"STOKED ON
SNOW BOARDING
muss
"Yeah Dude, it's like skatin' on snow you
know, snow surfing, ski boardin'..."
Well that's cool, but lemme tell you right
now, from a skaters point of view, and I'm
talkin' valley grown, used to hot dry pave-
ment empty pools and crisp wooden
ramps, dyed in the wool street rat; snow-
boarding better have a lot to offer to drag
any H-core suburban skater out of his
perfect environment. Let's face it, surfing is
surfing, skiing is skiing, skating is skating
and snowboarding is snowboarding. So
leave it alone. Try it if you want to, if you dig
it go with it. If you don't.shine. Hate it.
Forget it. With that in mind let's run through
the basic myths about snowboarding.
1) It's like surfing. Sure, same stance, side
slip, bottom turn, carve, tuck. Where's the
wave? Right, the mountain is the wave.
Point it downhill and go, the medium stays
the same while you draw the line. There's
no motion to help you out only a lack of
friction between snow and blade and metal
edges to control the slide. Plus, the fall is a
lot harder which brings us to:
2) It's just like skating. No. Wrong. For one
thing you need a hill. You don't just push off
and grind a curb or roll down your driveway.
You've got to go to the hill. Also, like
surfing, with skating you're not tied to your
board as you are with snowboarding. Bail
on a skate or in the surf and you step off
one way while your foil goes the other. A
major difference between skating and
snowboarding: if you try and turn like you
do on your skate; you'll fall over.
3) It's a lot like skiing. Well, if you've ever
skied before you'll understand the funda-
mentals of snow and boarding on snow a
lot better. It's all in how you work your
edges in the snow. You don't just hop on
and go slalom pumping down the hill, skate
style, the first time you're out there. Skiing
is probably the closest link to snowboard-
ing because it is done on the same snow.
Major difference; when skiing you have
two boards tied to your feet, snowboarding
requires only one of which makes it a
whole lot safer because you're not doing
knee wrenching splits every time you fail.
With all this in mind let's chuck the
boards up onto the car (using surf racks of
course) and head for the hills to check out
the best snowboarders in action at the
Sierra Snowboarding Championships held
at Soda Springs ski area near Lake Tahoe.
Full page: Damian, last run of the day, torques out of the halfpipe.
Shaun Palmer, tuck knee take-off, Donner Ski Ranch
Snow rat, Damian Sanders, carves the parking lot behind VW power.