His signature Oakley Line Miner goggles set the tone. We’ve rated these ever since they first appeared a few years back, thanks to their comprehensive field of vision that doesn’t also lumber you with the dreaded ‘goldfish bowl’ look. Oh, and Oakley’s Prizm remains the best lens in the game.

All that lovely modern tech is wrapped up in a design that harks back to the pre-Stale era (yes, it exists). As well as a retro logo, there’s the skull that was gracing the O’s output decades ago. Then there’s the print, which Stale says was “inspired by some older Oakleys, with the old crackle print. We made our own new version of it; I really love that print, and I’m super excited on how the goggles turned out.”

“In any case, both jacket and pants are pretty bomb-proof without tipping the tech levels”

Next up is his battle armour of choice: the Oakley TC Gun Shell 2L jacket and Oakley Evocative RC Shell pants. The pandemic may have scuttled Stale’s usual Milan missions to fine-tune things at Oakley HQ, but given that the team had already nailed the fit and function, his main task for this year has been to update the visuals. In a move that’ll shock absolutely no-one familiar with his track record, there’s a lot of camo print on display. When you stop to think about it, a snowy mountain is possibly the weirdest place to see such a design – well, the second-weirdest, anyway. So why does he keep picking it? It’s easy, he says: “I guess camo is just really damn sick! Timeless!”

It’s a bold, bold rider that attempts the ‘double camo’ pairing, as modelled by Stale in this particularly hammer-filled section of Rumble. We can count the number of other riders that have pulled off double-camo on one finger, so mere mortals may wish to opt for the all-black pants. In any case, both jacket and pants are pretty bomb-proof without tipping the tech levels – and therefore price – too high.

Plans are already in the works to expand the ‘lifestyle’ side of his collection for future years, but he’s adamant that the functionality comes first. It’s something, he says, that he won’t ever take for granted. “It’s such an honour to be able to have a say in how the outerwear I’m riding in looks, and feels, and works,” he says. “But man, the craziest part is when you see people around the resort riding in the gear that has your design and name to it. I never really fully get used to that, it’s always such a kick to see.”

In recent days Stale’s been spotted on the splitboard trail, and we can expect more of that in the future: “I’ll be stepping away more from the contest scene, and will start exploring the mountains more, and not just dip my toes in a bit of powder from time to time. I want to fully dive in there and really explore that side of snowboarding. I think it’s about time.”

Perhaps he’ll soon be following Oakley team-mate and fellow Sochi medallist Sage Kotsenburg into the world of Gore-Tex. But for now, this’ll do nicely.