But what the video does not show is Wells giving himself a good crack on the chin with his knee while trying to repeat the aerial trick.
At home in Wanaka, nursing the resulting migraine, Wells told the Otago Daily Times he had been aiming to complete a quad cork for quite a while.
The moment came while he was competing in the Cardrona Games, a new event for Winter Olympic-level freestyle skiiers and snowboarders at the Cardrona Alpine Resort.
He heard another skier was about to attempt the feat, so he ''just went up there early [yesterday] morning ... and did it''.
The trick has been achieved before by two snowboarders, Billy Morgan, from England, and Max Parrot, from Canada, but Wells said he was the first skier.
He said he had done a switch triple cork before and it was ''just a matter of doing another 360 degrees after that''.
The ''cork'', Wells explained, was a 360 degree, off-axis rotation, and the ''quad'' meant completing it four times.
For good measure, Wells completed 1640 degrees, or four and a-half rotations.
He said he spent his time in the air ''thinking about a lot of things'' to do with the manoeuvre.
''As you are doing it, you are trying to spot the ground and trying to figure out where you are in the air, and that just kind of comes with practice, trying to get good at knowing where you are in the air.''
Wells said he landed ''a bit back seat'' but stayed on his feet the whole time ''and rode away''.
He does not expect to be entered in any record books but the video, by his father, Bruce Wells, is expected to go viral.
Wells is the younger brother of Jossi, Beau-James and Byron Wells, who all represented New Zealand at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
