Previous Page: Nocturnal Shannon Maihuse celebrates during a backwoods hike-in near the Hood. Inset:
Steve Graham hucks one on a hardtop halfpipe. Photos: Sonny Miller Left: A madman on the mountain-
side, Damian Sanders is no slouch on the Tahoe Masonite either. Photo: Sean Sullivan. Sequence: Don
Szabo, forward backflip-now you don't have to wonder if snowboarding rips. Photo: Sonny Miller
Above: Nick crails as the year's first snow lays around Hatchett's ramp in Tahoe. Photo: Sean Sullivan.
to the white plague every year, and all
those stifled skaters need an outlet for
their aggression. You should feel proud.
After all, wheelheads have been prime
movers in the snowboard avalanche
since day one, and some might even
argue that today's flake jockeys are direct
descendents of skaterkind. In fact there
are many battered souls out there who
partake in both aggro activities, so driven
are they by the danger jones. Life on the
edge of peril is a serious psychological
predicament, but living on that edge in
two different environments is doubly
demanding and twice as frantic. As you
well know, there are some basic ingre
dients (air and speed for instance) that
connect the two sports. If we examine the
more subtle similarities and differences,
perhaps you can make a more educated
decision about whether you dig the world.
of scars on knees, the world of neon
scarves, or both.
In the long-lived tradition of its
predecessor, snowboarding has always
been the black sheep of the alpine
arena. Back in the early days, ski resort
lift operators would vibe hardcores like
Sims, Kidwell, Toft and Carpenter
(Burton) straight off the slopes. They had
to tote their primitive boards and inner
tube bindings uphill for miles just to get a