Why do you ride Alpine?

[Jack M]

Let's hear your story.

Short answer: because I can't fly an F-16.

Long answer: I've always loved the sensation of carving.  I started snowboarding when I was 13, but before that my ski buddies and I would drag race each other down narrow, winding green trails in a then-unpopular area of Sugarloaf only serviced by a T-bar at the time.  We would tuck and only turn where the trail turned and go as fast as possible.  Back then this was the best way to ride what little sidecut we had and purely carve.  Those are some of my best memories of skiing.

My first in-person glimpse of people snowboarding was my friend's older brother and his friend chasing each other on their Burton Cruisers down the trail under the chairlift I was riding.  I was blown away by how much they could lean in and surf their turns.  At that moment I told myself I need to do THAT. 

The next season I took a lesson with my dad at Stowe and we got certified, January 10, 1988.  I bought a Burton Elite 150 with babysitting money.  Soon afterwards I was drooling over the 1989 Burton catalog, trying to decide if my next ride would be a Mystery Air, or a Safari Comp II.  I realized a few things - 1, I really liked just cruising the mountain and going fast. Carving was practically impossible with the Elite's V-shaped sidecut and concave tail, so I figured the Safari would be a big improvement in that department. 2, I didn't have a ton of aptitude for freestyle. 3, there were way more groomer days here in the east than anything else - there were no parks or halfpipes or manicured glades back then.  So I bought the Safari on sale at the end of the season and figured I'd get good at carving next season.

My one snowboarding buddy at the time had a copy of Burton's Snow Rules which we watched religiously all summer.  I was mesmerized by the turns in this 10 second clip of Peter Bauer in Chamonix:

https://youtu.be/riHicmC5_DU?t=6m53s

Even though it's powder, that was the style I wanted to learn.  I knew it would translate to corduroy.  I've been chasing the perfect carve ever since.  I rode Burton 3 strap bindings and the gray and white 1989 Comp Boots.  Late in the 1991 season a Rossignol snowboard demo van appeared at Sugarloaf.  They had full alpine setups, so I figured I'd give hardboots a try.  They set me up with a VAS Race 173 and Alpina boots.  As I was already carving on my softboots, the very first run on hardboots felt something like this.   I switched to hardboots the next season.

The sensation of carving is my meditation and my church.  It's what I call an "absolute activity" - something that while you're doing it you're not thinking about anything else.  It's also my personal roller coaster, motorcycle, and fighter jet.  The equipment keeps getting better and better, and I feel like I get better every year.  I'm not looking forward to the day that stops.

Hope everyone has a great 2019 season!

[slopestar]

Thanks Jack. Alpine to me is no necessarily hardboots but it is as I have seen it stated, the most efficient way to do what we do. I crave the carve, the speed, the g’s. Skiing fairly avidly until 86’-87’, I always surfed and approached my skiing like I was doing bottom turns and slashed and off the top turns. Emulating poorly, my desire to surf the mountain instead of ski it. I broke my first owned pair of skis (210 dynastar) at Snowmass my junior year in HS. Some one had a backhill burton and I strapped in with my ski boots. I haven’t looked back since. I progressed to a cruise 155 with sorels with ski boot liners and bought my first real board. Kemper 170 aggressor comp. Tried to freestyle it... and realized it wasn’t the huge air but the finesse in finding my edge in any terrain. A twintip Vision opened my horizons and then Burton 3hole made it all come together. I learned to bottom turn( toeside). Sometimes we would get cut off tail/ libtech rejects at Crystal Mtn Wa in the early 90’s. Flying hot laps under Rainier Express and hanging huge arcing turns with three strap bindings. Then came my beloved PJ....I love snowboarding, the community, the lifelong friends I have made, the woman I love that has become my go to riding buddy. I’m blessed... and stoked for the next turn...

Hope you all have a kick ass winter. Injury free and full of perfect “Roy”

Edited October 3, 2018 by slopestar

[Corey]

Nice topic!  

I LOVE the threshold of grip/slip.  Carving as hard as you possibly can, with occasional losses of edge grip as you push a little too hard.  It's dancing on the edge of a cliff, with more of a grey zone where you have partial control.  A bystander only sees the black/white, in-control/out-of-control, but I can feel that trench turning more into a slide gradually and adjust as needed to bring it back into control.  That threshold moves with every change in the snow, from day to day and sometimes from turn to turn.  

