I started snowboarding around Tahoe in 1982 on a wooden swallowtail
Sims 1500 FE that my friend Shawn (Goulart) and I shared. I
can’t claim a ‘ski area’ as the site of our humble
beginnings, because this was still a season or two before ski
areas decided to allow snowboarders access to their precious
slopes. In fact, this was before ski areas knew what snowboarders
were. In retrospect, it’s hard to blame them (although
I still like to). Nobody knew much about this infant sport,
and most of the snowboarders we knew (and soon met) looked like
city kid skate-rats more than mountain enthusiasts; definitely
a social threat to the polite, white ski community. So we parked
the car on the side of I-80 and hiked for our first runs. We
paid our dues.
I remember the day Shawn and I went to get ‘our’ board
like it was yesterday. It was one of those empowering teenage
milestones, like the first time your parents leave you in (lack
of) control of the house for an entire weekend. Or sex. These
things stay with you. We had ordered our Sims from a little
black & white ad in Thrasher Magazine. Now it was waiting
for us, patiently, downtown at the UPS station. My dad’s
El Camino had a 327-ci motor and bald tires-a bad combination.
The first big rain of December was pounding northern California
from a 45-degree angle. Strong winds...not a good day to be
speeding on the freeway. But our lack of common sense and abundance
of sixteen-year-old reckless energy had us rocketing toward
UPS. I sort of lost control of the car several times on the
way home but the thought that was guiding me was tearing open
the big box. We got to Shawn’s house and made quick work
of the box and then stared at our prize. It was beautiful. Mr.
Sims knew how to make an attractive product-even back in the
day. The weather guy on TV was declaring the first big Tahoe
storm of the winter; Shawn and I looked at each other and instantaneously
realized our weekend plan. Go snowboarding!
Day one was about getting the feel of how the thing rode; finding
our balance, figuring out basics, and falling on our tailbones.
Day two was about trying to link turns because it didn’t
work much like a skateboard. Shawn had been a pretty good skier,
so he got the hang of it quicker than I did. On day three we
started packing little jumps and trying to do skate-style moves
and grabs. On that day I realized that snowboarding would be
a big part of my life. Not too many days later I think I started
to become (at least subconsciously) aware that it would make
a huge impact on the winter sports industry. It felt powerful,
like skating, and I knew it would be big. I just knew it.
Over the course of the next few seasons, we rode more and cared
about everything else less. We entered some contests and made
a whole bunch of new friends. Eventually, the Sims team picked
up Shawn in the formative years of rippers like Tucker Fransen,
Mike Basich, and the Roach bros. I got a job at Go Skate so,
although I could not ride as much as Shawn, (dammit) I was hooked
up with product and made it to most of the contests and events.
By the late 80’s I was a lifer who had reinvented my whole
world to revolve around snowboarding and the adventure of an
endless winter-which is nice.
Along the way I turned into a con man; always poaching a good
time for little or no money, getting free hard and soft goods,
and comp lift tickets. It took a whole summer of pestering the
marketing department but I convinced Bear Valley Ski Area in
northern California to open a “snowboard park”; the
first of it’s kind. The best part is that I also managed
to talk them into paying me, and a crew of four, to design and
manage this park. So the work began and a movement was born.
Of course, the park/jib revolution would have happened with
or without us-it was too good of an idea to slip by undetected.
But at the time we felt like we were the forefathers of something
really cool. Mike Chantry and Keith Kimmel (yo, history quiz)
came by in the fall and helped us scout a location on the mountain
and pre-plan the park layout. The season got off to a slow start,
but we worked what little snow there was and made a decent park
anyway.
The opening day ceremony in December was kick-ass. Damian Sanders,
Noah Salasnek, the Roach and Basich siblings, and Terry Kidwell
were all in attendance, and ruling the small pipe and mediocre
booters we had built. ISM and Thrasher covered the whole scene.
It was the kickoff to a party that lasted two seasons. We rode
everyday, developed our skills, and consumed all the fun the
mountain had to offer. But two seasons in a tiny isolated Sierra
town can do a number on the sanity of a city kid. So I decided
it was time to meet new challenges, and to move back to the
Bay Area.
Now, almost ten years later, I’ve got a nine-to-five (in
the action sports industry) so when I squeeze 25 days out of
the season I’m stoked. And I’m much more into powder
days with just a few bros than the latest spin move-which I
can’t even kinda’ do. But I smile every time I go
to a resort and see snowboarders and skiers having fun in the
“terrain park.” Parks are pretty much everywhere now
and most mountain managers take them really seriously; or at
least they’re learning their value. Easy access to perfectly
groomed parks and pipes (thanks Pipe Dragon) are indelible evidence
of the snowboard revolution. Every once in a while I recklessly
think to myself, “Yeah, I started that,” even though
it’s not really true. Sometimes I sit back and just quietly
enjoy the rewards of forward thinking. Money? No, it’s
almost impossible to get rich living the resort life. Fame?
Negative, you don’t know who I am. Chicks? Nope.
My reward is this... the “ski” industry that used
to be so uptight, so lawsuit paranoid, and so anti snowboarder,
has done almost a complete 180. Terrain parks are the big draw
(when it’s not dumping) now. Snowboarders are ruling the
hill, and the trickery is getting pretty gnarly-crazy spins,
inverted flipping madness or just plain old huge methods. It’s
richer, and patrollers seem to spend a lot less time yelling
at kids for simply trying to have fun (we got yelled at a lot.)
Now snowboarding is the savior of a once depressed and stale
winter sports industry in this country, and a worldwide media
darling. It’s even better than I knew it would be almost
twenty years ago.
I started snowboarding around Tahoe in 1982 on a wooden swallowtail
Sims 1500 FE that my friend Shawn (Goulart) and I shared. I
can’t claim a ‘ski area’ as the site of our humble
beginnings, because this was still a season or two before ski
areas decided to allow snowboarders access to their precious
slopes. In fact, this was before ski areas knew what snowboarders
were. In retrospect, it’s hard to blame them (although
I still like to). Nobody knew much about this infant sport,
and most of the snowboarders we knew (and soon met) looked like
city kid skate-rats more than mountain enthusiasts; definitely
a social threat to the polite, white ski community. So we parked
the car on the side of I-80 and hiked for our first runs. We
paid our dues.