Family and Brothers
1994
My family is my heart and soul. My brothers and I built tree forts in the woods.
I was born in 1994 and grew up in the mountains of Lake Tahoe. With my two brothers, without a TV or a phone.
No screens, so the outdoors was everything: the woods with Thor and Wulfe, skiing, every sport we could play.
I played four sports, and made Eagle Scout in 2012 with a service project that improved access at Surprise Stadium in Truckee.
My family is my heart and soul. Thor and Wulfe are my brothers. Thor builds companies that do good: wasted.earth and doinggoodshit.org. Wulfe became an aerospace and mechanical engineer. We grew up building forts in the woods, and in our own ways we're all still building.
Lewis & Clark
2012
At Lewis & Clark I met my best friend, Erich Roepke.
In 2012 I went north to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and met Erich.
We were student athletes with no money, and we started a recycling business anyway, Intrepid Resource Management.
In 2016 the college named us both International Entrepreneurial Scholars, and I graduated with a BA in Economics.
Erich and I taught ourselves how to use cameras, to come back with some stories to share.
The Chairlift
January 2016
One chairlift ride at Whistler with Doug Stoup, and the next ten years started moving.
16 January 2016, a chairlift at Whistler Blackcomb with Erich Roepke, and a seat next to the polar explorer Doug Stoup. I was 21.
I had never been to the Arctic.
Doug became the mentor who sent me north at 22.
Erich and I were living in the Harvey, our RV, chasing snow across British Columbia.
He runs through the chapters after: Intrepid Productions, the Amazon, Ice on Fire, Atomfjella, Riding Remote and the festival.
Intrepid Productions
2016
Erich Roepke, Doug Stoup and I formed Intrepid Productions to adventure with purpose.
From Whistler, Erich and I drove the Harvey south to Lake Tahoe, with Doug Stoup as our mentor.
In 2016 the three of us formed Intrepid Productions, and wrote a white paper on how adventure and social media could change the world.
It was the birth of adventuring with purpose.
Its first expedition was the Amazon.
Brazilian Amazon
2016
Our first actual expedition, down the Rio Negro by paddleboard and dugout, with Erich Roepke and Doug Stoup.
Our first actual expedition, with Ice Axe Expeditions and Doug Stoup. Expedition Terra ran the river.
I was producer and expedition cameraman beside Erich Roepke. We were still teaching ourselves to use the camera.
Stand-up paddleboards and dugout canoes down the Rio Negro, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.
Seven years later I came back to the same river.
Ice on Fire
2017
At 22 I led my first Arctic expedition, with a compass and a map, for the documentary Ice on Fire.
Expedition leader and polar guide for Leonardo DiCaprio's film Ice on Fire, the HBO documentary. Twenty-seven days in Svalbard, Norway.
I had never been to Svalbard.
Doug Stoup sent me. With a compass, a map and his support, I brought the team through, and the same year I crossed by snowmobile from Longyearbyen to Pyramiden.
That trip opened my eyes. Ice on Fire was released on HBO in 2019.
SeaLegacy and National Geographic
2017
Erich Roepke and I went to work telling stories for SeaLegacy and National Geographic.
Erich and I became social media and expedition producers for SeaLegacy, the ocean-conservation collective.
We were two friends with cameras, beside the best conservation photographers in the world.
It put me on SeaLegacy's voyages, and into media strategy for SeaLegacy and other ocean-conservation non-profits.
Its two founders, both National Geographic photographers. They showed me what visual conservation looks like at the highest level.
SeaLegacy x National Geographic
19 August to 4 September 2017
I supported SeaLegacy on the starving polar bear, the most viral conservation campaign in the world in 2017.
19 August to 4 September 2017, the Canadian Arctic aboard Archimedes with SeaLegacy and National Geographic, Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier.
On Somerset Island, on 22 August, we found a starving polar bear. It was sad to see, but that was the point.
I was the strategist and social media producer. With Paul, Cristina and SeaLegacy we ran the social push, to show what a starving animal actually looks like.
It went viral around the world: the most viral conservation campaign of 2017.
Antarctica
28 October to 16 November 2017
My first season in Antarctica with Ice Axe. His team has filmed more people skiing in Antarctica than anyone.
