Cold Snap
One of the first who could snowboard vert,
TK's big skate-oriented airs and smooth pow-
erful style remain inspirational to this day.
Over the years, Terry has won a lot of con-
tests, been to tons of places, and evolved
freestyle tricks and equipment to new levels.
He is an amazing athlete who has stayed on
the cutting edge of the sport for over fifteen
years. And to top it off, he is a really nice guy.
Let him tell you in his own words.
What's your background?
-Keith Kimmel
I pretty much grew up in the Bay Area, around
San Jose and Santa Clara, and at that time I was
ap
shooting to be a professional baseball player. I had
a lot of ins with different people who were retired
professional baseball players.
Did you play in Little League?
Yeah, I was on the All Stars every year and it was
pretty fun. Then my dad bought a pool hall when I
was eleven years old, and I started to kind of turn
into a little pool shark there for a while. I was mak-
ing money off some of the older guys who were in
there, you know, doing a little hustling. Then we
moved up to Tahoe City in 1977, and I was a skier
for about five years before we moved up to Tahoe.
That's when I started snowboarding. I mean, I did
ski a lot more than I snowboarded until the '81-821
season, which was a big winter, and that's when I
converted over to full snowboarding. One of the
big things that converted me is the idea of taking
skate tricks into snowboarding. Basically the most
famous spot for skating at the time was the Tahoe
City halfpipe and Donner quarter-pipe. We'd take
like little backside airs where we only got a foot or
two out on ramps and do them in the snow where
we could get six or eight feet out. That's where it
all began for me, pushing what I couldn't do in
skateboarding and taking it to my snowboard.
What kind of boards did you ride back then?
We started out on a K2 water ski and mounted
some bindings on it, and all we did was go straight
down this hill and hit this jump and hike back up
and do it again. From there, it progressed into
Wintersticks, which were the best powder boards
found, and we started hiking up Mount Rose and
learning how to carve.
Who did you go out with?
Allen Armbruster was the best out of our group,
then there was Bob Klein and Tom Burt, those
were all the guys who I went to high school with,
and we all pushed each other. There wasn't really
anyone else to look at. I mean, we were the only
ones doing it in the area. The only real influences
we had were the skaters at that time and the tricks
they were doing, and trying them on the snow.
Who were your skateboard influences then?
Christian Hosoi, Stevie Caballero and Tony Mag-
nusson ruled big in the pipe. Yeah, the skaters that
went the biggest were my favorite.
What about the Mile High ramp?
Yeah, that was the local ramp, and then we had
Bocci's ramp and the ramp in the woods. When we
were in high school, we always had something to
skate, unlike the kids at North Tahoe High School
now, we always made something to skate. Mike.
Chantry was the founder, builder, and a skater at
the Mile High ramp. He built it so the local kids up
here had something to do. Mike is rad, he always
The methodology (left) of a master. Three years ago (top
right) and boned as you can get without a prescription.
TERRY KIDWELL
INTERVIEW BY MATT KENNEDY