Mat Schaer’s childhood dream became reality after finishing high school when he passed pro in snowboard and could focus full time on his passion. With a start in slopestyle competitions, he rapidly turned his focus on the backcountry and integrated international snowboard video productions allowing him to chase the best snow in the most beautiful mountains around the world.
He could have been satisfied “living this good life” as long as possible, but Mat’s temperament always pushed him to look for meaningful new challenges. During his early years of professional career, he started to care more about environmental and climate issues, inspired by his brother who was studying geosciences. Reading reports and books on these topics motivated him to start in 2012 a degree in Environmental sciences and Engineering at the Swiss Institute of Technology in parallel to his snowboard career.
6 years later, with lots of efforts and compromises involved, he obtained his Master’s degree. Meanwhile he has also found new sponsors, JONES and Picture Organic Clothing, that share his environmental values. These new partnerships comforted him in his will to enjoy the outdoors with a smaller environmental footprint and use his position to raise awareness. To him, accessing the mountains in a low carbon way is fully relevant as the footprint of alpine sports comes primarily from travelling. Schaer does not own a car, so he rocks up from the train station in his snowboard boots, carrying his splitboard and hoping to inspire others.
His commitment gave rise to the movie Shelter, an adventure using local public transport and splitboards to go sleep in mountain huts and look for new peaks to hike and ride. Mat Schaer’s idea behind it was to show that not only is it possible to make a professional snowboard movie with a minimal carbon footprint, but to illuminate that sometimes the greatest discoveries lie in our very own backyards. The film features POW’s creator Jeremy Jones, his adulthood idol as he likes to call him.
Right after the shooting of Shelter, Mat started a new job as a scientific collaborator at the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology where he freshly obtained a permanent position. Besides, he is a motivated ambassador for Protect Our Winter Switzerland since its creation in 2017.