From 28 October to 16 November 2017. I was shooting and skiing on the Antarctic Peninsula with Ice Axe Expeditions.
Eight weeks after the Canadian Arctic, I was at the opposite end of the Earth.
I kept going back. His team has filmed more people skiing in Antarctica than anyone.
My photographs from down there ran in Ski Mag's 2024 interview with Doug Stoup.
Cordillera Blanca
2018
Two peaks turned me back. Pisco let me ski from the summit.
Ski mountaineering in the Cordillera Blanca above Huaraz, Peru, at the roof of the tropics.
Tocllaraju and Yanapaccha turned me back below their summits.
Then the summit and a ski descent of Pisco, and the summits of Ishinca and Urus.
Skinning glaciated peaks, camping beside alpine lakes and skiing high in the Andes.
Do Good Shit
November 2018
Erich, Thor and I started a non-profit, and took it to the Everest region.
In 2018 I co-founded Do Good Shit, a non-profit, with Erich Roepke, my brother Thor and another friend.
In November 2018 we were in the Everest region of Nepal.
The conservation thread that runs through every expedition since.
Thor still runs it today, at doinggoodshit.org.
Atomfjella First Descents
2019
Six first ski descents, on peaks so remote they have no names.
Doug Stoup's description of the Atomfjella range sent me north, with my brother Thor and a photographer.
An 11-hour snowmobile crossing of glaciers and crevasse fields, to mountains so remote the peaks have no names.
As expedition leader and ski guide, six first ski descents in fourteen days.
The story became Area 11, for Intrepid Productions and Outside TV.
Svalbard Ski & Sail
2019
Twenty-eight days sailing and skiing the west coast of Svalbard.
Expedition leader, ski guide and producer for Ice Axe Expeditions' Ski & Sail in Svalbard.
Twenty-eight days between the boat and the mountains of the west coast.
Between trips I led seven-day polar training courses outside Longyearbyen, 140 kilometers each.
Ski & Sail with Doug's company, in the place where it all started for me.
North Pole Crossing
September 2019
On the Arctic Ocean, an explorer gave me the line I still live by. The world is only as big as you think it is.
Producer and sailing crew for the North Pole Crossing 2019, the finale of the Pole2Pole expedition, with two polar explorers, from Nome, Alaska, across the Arctic Ocean.
Then on to Svalbard the long way. Thirty-one days aboard Pangaea, through the Northeast Passage over Russia.
On the Arctic Ocean, beside the expedition's leader, I learned the line I still live by. The world is only as big as you think it is.
The story was released in 2020 with ROAM Media, Horn Media and NRK.
Riding Remote
2019
Doug Stoup and I took four snowboarders to ride the Antarctic Peninsula.
Executive producer of Riding Remote, with Doug Stoup leading four professional snowboarders.
A sport built for resorts, taken to the bottom of the world.
Released through Outside TV and Warren Miller's Future Retro.
Two years after my first season, Antarctica had become a place I worked.
Full Circle
2019
The most epic all-around adventure of my life.
A ski expedition to Volcán Corcovado in Chilean Patagonia. Erich Roepke made it, my brother Thor shot it, and a professional skier and I skied.
Jungle, canyons, leech-infested bogs and torrential rain just to reach the base of the mountain.
Full Circle, directed by Erich Roepke, with One Eleven Watches.
Legend · HAST in Antarctica
4 to 15 January 2020
Aboard Legend in Antarctica: the first permitted heli-assisted ski touring from a yacht. That was the beginning of my EYOS Antarctica career.
4 to 15 January 2020. We flew to King George Island to join Legend, then went south along the Peninsula: Enterprise Island, Rongé Island, Hovgaard Island. Twelve days on the Peninsula, the helicopter waiting on deck.
In Antarctica it is not heli-skiing. It is HAST, heli-assisted ski touring, and no yacht had been permitted to run it. The helicopter only lifts you to the top; every line down is toured, roped and guided across the glacier.
Helicopters lifted us onto the peaks. Roped glacier tours, ski descents back to the water, and back aboard Legend. The world's first permitted yacht-based HAST in Antarctica.
