There isn’t much on the mountain that I won’t shred. I’m a pretty solid rider outside of the park — I’ll ride glades and every once in a while you’ll see me taking turns through a mogul field. I love steeps & groomers, too. Here’s a little background on why I love shredding the gnar so much, kind of a Reader’s Digest version of how I caught the fever.
I didn’t really “start”* snowboarding until after college, I bought some new bindings to put on my old board, and a few of my friends and I went to Winter Park, CO for 4 days. I think that ignited the passion, but I still didn’t ride very frequently. The following year I bought my Never Summer Legacy and went to Park City for a few days and after that I couldn’t shake it. Still I was spoiled by a few trips out West, and a family trip to Tremblant and Killington my Senior year in high school. I didn’t want to ride PK or Holly because they sucked, and I liked big mountains.
By 2006 I realized that this whole not riding in Michigan because I only like big mountains thing just wasn’t going to cut it. Mostly because I went to Whistler in 2006 and that mountain whipped my ass bad. I was just not ready for anything like that. So that’s about when I started riding frequently, trying to go once a week after work to PK or Holly, a few weekends up north, and a 5-day vacation somewhere big each year.
So what happened, how did I get here from being someone who just rode a few times a year at most?
Nine hours a day in a fluorescent cube certainly helped push me over the edge..
I ride to get some fresh f*cking air during the winter.
I ride shitty local hills so that I can do my best to stay in shape for snowboarding when I go to big mountains.
I ride big mountains for nature: the wildlife, the panoramic veiws, the 50mph steeps and wind in your face.
I ride for the exhilaration, and overwhelming sense of absolute and total freedom when you’re out ripping the mountain a new one.
I ride because I can’t not love it.
*I started snowboarding when I was maybe 14 or 15 and I think I bought my first snowboard when I was 16. It was a K2 Hardcore 161cm (my friend Jay lives north shore Lake Tahoe and he’s still riding it). I rode a few times in high school but not very much. College – man, when I look back that was a waste of 5 winters. I bet I didn’t snowboard 10 days total during all of college.
