
SILVERTON — When the pandemic shut down the world in 2020, Griff Pinto was 8 and made a big decision: It was time to go all-in on skiing.
Five years later, the 13-year-old from Silverton is a backcountry skiing phenom, climbing more than 500,000 vertical feet a winter and skiing long lines off remote peaks that challenge skiers many times his age. Under the careful eye of his dad, Cliff, and mom, Kim, he’s become a social media superstar with helmet-cam videos of his audacious descents.
Griff’s dad, a longtime volunteer with the San Juan County’s intrepid Silverton Medical Rescue Team, said “it’s taken a village” to hone Griff’s skills and avalanche awareness.
“There are not a lot of people who are willing to go into the backcountry with a 7-year-old, or even a 13-year-old,” Cliff says. “It’s pretty unique the number of people in this community who have worked with Griff and mentored him and supported our sort of unorthodox parenting. And they’ve mentored me and my wife, too. That support system has really enabled us to take this, like, different path, you know.”
Griff was 9 when he sat his mom and dad down and said he wanted to be homeschooled in the winter, so he could ski more. His folks came up with a program that blends physical training with schoolwork. They’ve made skiing a formal education.
two avalanche deaths just outside Silverton — and Griff is out there six days a week.
Sven — Life in Front of the Lens” — last year.)
“A lot of the best advice I’ve gotten is like how to improve my pole plants and other small things to help me get a little bit more forward,” Griff says. “And of course how to land jumps better.”
Micro Groms” two-day avalanche education course for kids ages 9-11. In the spring, as the snowpack settles down, Griff will go out and choose lines to ski and climb them while his dad watches from below.
“We have started giving him more little freedoms like that, just getting him out there and experiencing the decision-making process,” Cliff says. “That’s what we are starting to do but it’s because of what we have built on over several years.”
Cliff hopes that nudging Griff toward good decisions at age 13 will empower him in his 20s with the tools he needs to understand the consequences of a wrong call in unforgiving terrain.
“We talk about decision-making and voicing opinions, don’t we?” Cliff says.
But a 13-year-old’s brain is not as developed as a grown-up’s brain. So Cliff and other mentors work to keep Griff tuned in.
“We’ve got crampons and ice axes and we are in no-fall zone terrain and he’s talking about Legos. And we’ll be like, ‘Dude, shut up and focus,’” Cliff says. “Sometimes he’s too comfortable, you know. And I wonder if that’s a good thing. There are a lot of those kinds of grounding moments.”
C. R. Johnson and Tanner Hall in the late 1990s.
But those guys were older than Griff in their ski-flick debuts. And they weren’t climbing mountains.
“At MSP we always feature some young kid every couple years but Griff does seem to be a bit of an anomaly,” says Wais, who expects to film Griff at some point. “I have not heard of a kid his age skiing so much vert. I don’t think anybody has. He’s an inspiring kid and just a shredder.”
Griff, at 60 pounds, is only now ready to graduate from high-end kids’ skis and boots into adult gear. But it’s hard to find quality technical outerwear for kids, so Griff either has to choose between lower quality children’s gear or more technical gear sized extra-small for women.
Even though he’s a bit of a sensation on Instagram, Griff does not have a phone. His folks handle his social media posts and screen online messages.
“We’re in this weird thing where it’s like he needs to be part of social media to build this brand and have it grow around him, but at the same time, we see how bad it can be for kids on social media in today’s world,” Cliff says. “We want him to be a part of that world … but that’s kind of a thing we are wrestling with right now.”
Griff isn’t really wrestling though.
“I feel like having a phone is a waste of time,” he says.
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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