That was the beginning of my EYOS career in Antarctica. From here the partnership ran on to Greenland, French Polynesia, Monaco and Vanuatu.
Ring of Fire
2020
A casual bike ride to ski some volcanoes turned into thirty days of sufferfest.
The Adventures of Stein & Erich: more than 1,000 miles by bike between the Cascade volcanoes, with Erich Roepke and a two-person crew.
Sketchy campsites, a hospital stay and an unexpected robbery.
Thirty days, and a four-episode series.
Outside TV, 10 Barrel Brewing and Völkl. GearJunkie covered it in January 2021.
Waves for Water
2020
After Hurricane Iota, Erich Roepke and I went to Guatemala with Waves for Water.
Hurricane Iota tore through Central America in 2020.
It hit in the middle of the pandemic.
Erich and I joined the founder of Waves for Water, on the relief mission in Guatemala. And I shot and edited the story.
Purpose added to the adventure.
HMHS Britannic
2021
Down to the Britannic on the floor of the Aegean, for a science project.
In 2021 I was producer and cameraman for a science and research project on HMHS Britannic, in the Aegean Sea off Greece.
She is the largest passenger ship on the ocean floor.
The project took a camera down to her in the Kea Channel.
A science project gave me a different reason to carry a camera.
Dominican Republic
2021
A kiteboarding project on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.
In 2021, a kiteboarding project in the Dominican Republic.
A long way from the ice.
Wind and warm water instead of snow.
Five years later I was back in the Dominican Republic aboard M/Y Solace.
Denali · Winter Starts Now
2021
I skied Denali from the summit while guiding and shooting its first adaptive ski descent.
Two adaptive athletes set out to climb the West Rib of North America's highest peak, 20,310 feet.
Three weeks, a six-person, ten-leg team and more than 1,000 pounds of gear through minus 30°F.
The summit, and the first adaptive ski descent of Denali. I guided, shot and skied from the summit with the camera team, Erich Roepke among them.
Licensed to Warren Miller for Winter Starts Now.
Intrepid Adventure Film Festival
We brought adventure stories, live music and the outdoor community to Detroit Lakes.
I co-founded the Intrepid Adventure Film Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.
International adventure stories, live music and the outdoor community in one small Minnesota town.
Featured guests included an Olympic silver medalist, a polar explorer and a professional skier.
The Detroit Lakes Tribune covered it.
Antarctica Discoveries
29 December to 8 January 2022
Back to the Peninsula aboard Legend, with a helicopter, over the New Year.
29 December 2021 to 8 January 2022, aboard Legend with EYOS Expeditions and a helicopter.
Two years after HAST, a new route: Deception, Livingston, Greenwich and King George Islands, then Brabant, Wiencke and Anvers.
I produced Antarctica Discoveries from the voyage, as producer, photographer and cameraman.
It was released privately.
Iceland Ski & Sail
2022
Ten days of sailing and skiing in Iceland.
In 2022 I produced Iceland Ski & Sail with Ice Axe Expeditions.
And I was on the water for it, as expedition cameraman and ski guide.
Ten days between the boat and the mountains.
Another Ski & Sail with Doug's company, after Svalbard.
Greenland Heli Ski
July 2022
Heli-skiing from a yacht around Disko Island.
July 2022, fourteen days around Disko Island, Greenland, with EYOS Expeditions. As producer, expedition cameraman and ski guide.
Helicopters off a yacht in the High Arctic were new ground.
BOAT International covered it that October.
The Greenland half of what EYOS was building, after Antarctica.
Life Below Zero
2022
Cinematographer on Life Below Zero, in Huslia, Alaska.
In 2022 I was a cinematographer on Life Below Zero in Huslia, Alaska, for the BBC and National Geographic.
Someone else's show, and my camera inside it.
Life in Huslia, as it is lived.
National Geographic again, five years after SeaLegacy.
The Crux
2022
Back home in Tahoe to make The Crux.
In 2022 I made The Crux at home in Lake Tahoe for Intrepid Productions, as executive producer, cinematographer and drone operator.
After years of far-off places, the story was on my own mountains.
Shot where I grew up.
The Out of Bounds Podcast talked about it in January 2023.
