Even by the lofty beauty standards of New Zealand's South Island, the scene at Big Bay is out of hand. A notch in the island's sparsely populated southwest coast, north of Queenstown and the Southern Lakes, Big Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage park that remains roadless and pristine. A beach of smooth sand gives way to rolling dunes and a forest of podocarp trees, which in turn march sharply upward to a million snowcapped peaks, including the stunning 9,931-foot Mount Aspiring. From the mountains, creeks tumble down to the Tasman Sea and rocks covered with mussels. It appears the healthiest of ecosystems—until a non-native species suddenly invades in the form of a heavily tattooed, six-foot-two Austrian. Jumping off an eight-foot sand dune and onto a huge yucca plant is 31-year-old snowboarder Eric Themel, winner of freeride competitions in several countries and the 2007 Red Bull Tribal Quest ski-and-snowboard photo contest.

Hucking off the dunes alongside Themel is 26-year-old Canadian freeskier Dana Flahr, a winner of the International Free Skiers Association North American Tour, as well as its Sick Bird Award, given to the ballsiest skier. From his feet, he launches a misty late 180 into the forgiving sand as his new Oakley shades rocket off his head.

Hungry to record the spontaneous moment on film in the slanting light of late afternoon, Australian cameraman Dwayne Fetch scurries about till his ski pants fall inexorably south, but he remains focused on the action. Which comes to include bottle-blond 43-year-old Australian surfer Gary Elkerton, winner of two Masters Championships and the 1983 Australian Amateur Championship, who's crawling around the sand on all fours. He balances a deer skull on his head while emitting a bleating, mammalian sound.

The man behind today's madness is Jose Cuervo—and, to a greater extent, Tony Harrington, who's running around to various photogenic scenes with camera in hand, as he will most of the ensuing week. With more than 120 magazine covers to his credit, Harrington, a 42-year-old Australian, is a legendary surf-and-snow-sports shooter. While he's hardly the only action photographer to frame hairball adventure, Harrington is the rare one to create the hairball himself. He puts together groups of top athletes, gets backing from their corporate sponsors, then chases big swells and snowstorms around the globe and shoots the athletes in action. He recently landed a Ski Channel series: 13 episodes starring Harrington as Storm Hunter, in which he'll "hoon around with my mates" looking for powder.

For the Big Bay trip, Harrington put together a cross-cultural stew of renowned skiers, boarders, and surfers. The initial plan: Camp on the beach in the middle of the park for a week or so, "sessioning" its "epic" surf break; when conditions allow, summon a helicopter to land on the shore, pick up the athletes, airlift them to the skiable steeps of Mount Aspiring National Park, and shralp accordingly. Harrington hopes on occasion the snow guys might surf and the surf guys might try out the snow, taking some athletes far out of their comfort zones. Harrington will shoot for this magazine, and the film guys will capture streaming video for Web sites and possible commercials. Harrington convinced The North Face (sponsor of all the snow dudes) that bringing this cluster of international strangers to Big Bay is good business—that You, the End Consumer, will find the resulting images compelling. This is Harrington's expertise: the Economics of Extreme.