The Swiss resort of Saas Fee is sitting under a bowl of blue sky and a gleaming silver sun. It isn’t a vast resort by any means, just 100km of winter piste that the accomplished rider will conquer in a few days, and right now the runs are limited to those up on the glacier above the Saas Valley.

But the sky hangs over Saas Fee like a low ceiling and the jet-trail scratches feel very close: what makes this place attractive to the best skiers and boarders in the world is its sheer altitude. Saas Fee is one of the highest resorts in the Alps.

“It’s been okay here,” Roope says. “Just a little bit icy in the morning, and then it turns to slush really quickly when the sun hits the snow. So not the best conditions but it’s still super fun to cruise around.”

Warm weather’s on the way though and that slush might start creeping into the earlier part of the day by the weekend. Swiss meteorology, however, is not a consideration of Roope’s.

“I will be heading to Austria for next week to do some building for the new Burton Stash Park in Absolut Park.”

Extending over 1.5km and featuring more than 100 obstacles, Absolut Park is the largest snow park in Austria and is the jewel in the crown of the Shuttleberg ski resort, fifty miles or so from Salzburg. The park is divided into seven sectors, one of which is The Stash. For the uninitiated, stash is a concept that refers to all things natural. Forget gleaming steel rails and metal kickers and instead think tree trunks and heaped snow and wooden huts – anything that can be jumped over or slid on – but with a back-to-its-roots feel for freestylers.

Roope Tonteri’s presence represents a solid element in the foundations of any park: a former World Champion at Slope Style, the Finnish snowboarder comes well-qualified for the job. Despite that and his double Big Air World Championship title, there’s a certain groundedness when Roope talks about his introduction to a sport he has influenced almost as much as it’s influenced him.

“Well I think it’s a really basic story,” he says. “I started skiing when I was four. I guess I saw snowboarders in my local resort and they looked cool. My parents were also snowboarding for a little bit so I think skiing was just too easy for me, and I wanted to do something that’s cool and older boys are doing it. First time I stand on a snowboard was in my backyard and the board was my mom’s board and it still had the hard bindings. I was just trying to stand on it and make this little drop with it. Then later on a couple of my friends from the school also got boards and we just started building a backyard park and riding there every evening after school. This was like 2000.”

And just like that, things started to fall into place.

If you’re an amateur snowboarder, it’s worth remembering that fate finds you in the most unexpected of places. At least it did for Roope Tonteri.