Biography

From the beginning, Stratton dove into life headfirst, arms lifted as if to welcome the latest adventure. Born at home on April 12, 1997 in Eugene, Oregon to Malia (Mollie) Matteson and George Wuerthner, he joined his older sister, Summer Wuerthner, in a family devoted to immersion in wild places. For example, Stratton was taken on his first backpack trip when he was two weeks old, in Olympic National Park.

Throughout their growing up, both Summer and Stratton traveled with their parents to parks and wilderness areas around the West and all over North America, hiking, camping, paddling, skiing, and learning about plants, wildlife, conservation and history. Stratton’s remarkable comprehension of geography, weather, and plant communities was fostered in these direct experiences of land, nature and the wild elements.

When Stratton was five years old, his family moved to Vermont to be closer to his mother’s parents. Notably, his name comes from both a mountain in Vermont, as well as a branch of his mother’s paternal ancestry. (His middle name, Matsuo, also suggests mountains: it means pine ridge, or pines of an elevated place).

Another early testament to Stratton’s favorite substance was a book he wrote and illustrated, called simply, “Snow.” In it, a snowboarding young hare enters a contest to win a snowboard because he broke his old one and his mom won’t pay to replace it. Through trials and tribulations, the hare learns he can achieve what he wants when he persists. Importantly, he also learns it’s more important to have fun than to be what others deem “the best.” This was an intuitive understanding that Stratton carried with him into his adult life.

While in high school, Stratton spent two summers building trails and removing invasive plants in Oregon and Washington for the Northwest Youth Corps. The rugged living conditions, terrible food, and exposure to other kids with lives far less fortunate than his own, taught him more about the value of gratitude and good cheer, the ability to persist through unpleasant situations, and holding compassion for his fellow humans.

A few weeks after they both graduated from Bend High School, Stratton went on his first date with Bend native Madeline Wettig; she became his soul partner and they were each other’s beloved companion for the last decade of his life. Together, they explored the trails, forests, and high country of central Oregon and beyond; they delighted in native plants, their beauty and healing properties; and they made ethical living a prime focus of their shared lifestyle, including conscious dietary choices and prioritizing biking rather than fossil-fuel based transportation.

Out of his early interests in landscape design (e.g., his miniature ski resorts) as well as the knowledge he developed while employed at a native plant nursery, Stratton grew his own business, eventually called Tangled Roots Restoration. He specialized in gardens featuring xeriscaping and native plants. He especially enjoyed incorporating elements of natural landscapes, such as boulders and snags, in artful ways. He ran his business spring through fall.

As Stratton continued to follow his passion for snowboarding and wild mountains, he became increasingly aware of the impact of human-caused climate change on the outdoor pursuits and places he loved. After contemplating whether snowboarding was actually incompatible with an Earth-centered ethic, he decided to investigate whether, through the alteration of his own behavior, he could make his sport more harmonious with the well-being of the planet. He sold his van, bought a gravel bike, and began to cycle to trailheads, often biking as many as a hundred miles in a day with all his snowboard gear strapped on. A one-year experiment eventually stretched out to five years, during which he made two films, “Shift” and “Sierra to Baker” (a third film is yet to be completed by friends), focused on his “bike-to-board” vision as well as the sheer joy of riding.

In early 2024, in the middle of one of the driest winters on record in the Pacific Northwest, Stratton set out from Bend on a multi-week trip, driving the electric vehicle he had purchased the previous year, after much soul searching. The EV was Stratton’s compromise between his environmental commitment and his desire to spend more time with friends and loved ones, rather than biking solo many days and many long miles of wintry roads. He spent a couple weeks exploring the high country of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and the Mount Baker area with split boarding friends. 

Ten days before Stratton died, he helped rescue a backcountry snowboarder on Mount Baker who had been caught in an avalanche; he applied the wilderness first responder skills he had been certified in a few months prior. He also used the rescue tarp he had recently acquired. Throughout his split boarding career, Stratton strove to continually improve his knowledge of backcountry and avalanche safety, even as his growing skills and strength took him into ever more challenging terrain.