I love the G-forces and playing with gravity.  That weightless feeling as you switch edges after a loaded-up turn.  That grunt through a compression in a tight turn.  

I love playing in the snow, seeing beautiful winter landscapes.  

I love the tech nerdiness available with the equipment, though I also hate that as it can scare beginners away.  

I love that sliding out doesn't automatically mean road rash or injury, though it's always a potential.  

I love the intense focus it brings to me.  Like Jack, I forget everything else in life for a while.  

I love that my love of snowboarding convinced me to get in the best shape of my life.  

I love the artistic side it brings out in me.  

I love the many cool people I've met through alpine snowboarding.  

[charliechocolate]

Because I also want to be cool like all ya'll. Isn't that why everyone's doing it?

[workshop7]

I wrote the following in a thread a couple of years ago...

In 1990 I was working at a little mountain in NH, Temple Mt. On the way from the rental shop to the lodge one day I saw a good friend of mine on his Checker Pig G6 and Raichle ski boots carving these incredible turns. Up until that moment I had never seen snowboarding as something I wanted to try. After seeing someone carving in hardboots I was out on the hill trying to learn the very next day.

For the next 10 years I rode hardboots only. It wasn't until2001 when I started going to CO for a week or two a year that I realized the benefits of riding soft boots and a more flexible and wider board, so I started riding soft boots more often. From 2008 until 2014 I rode soft boots far more than hard. I love the trees and powder but I always come back to carving turns. There isn't a run that I take in which I don't carve some turns.

Since 2014 I have been riding hardboots a lot. I have missed, but didn't realize it until I got back on, the precision. Everything that you do on hardboots, from angulation to body position, each and every little movement, translates into success or disaster. When I want to really lay it out on a steep on my soft boots, I have to force the board to hold. Like driving a cargo van full of tools on a race coarse, you can do it, but it doesn't feel right. Riding hardboots is like driving an open wheel race car on that same track and laughing out loud as people on the lift above you call out in approval. Wait...there's a ski lift on this race track?!

Since writing this I have purchased a Coiler NFC, a Kessler 168, and a Donek 172 MK variant.  Yup, still addicted.

[slapos]

5 hours ago, Jack Michaud said:

The sensation of carving is my meditation and my church.  It's what I call an "absolute activity" - something that while you're doing it you're not thinking about anything else.  

I will drink to that. Couldn't phrase it any better. If you start thinking about anything else you have got a good case for breaking ya face.

Citing Beckmann: why would you ride a moped while you can ride a ducati?

 

[Keenan]

In the late 80's I would sometimes meet up and ride with a guy at Mt. Bachelor named John Calkins.  He rode for Burton and one day showed up on hard boots and a Safari prototype.  I would ride behind him and try to match his carves, which I couldn't do.  A couple of years later he was a founder of HCSC, one of the first snowboard training camps (maybe the first) on Mt. Hood.  I grew tired of breaking laces and buckles because I could not get things tight enough. About the same time the first Snowboarder magazine came out with Damien Sanders on the cover, I made the switch and haven't looked back.

On a slightly different note, I just found the 1990 TW Snow Buyers Guide, it had 10 different plate bindings featured.

[barryj]

Snowboarding always felt more natural than skiing....and I enjoyed my years of skiing......but really haven't looked back since learning to surf the snow way back in 1987 on the only two runs at the Broadmoor  in Colorado Springs CO

Carving is the closest I have come to what I think flying would feel like.......while still being on the ground! 

On most runs, but especially on a hard charging carving run I am in a complete focus that is a mind clearing experience..... I'm not thinking about  the bills, the wife,  work, or anything except...... that next turn!

It's also a physical experience..............if I'm really working for the carves  I'm short on breath when I pull up to the lift.

I'll never own a Ferrari (and not necessarily would I want to)......... but i do own a Kessler.......and a Coiler,  and a Moss,  and a Swoard, and a .........   

 

 

[Corey]

1 hour ago, workshop7 said:

Like driving a cargo van full of tools on a race coarse, you can do it, but it doesn't feel right.

Awesome!  

1 hour ago, workshop7 said:

Riding hardboots is like driving an open wheel race car on that same track and laughing out loud as people on the lift above you call out in approval.

Even more awesome!  

[bruincounselor]

Because going fast in Sorrells sucks.

I never considered any other style to make any sort of sense to me. I bought the first set of hard boots I set my eyes on (Burton - back in 1989?). Softies don't let me do what I want with the board.