French Polynesia
November 2022
The camera went underwater in French Polynesia.
Producer, expedition and underwater cameraman aboard M/Y Hanse Explorer with EYOS Expeditions.
Most of my work had been polar, and the same eye had to learn warm water.
Vogue ran it as Expedition Yachting and Swimming with Whales.
Two yachting titles followed.
Antarctica aboard M/Y Octopus
February 2023
Antarctica from the deck of Octopus.
February 2023, behind the camera aboard the 126-meter expedition yacht M/Y Octopus with EYOS Expeditions.
Antarctica again, from the deck of one of the most capable explorer yachts ever built.
Helicopters off the foredeck, leopard seals and penguins off the bow.
The whole voyage became Antarctica x Octopus.
Svalbard Ski & Sail
2023
Back on the Svalbard coast, trip after trip, as a ski guide.
After Atomfjella and the first Ski & Sail in 2019, more Ski & Sail trips on the Svalbard coast with Ice Axe Expeditions: four in all.
In 2023, ski guide on twelve days of sailing and skiing on the northwest and west coast.
Between them, seven-day polar training courses outside Longyearbyen, 140 kilometers each, in 2019 and again in 2023.
Six years after Ice on Fire, I knew this coast. Svalbard keeps pulling me back.
Greenland Ski & Sail
2023
Three weeks in the southwest fjords of Greenland.
In 2023, expedition cameraman on three weeks of Ski & Sail in the southwest fjords of Greenland.
Greenland from the water this time, not from a helicopter.
Three weeks of fjords, peaks and the boat.
A year later I was back on the same coast, further north at Nuuk.
Northwest Passage, Again
2023
Back through the Northwest Passage six years later, among polar bears and belugas.
In 2023 I went back through the Northwest Passage as expedition cameraman: 20 days along one of the most remote sea routes on Earth.
Six years after SeaLegacy, I was on the same water, this time behind the camera.
Polar bears, beluga whales, calving glaciers and Inuit communities along the way.
Baffin Island and the High Arctic, Nunavut.
Costa Rica and Cocos Island
2023
Underwater with the hammerheads of Cocos Island.
In 2023, producer, expedition and underwater cameraman in Costa Rica and Panama.
Cocos lies far out in the Pacific.
We went out to it to get under the water with the hammerheads.
French Polynesia had taken the camera underwater. Cocos kept it there.
Brazilian Amazon, Again
2023
Seven years later, back on the Rio Negro.
In 2023, producer and expedition cameraman with Expedition Terra. On a trip created by Doug Stoup and a friend.
Same river, different man, now with my own production company.
Paddleboard and dugout again, piranhas and peacock bass on a hand line, a riverboat home each night.
The story became The Brazilian Amazon.
Raja Ampat
2023
Among the richest reefs on the planet, aboard Lamima.
Producer, expedition and underwater cameraman aboard S/Y Lamima with EYOS Expeditions, in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
One season was not enough.
I went back in March 2024 to keep shooting.
Then inland, to the West Papua Highlands.
The South Pole by Truck
2024
I supported a first crossing of Antarctica, Union Glacier to the Leverett Glacier via the South Pole, in Hilux trucks.
From the camp at Union Glacier, across the polar plateau to the Pole.
In trucks, not on skis or sledges.
On to the Leverett Glacier, which drains the plateau toward the Ross Ice Shelf.
BBC News and Explorersweb covered it.
Hokkaido
2024
Powder in Hokkaido with Leia Buard.
In 2024, a ski trip in Japan with Leia Buard, a French Olympic mogul skier and a good friend.
No production and no client. A fun one.
Just skiing.
That April I was skiing to the water in Greenland.
Greenland Ski & Sail
April 2024
Eight summits from Nuuk, each one skied back down to the water.
April 2024, four weeks aboard SkyDancer with Ice Axe Expeditions and five skiers and guides.
1,500-meter peaks that climb straight out of the fjords of West Greenland.
Eight summits, every run ending at the water.
A Stein Productions story, with a highlight and a teaser.
Kenya · Laikipia
2024
Elephant, rhino and lion, tracked on horseback across Laikipia.
In 2024, in the Borana Conservancy in Laikipia and at Manda Bay on the coast. With Expedition Terra.
