start making blocks with it to really get your construction going. After you've sidestepped it you might want to leave it for like half an hour maybe have your lunch break then or something just for it to like compact and get hard and then you can like do the final tune. I'm a perfectionist so I'm going to do my best to make this thing look like a masterpiece. It's going to be the Mona Lisa of ski jumps. So what you need to do before you hit the jump the first time is do a speed check. Take the speed that you think you're going to need, get your friends to stand on the side of the jump and they can sort of map your trajectory with the speed you're taking and they can tell you if you think you need to go faster or slower but the proof is in the first jump that's why it's called the guinea pig. You might go big, you might go small, you just don't know until you've done that first hit. That's why you need to do a rock, paper, scissors for who goes first because it might be good and it might be bad. So once you've built your backcountry jump there's only one thing left to do and that's to hit it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Shred Hacks and I'll see you on the other side.