[powdahbonz]

I've been on snow since age 4 when my parents would spend time in Vermont, learning to ski at Spruce at Stowe and then the big mountain of Mansfield. Remember the Johnson woolen blankets would be draped on your lap on brutal cold days. Spent my early years at black Mt in Jackson and Wildcat and eventually on to Sunday River, Mt Abram and finally to Sugarloaf in '83. My first year snowboarding was '87. My best friend and I bought our boards that summer determined to learn on our own and take our summer fun of skurfing and surfing behind boats to the snow. I bought a Burton Cruzer 165 and he bought at Sims Blade. It was a painful learning process that first weekend but by the end of the weekend, we were starting to put it together. Played with various different decks after we progressed, the Lamar Trick Stick was one that sticks in my mind. When I first took interest in alpine was at Sugarloaf and watching Mark Fawcett leave vapor trails down runs with mind numbing speed and control. Watching him carve was exciting and while I liked freeriding, I wasn't a half pipe guy and when it came to getting air, I preferred skiing moguls and preferred to huck my body there with more confidence leaving freestyle there. My first alpine board was an asym Mistral Ectasy. Rode in Lange banana boots that were stiff but cracked in the cuffs from skiing bumps so it worked..kinda. It wouldn't take long to see there was a better way to ride in alpine and maybe it was a blessing when I crashed on Skidder in powder tearing my front rat trap out of that Mistral deck. As I walked down the mountain, I had plenty of time to think what was next.

I went back to skiing again and freeriding occasionally not getting back into alpine for a few years. Until I found a great deal on factory prime that was one of those mystery's with sharpied dimensions and notes and started building a set-up when I found Bomber Online. I was amazed to find all these other people, the weirdos, that I'd rarely see at the places I'd go.  My passion for snowboarding has continued to grow and am lucky to have experienced failures and successes along the way. Met great people to share the excitement with, get others into the sport and keep learning each time out. Everything is a work in progress. I'm fortunate to have the abilities to be able to choose the tool for the day, one plank or two and no matter what, be grateful that I can get out there and have those moments where you can't keep from smiling ear to ear.

[slopestar]

Great stuff. Like adding gasoline to an open flame 

[snowwjob1]

8 hours ago, Jack Michaud said:

The sensation of carving is my meditation and my church.  It's what I call an "absolute activity" - something that while you're doing it you're not thinking about anything else.

This is almost the exact description of why I snowboard. I have been in the mountains doing snow sports since 79' and i meet my wife at Snowbird 20 years ago. No matter what happens in life a day on the mountain carving will cure you of wondering thought's or you will hit a tree!!!!

[billyt.]

I guess it was mostly the boots.  Coming from skiing, the soft boots did not cut it.  Especially if you are big.  When the asymmetrical boards first came out, they just begged to be carved.  Still enjoy carving and riding in hard boots.

[Eboot]

Great thread and awesome articulation Jack!

I learned to ski at the age of 33 and taught myself to snowboard the same year.  I realized immediately that I was too old to excel at both so went with snowboarding which my water sports allowed me to relate to easier.  In Switzerland at the time there were no parks or pipes and my first board was a burton alpine board which I used with my ski boots. Most of the Swiss pistes were groomed and speed appealed.  Even when I started using a freestyle board while teaching i was in an alpine stance and progression to a racing board was inevitable.

My defining moment was in Zermatt on a lift watching somebody carving lazy turns below my lift.  I spent the next month working on trying to get on the edge and stay there (with that crazy sense of sudden acceleration when it went right) and from there it progressed to videos and magazines for instructions and guidance.

Like so many have stated above there is a focus and freedom I experience while carving that allows me to live in the moment only, whether working on technique or pushing my boundaries.  Finding this forum rekindled my passion and has pushed me back into the sport that satisfies me like few others.

[ThePeonsChamp]

I got to live in Japan from 1998 to 2001, my dad was air force and we were stationed in Misawa air force base. The base would run programs where they would bus us to and back from the resorts for a pretty affordable price. It was so awesome because back then all the Japanese were wearing bright neon 80 esc gear while smoking cigarettes on the slopes. A few times I saw some Japanese hardbooters leaving some huge trenches and I thought man those are some deep ruts and I wanted to try it someday.

