Snowboarding is dying. And you can blame snowboard parks. That’s right. Snowboard parks… Kids, who represent the future of snowboarding flock to em. Check the lifts lines at some of the more core chairs at your local hill–hardly any young shreds. The dudes that you do see will probably have 2 year old gear and beards–old shreds.
When i started riding back in the mid-nineties, the snowboard park situation in Washington State was laughable. The guys building them typically had no idea what they were doing and/or were drunk. Park jumps were poorly designed, built, and even more poorly maintained.
Since the “snowboard parks” were garbage, most of the time my friends and i rode Alpental (which is actually a snowboard park). Alpental has almost endless possibilities with it’s natural, steep, ballz out terrain. It’s filled with all kinds of crazy snowboard park like features…except you land in pow and there are no rails. Your creativity, imagination and ability to interpret landscape into something rippable are your guide.
Despite lawsuits, anti-snowboarder sentiment and fear of change, most NW ski areas have been building snowboard parks for a while now. Owners, managers, Ski Patrol, all the way down to hired park maintenance bros all are on board. You’ll even find a park on opening day at many ski areas.
You could probably argue that the media machine is the problem. But you don’t see either outside of a park in any natural backcountry-ish terrain. There are probably some logistical reasons for that but regardless, the media and corporate sponsors are sucking the soul out of snowboarding via the snowboard park. The lure of riding natural terrain, finding a “line”, and slashing the pow is succumbing to the lure of rails, boxes, booters, and halfpipes. Dreams of free stickers, pro-model snowboards, Totinos Pizza endorsements, and new Audi’s are the motivator for these little park robots. The younger kids are gonna get burnt out, broke off and hang it up by the time they’re in the mid twenties.
How rad would it be if snowboarding got so mainstream that the “cool” and “hype” imploded on itself. Maybe then it’d get yanked from the Olympics, corporate sponsors would start pulling the plug, and all the rail kids and pipe jocks would hang it up to get jobs, pledge fraternities, or go to art school. Then we’d be back to where it was before snowboard parks were everywhere…when people snowboarded for themselves, as a form of self expression, out of control punks who mess up the snow.
My advice to young shreds: get out the park, go build some wu-tang booters with your friends, hose skiers, work on your methods, jump over ropes, and always tell the man to suck it.
Good luck.
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I would repeatedly punch Drex in the balls to get myself a Totino's endorsement!
what is freeriding?
oh and… Alpental sucks
Shhhh. Keep the little park rats where they belong…in the park. You do realize that if they stay in the park, that means more turns in fresh pow for yourself, right? Thats less people riding where we want to ride. Im okay with the snowboarders in the olympics. Because i dont give a shit about the olympics, or any kind of competitions for that matter. The more people in comps, the less people in the lineup or on the mountain that day.
You know, I will argue that the influence of the media machine is the problem. However you could also look at what kind of conditions these young park rats are exposed to. If you think about some of the big names in park/pipe (Shaun White) they're usually kids from mountains that don't get a lot of pow, like Big Bear, California. AND, when they do burn out, they do eventually end up in the backcountry…. hello Gretchen Bleiler and Natasha Zurek. Some kids don't always have the luxury of shredding awesome snow and some who do, just don't appreciate it. I think I'm ok with that, more fresh lines for us.
i don’t know about that…i seem to remember THE LONGEST LINES IN HISTORY @ Alpental chair 2 last year
what Anon said…
and Ki..
and cherrizz
fuck em, more room for sman.. someone go to stevens with me tomorrow, no one is working hard this year at all
i might be at stevens tomorrow. i'll txt you. LOL.
i have to get my park pass 1st though…
Sounds like Drex is trying to pollute the back country with the next generation of punk-ass snowboard kids by telling them riding park is not cool (*or maybe plot to get a bunch of no beanie blue jean wearing jib kids into the BC so they freeze to death which cuts down on lift lines*). Isn’t it bad enough that you are single handedly trying to destroy WA surfing. Is there anything that is not sacred to you? Honestly I think you and this site are the problem, not only with surfing and snowboarding, but with the world in general!
That’s just my opinion. I hope you don’t take it personally and do something silly like revoke my administrator privileges.
Whooohooo it’s almost happy hour!
thats classic about the drunkers building the old school parks,,,,, just classic. miss those ski acres days.
take a look at the back side of barrier ridge. way to many goons side slipping can’t even get a good run down it at the end of the day now. parks make for good videos parts but nothing like finding a natural ramp with a good tranny to land on, wich seems to be harder and harder to find these days. but what it all comes down to is that snowboarding is gay. but it feels good when your doin it.
yeah, i heard you like to land trannies…
I’m old and my knees hurt but I still try and slash from time to time. Burton has cut all it’s freerider/B/c jibber’s i.e gigi, romain, jp, meuler?… to focus on pipe and park kids. That must be the future. What will happen when rails hit the OLympics? That’s the end. I miss the 90′s way more pow, skiers had skis not 2 snowboards on their feet and Baker could open pandome when it snowed over 6 in.__Lets get wasted on a keg of el nino and sacrifice a virgin circa 1997, drex make it happen and you will be forgiven for destroying snowboarding and surfing in Washington.
Sounds good to me…i'll see you at the Slalom. I think i can fit a Keg in the van….
