What I love about snowboard culture

When I was just a little tyke, snowboarding was just starting to become an acceptable sport. What I mean by acceptable, is that it had it’s foot in the door, among the alpine sports community. There was only one resort along the Wasatch Front that allowed snowboards in, and it was only on two lifts. Yes, that’s right, segregation. Brighton, and it’s parent Boyne was like the like JFK of snowboarding, trying to usher in the era of peaceful co-existence between snowboarding and twoplanking.

Not long afterward, several other Resorts along the Wasatch range decided to allow those pesky mogul wrecking “ski-boarders.” The early 90’s brought in the Jim Crow-type of era for snowboarders. “Sure, you can come on the lifts with us since you are buying a ticket, but don’t get too comfortable around here, you lateral stance hip-hop loving freaks.”

What happened next, I still have mixed feelings about. Snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic event, which was kind of the catalyst for world acceptance of the sport. Before that, I think that it was still viewed as a passing fad, to a certain degree. It was so exciting, as a snowboarder, to feel validated. At the same time it was kind of sad, because snowboarding was losing it’s edgy nouveau freshness. Suddenly snowboarding was all the rage. All of the little silver spoon turtleneck wearing Austrian tourists were riding, instead of skiing. Those were the same kids that we got in fights with on the ski-bus bus in jr. high.

Suddenly the sport was flooded with tons and tons of money. From the perspective of a kid who had to save for months and months to buy his first deck, and who wore Sorel boots because he couldn’t afford Burton, it felt kind of sad to see the sport change directions so abruptly. It felt like the sport went from a bunch of rag-tag hoodlums to glitz and bling, over the course of a few short years.

After 2002 SLC, I embraced the new “snowboard culture.” I accepted the fact that, like anything else, the sport and culture associated with it, is an organic thing. I was a little irked at Park City Ski resort, that vying for the Olympic bid is what it took for them to finally open their doors to snowboarders, and buy a pipe dragon. There are still a few resorts that don’t allow riding. Not surprising, two of them are in UT. One is Alta, another is Deer Valley. I like to think of them as the dirty south good old boys of ski-resorts. Since Alta is located on BLM land, there is no stopping riders from poaching early season pow, before the lifts open. In honesty, I prefer the bird anyway.

Before this rant/manifesto carries on too much longer, I’ll get to the point. One of the things that I absolutely love about the modern snowboard culture, is that the roots rowdy originality that has always surrounded the sport, still comes through in modern snowboarding innovation. Only– now it is super deep with funding. The DC mountain lab is a great example of this. I’m sure that Ken Block isn’t the first dude to come up with the idea of a rally car-style snow cat. But since DC supplied the cash flow, he was able to make it a reality. When I saw this video, I was smiling ear to ear. Who else is getting stoked for snowboarding season?

BTW: all references to the American civil rights movement are tongue-in-cheek. This post is not meant to diminish the struggle for racial equality, in any way. I fully understand that the struggle for snowboarders to be recognized as athletes, can’t even be measured on the same scale as the magnitude of the civil right movement. So there is my disclaimer