Fast forward to the 2015-2016 season and I was browsing reddit and came across the ocho subreddit (which was from the movie dodgeball, it was the wacky sports channel) when I saw the locked stocked and two alpine snowboard video. I was so mesmerized by their carving abilities that I took it upon myself to devour all information about alpine snowboarding and where it was in the current day. I ended up reading the whole carvers almanac and fell in love with the sport! I picked up a 180 rev and some upz and self taught for the most part with much help from bomber. Got a lesson from an old racer in Santa fe which helped tremendously. This will be my 4th season and my first on my own custom board from Bruce. It's a EC board and I am incredibly excited! Thanks @Corey for the info about your EC board wooohooo!

P.s. I can't wait to come up to Colorado again and hang out with the Loveland carving crew you guys were amazing!!!

[Poloturbo]

I was the fat kid at 11. Skateboarding since 8.

Wasn't really the cool guy in high school.  But what a was really good and untouchable  was when snowboarding. At 14 in the moguls nobody could follow.  That was my pride...

Started in 1987 on a Black Snow Legend. Was going every day at Ahuntsic in Montreal on a tiny hill to learn by myself. Would put 3 haystack stolen from the trees around the hill to make big jumps.

Would race my buddies in high school but they had the $$$ and parents to funds the travels to help them with racing. Was always first but hey. Not competing lol.

I come from a very poor family and the single most unbelievably thing was that my parents sacrificed what they have to get me 10 courses at Belle Neige school. 

That was incredible and to this day. What gave me my passion for carving. The courses was carving on a Burton Safari. 

http://www.networka.com/hilarious-80s-era-commercial-for-black-snow-snowboards

 

Spent way to many years without health. Cherish it like the "apples of your eyes" ( French expression.)

Best season to all.

 

 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Poloturbo

[Neil Gendzwill]

I learned to ski, then I learned to skate. I pretty much maxed out on how well I could ski given the number of days in the mountains I could get. So in 1986 when I first got a snowboard, it was fun to be afraid of the fall line again. Despite being a skater I have always taken a skiers approach to snowboarding. I couldn’t understand hiking the pipe when you have a whole mountain to play on. I like to ride everywhere and I like to go fast. My first board was a Burton Elite, second a Sims 1710 Blade. The Sims bindings were an improvement over the webbing ones from Burton but painful with my skiboot liner stuffed Sorels. I felt like my ankles were in danger at the speeds I like to travel at. So when I found a pair of hot pink Koflach Damians I was in my element. 

I never really carved in the style most of you do until I hooked up with Riceball, Corey and the rest of the NES crew. I love it but I still like to go everywhere. Probably a modern softie setup would suit me better but I’m running with what I know works. 

[BlueB]

Great thread Jack and great answers from everyone! Almost everything that I could have said is said already... I'd just like to add a bit about boots: the comfort (especialy for my semi-deformed ankles), precision and ability to hop back to skis (which I hardly do any more) without changing boots, made me stick to alpine gear. 

[davekempmeister]

I am always drawn to any gear, in any sport, that transfers my own energy most efficiently.  Just that simple.

[Carvin' Marvin]

So I can wear my cool new hat without being a poser. 

[dredman]

Sliding on snow is fun.  

[SunSurfer]

Began a lifetime of sliding sports at age 12 on a friend's steel wheeled skateboard (1971). Urethane wheels arrived in New Zealand a year or two later and I spent my teens happily carving turns down our long, no exit street and building slalom skate decks.

At university I learned to ski, and tried to ride the mountain the way I rode the street. Got married, had 2 kids, life got busy. On a rare ski trip I watched from a lift at Mt Hutt as a carving snowboarder made sinuous, graceful turns beneath me. "One day, I will learn to do that!" 

At age 49 more snow time became possible. I like to keep learning and challenging myself. The choice was a) go chasing powder in the back country and spend a fortune on helicopter rides or b) go back to the beginner's slope on an alpine snowboard and learn how to ride the mountain as if I was a teenager on my favourite slalom skateboard.

I'm here, so you know which I chose. Ten years on I'm making  continuing progress. I love the intense awareness, the continual balancing of body, slope and gravity.

What I hadn't ever anticipated was discovering Bomber/ASB along the way and the camaraderie of carvers.

 

[Erik J]

I began riding alpine because I didn't know any better. I continue because it has grown to be such a part of my life I can't imagine not doing it. 

First board was a Black Snow mogul monster. Crashing through the trees and building jumps in the woods at my parents house was how I spent all of my winter. 