The same eye, turned from ice and ocean to savanna.
Elephant herds, black and white rhino, lion, cheetah and reticulated giraffe. On horseback and from the open vehicle.
KENYA x Expedition Terra.
Got to Get Out
June 2024
"The craziest thing I have ever done in my life."
In June 2024 I went to King Township, Ontario, for Hulu's psychological escape game.
A single escape could cost everyone else the prize, and for once the camera pointed at me.
I finished as one of the two winners of Season 1.
It aired on Hulu on 11 April 2025. In my own words: "I can say from the bottom of my heart [it] was the craziest thing I have ever done in my life."
Monaco
September 2024
Monaco: the Yacht Show and the Grand Prix.
September 2024, the Monaco Yacht Show with EYOS Expeditions.
The largest explorer yachts afloat, lined hull to hull in Port Hercule.
I came back in May 2025 for the Grand Prix, run between the harbor and the hills.
And again in June 2026.
Antarctica · Octopus and Legend
December 2024
A second Antarctic voyage on Octopus, this time with Legend alongside.
December 2024 to January 2025, aboard M/Y Octopus with EYOS Expeditions, M/Y Legend alongside.
Five years after HAST from Legend, I was back on the Peninsula with both yachts.
The voyage became Antarctica x Octopus 2024, a full expedition story.
My fourth Antarctic voyage with EYOS.
Norway and Svalbard by Yacht
2025
Skiing Lofoten from a yacht, then north to Svalbard.
In 2025, a ski expedition in Norway and Sweden from the Lofoten Islands. Aboard private yachts.
Mountains that run straight down into the sea.
North to Svalbard on a private yacht the same year.
Back in Svalbard, eight years after Ice on Fire.
M/Y Solace
21 to 23 January 2026
Three days aboard Solace in the Eastern Caribbean. Natural light only.
I made the story of a voyage aboard M/Y Solace: Antigua, Barbuda, Saba, St Maarten, Dominica and the Dominican Republic, with cinematographer Etienne Claret.
The mandate: the camera as witness, not performer.
Natural light only. Five to ten seconds minimum per shot. No AI, no manufactured moments.
Two stories from the voyage, and a Robb Report feature.
LINX Experience Inc.
January 2026
On 28 January 2026 we started LINX.
On 28 January 2026 I incorporated LINX Experience Inc., a Nevada corporation.
Every trip before this one depended on who recommended it, and those people were never part of it.
Built to give the people who drive booking decisions a real piece of the value.
Founder of LINX. CEO of Stein Productions LLC, which runs Stein Studios.
Pamella Roland
2026
The New York runway, with the same rule I use on the ice.
In 2026 I made the story of Pamella Roland's launch at New York Fashion Week.
A runway is the opposite of an expedition, because every second of it is planned.
So the Stein Studios rule held in that room too: the witness, not the performer.
The first of two shows with Pamella Roland that year.
Monaco Grand Prix
6 to 7 June 2026
Filmed the Grand Prix in Monaco.
Filmed the Grand Prix in Monaco.
A project for a private client.
Back to Svalbard
30 June to 4 July 2026
Back in the Svalbard waters where my Arctic story began, this time with my own studio.
30 June to 4 July 2026. Stein Studios aboard an expedition yacht in Svalbard with EYOS Expeditions.
Nine years after I arrived with a compass and a map, I came back to tell the story myself.
Stein Studios made the story of the voyage.
The circle closes where it began in 2017.
Vanuatu
2026
Filmed a voyage through the islands of Vanuatu.
Filmed a voyage through the islands of Vanuatu with EYOS Expeditions.
A project for a private client.
Kilimanjaro
2026
Opened a new route on Kilimanjaro.
Opened a new route on Kilimanjaro, and filmed it.
A project for a private client.
Pamella Roland · Spring 2027
September 2026
Pamella Roland's Spring 2027 show, and Stein Studios in the room.
11 September 2026, Pamella Roland's Spring 2027 show in New York, made by Stein Studios.
I was on the other side of the world, on another expedition.
So Stein Studios ran it with a crew in the room, on a plan we built together beforehand.
Her second show with me that year, after February.
