BURTON
BISC
Above: Ripping at his camp, corn crusher Craig Kelly interprets a skate-style stale grab in the snow-
going genre. Right: The ultimate thrill-seeker, Noah Salasnek (shown here oille blunting at Studio 43) is
a top sponsored am skater and a pro snowboarder. Sick. Photo: Bryce Kanights. Next Page: Burly Bert
busts a boardslide in true aggro skate fashion (Mt. Hood.) Photo: Sonny Miller.
couple good runs. It took years for riders
of the big stick to elbow their way into
the billion dollar-a-year ultra-uptight ski
industry. This season, finally, almost
every major and minor resort in the
country is open to sleddage-kind of a
hollow victory in one sense. You see,
unlike pine pushing, where you can
express yourself on any public surface
harder than cheese and bigger than a
beach towel, you're dependent on a lift
and the designated terrain that comes
with it if you want to get more than three
snowboard runs before your legs turn to
jello. Access to said lift is, unfortunately,
completely controlled by the almighty
68
schuss-snobs whose asses are tighter
than Ingemar Stenmark's parallel.
In the more civil words of action photo
king Sonny Miller, "A ski area is a
business, not public domain. If you mess
up anything you will be held responsible.
for it. There are laws at ski areas and the
ski patrol enforces them. These laws
apply to skiers and boarders, only the
boarders are under a magnifying glass."
Sonny should know, he and three com
rades were arrested, jailed and now face
up to 1,000 dollar fines and six months in
jail for creeking edge in a ditch that was
mere yards out of ski area boundaries.
(and here's the best part) right after a
skier had just breezed on through.
In a nutshell, the snowboard com-
munity has had to play the establish-
ment/corporate game to a much greater
extent than their concrete counterparts in
order to acheive their current level of
steep and speedy sickness. This does
not mean modern sledheads have sold
their souls or lost their edge. Shoot a
four-foot wide chute with a possible
avalanche at your tail, get fifty feet of air
off a cliff (or just watch this action and
drool) and you'll definitely agree. It does
appear that the confines of conformity
drive numerous slush-puppies to the
streets and slants for a more anarchistic
outlet. In fact, it is said that big time
sliders like Sanders, Palmer and Szabo
rip the hard stuff hard enough to acheive
possible pro status in the world of high
rollers. We won't even bother to relate the
Lamar story again, as you're certainly
aware of his double deepness. Even
Craig Kelly, a non-skate type when he
began his snowboard career, is known to
taste the masonite now and again. It
seems obvious that depite the hassles of
adjusting to two different surfaces, two
different attitudes and two different price.
ranges, this dual focus has one all-
important aspect: twice as much fun..