When the local hills started to allow boarding I bought a Burton Safari comp II from a rich kid that rode it once in his back yard. I had no clue what the board was about but the picture in the catalog looked really cool. I was washing dishes in a restaurant at the time and bought whatever I wanted with the money I earned. 

First day on my safari was in the rain. I wore high top sneakers, jeans and a tshirt. I smashed my face up pretty well with my own knees. By the time I was being picked up my clothes were ripped and I was a bloody mess. I was smiling ear to ear and never wanted anything more than to keep snowboarding forever. 

My bedroom walls became plastered with magazine pictures. I idolized guys like Shawn Farmer and Damien Sanders. When I saw Peter Bauer and Jean Nerva carve I wanted to do that but I also wanted to hit the trees and jumps.

Bought a Burton PJ with hardboots in high school and kept trying to carve and hit jumps too because nobody was going to tell me how or what to ride damnit. 

I modeled my life around the snow. I would never live more than 20 minutes from a mountain that I could ride, no matter how small. I moved to CO, then back east. It's worked so far. 

I still get after it as hard as I can, riding the whole mountain on my alpine setup, still trying to hammer that square peg into a round hole. 

That feeling of...nevermind. Jack said it. I live for this shit.

On 10/3/2018 at 10:22 AM, Jack Michaud said:

The sensation of carving is my meditation and my church.  It's what I call an "absolute activity" - something that while you're doing it you're not thinking about anything else.  It's also my personal roller coaster, motorcycle, and fighter jet.  The equipment keeps getting better and better, and I feel like I get better every year.  I'm not looking forward to the day that stops.

Hope everyone has a great 2019 season!

 

[philw]

Short answer: because I didn't know any better.

Long answer:
I learned to ski as a poor kid on a council-funded plastic slope in the north of England, never really expecting to get onto real snow. I didn't know anyone who'd been in an aeroplane, never mind visited a ski resort or actually skied. It was a fun thing to do. Perhaps we did it because it was so outrageous, to do what we thought only rich people could do. 

After a while I learned to ski rings around most people on plastic.

By the 1980s our economy was doing better and I'd moved to a less deprived part of the country. They even had a ski shop! I'd go there to dream about skiing. One winter the shop had a newly released film playing on their TV: Apocalypse Snow. I'd presumably seen bits of ski films before, but I'd never seen anything like that. I can't remember how long I stood there, but I watched the whole thing. Possibly twice. It was one of those things which came out of nowhere, yet I immediately knew that was what I would do.

A little later I'd made enough money to try my plastic-slope skills out on snow. I looked around the resort for snowboards, but all I could find were crude things with wooden rails and hideous strap bindings. No one was riding them on the pistes, and clearly they'd be useless on plastic. Monoskis on the other hand were available, and built like skis, with edges and proper bindings. I rented a French mono, warily clipped in at the top of the Grande Motte, and then just rode away from the crowd. I never went back to skis. I was half way there.

 

Two years later I was living in Finland and monoskiing the famous "mountains of Serena". It's a tiny hill on the outskirts of Helsinki, not really very interesting after the first run. I didn't see anyone riding snowboards, but a mate suggested we both take the opportunity to learn, as he'd seen that they had snowboard rentals. The boards were made by Atomic, with proper edges, and they also had proper bindings!

My mate quickly gave it up as a bad job. I stuck with it, and within a few hours was riding top-to-bottom on that small hill without falling over. Although I could "hockey stop" the board, my background meant that I didn't ever try to side-slip-turn the board. I clearly remember on my first run trying to get the board on edge to make it turn. Once I'd cracked that, I just had to work out how to get it back off again to avoid the slope edge. Hence I carved from the start, because I didn't know anything else.

 I'm an Alpine snowboarder by accident.

 

My perspective therefore is the reverse of most people . When I started in Europe snowboarders were extremely rare, and those you did see would generally be on hard boots. I didn't really see many soft boots until I visited Canada in 1989.


Times changed, and Europe was hit by a huge wave of "freestyle". None of that interested me. Where I come from skateboarding has never been remotely cool, and I'd no interest in "ballet" type tricks or who can stage the biggest cliff drop. Half-pipe was half-interesting, requiring some carving, but in practice it became just more ballet. Similarly "park". If I'd seen someone performing any of these things on a video, I'd not even have noticed.

As an Alpine snowboarder I know the thing any kid could tell you: the one who can ride the slope top to bottom quickest wins.
 

Edited October 4, 2018 by philw
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