There are plenty of days when Alpental sucks and the park’s really fun. I’ll take groomed park jumps over chundery, crappy icey moguls any day. We’re lucky to have options. Everyday’s not a powder day.
true. and this year is turning out to be the year of the Park.
rode the jumps at Stevens last Saturday (1/16/10) and they were perfect and sick. rode the triple mini jumps at Ski Acres aka Central on Sunday (1/17/10) and they were mangled but fun.
Stevens has a Pipe up too. I wish i had a pass there…
yea what b said, get wasted
on Sparks.
You cant turn pro riding alpental. long lines, a bunch of mogul runs. mostly icy. Let freeriding die.
BS – Alpental backcountry is SIIIIICCCKKKK. 2/3 of the mountain is BC and you probably don't like it cuz you've never been.
The lines. Well, those do suck ass. The need a quad on the second chair.
Many a pros have loved it there…like the pros that started snowboarding back in the day.
Baker, Alpental – tis it for me.
baker and alpental are cool. crystal is pretty damn fun too. but ive only been there once and was asked to not ride up a lift with skiers ;( “ride with your bros.” lol.
I get free stickers, I’ve been broke off many times, I drive an Audi, and I’m burnt out at age 26. Actually, I was burnt out at age 22. Then again, I started snowboarding in ’93/’94 so I know what you’re talking about when you describe the evolution of our local mountain. But uh… peep dis.
You know what the biggest problem is? There are no filmers that want to go follow you into sketchy shit at Alpental to get a shot. The filmers are the pussies. Not the riders. “Yeah, we’re just gonna film boxes today, let me set up my tripod and grab a remote and a pbr. looks good. that was siiiick.” I really have no idea if that is true or not. I don’t really know any filmers.
Now that I’ve talked some shit (that’s what the internet is for right?) … I thought so. Get over it.
Peep dis:
http://www.35snow.com
I’m retarded. its really:
35thsnow.com
shameless promotion.
I don't think that is true. Most of the real photog guys rip. I know some fake filmers that are jobless and not afraid of shit, good opportunity exists if you want to make a shop vid. Just need to wait for the winter to hit, or ride butts to nuts on sleds. Been trying to get Drex out on the sled for a while.. I think the butts to nuts thing excites him to much to try it.____That waterfall shot is so good, so good.
buttz to nutz….oh yeah.
…i've never seen that waterfall in person…but JR is about the only dude i know that would step to that.
no thanks.
riders who dont make an attempt to film others or themselves are the pansies.
I don't think that is true. Most of the real photog guys rip. I know some fake filmers that are jobless and not afraid of shit, good opportunity exists if you want to make a shop vid. Just need to wait for the winter to hit, or ride butts to nuts on sleds. Been trying to get Drex out on the sled for a while.. I think the butts to nuts thing excites him to much to try it.____That waterfall shot is so good, so good.
yeah sleds are where it's at (ive heard). i bet some of it's decent right now. i know a dude with a few sleds so, if sman is snowman, lets get a crew together and go rip around. even if we dont film. ha. sleds look like fun.
my high school friends and i used to film all the time. i had some decent footage when i was like 17. but eventually it gets harder to convince your friends that waiting for you to hike a soft, shitty, kinked, 8ft pipe at snoqualmie just so you can get a wildcat on film is a good idea. and after they become impossible to convince, you get tired of it also.
i had some friends move to utah when i moved to tahoe. i went to visit them and we hiked grizzly gultch. built a jump between these trees that were probably 7ft apart. 20ft drop. my friend sean kelly switch backside 540'd the jump first try. no filmer. i swear, if he had a follow cam on him all the time he'd be gettin paid to snowboard in japan. instead, he's goin to grad school for architecture right now.
i dont know if i agree with that last statement completely. self-follow cams are more difficult than they look, unless youre mikey basich. and even if you are mike basich, your sister is still better than you are. haha
and the problem with riders filming themselves and other riders is this: snowboarding is fucking expensive and cameras are even more expensive and all of the rider's money goes into snowboarding and snowboard gear. unless they are sponsored, in which case they dont need to worry about filmers because filmers then want to film them. its a weird cycle.
go to school and read books.
unless your friends are motivated to go film shit, then go film shit and see what happens. but when people arent motivated or dont give a shit it's a waste of time to even think about it.
fuck sticks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhDj9IuplvU i dono.. getting an error.. just search youtube for "Gold Creek Washington a day in January 2010" .. that should work if you care
I think there is some motivation to put something together, jobless = time for projects.. he just did this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhDj9IuplvU off a day's worth of junk, given a few sessions and some direction my guess is you could have something pretty strong, note the conditions up, up top it gets good____all the filming stuff is for fun, it just goes together with the recreation for whatever reason, in your case though a shop video would add significant content to your site.. ____not snowman, same crew though.. Sunday is the next day out, need to check how many sleds are in, but the goal of this one is to shred and investigate "monster bowl" which is within gold creek aka right next to Hyack at shitty pass.. might be a good opportunity to meet up, scope and plan a bit, then we can organize something bigger with your crew, weather looks really good for the weekend after next, build some stuff and go back and attack it the following week.. text me your contact stuff, I never answer my phone but will get back to you before the weekend if you want in, all you need is a peeps, probe, shovel, and pbr word 206.354.6700 – swappy____
If I hike up and build a booter will you stop your sled right in the landing and ask “What cha’ doin’?”.
Swappy you’re a brave man posting your phone number on this site.