Panel discusses Aspen's place in snowboarding history

[Pat Donnelly]

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20120125/NEWS/120129893/1077&ParentProfile=1058

January, 25 2012

Staff report

The Aspen Times

Aspen, CO Colorado

ASPEN — For a resort town whose flagship mountain was one of the last to allow snowboarders, Aspen figures with surprising prominence in snowboarding history.

So it was somewhat appropriate that a local panel that the Aspen Historical Society identified as the “Members of the Board: Pioneers of Shred” hit Aspen Mountain for a powder day Tuesday before gathering at the Wheeler Opera House to speak during the “Time Travel Tuesdays” program.

“I think that collectively there was 240 years of snowboard experience out there riding,” said panelist Chris Klug of Aspen, who won Olympic bronze in parallel giant slalom in 2002.

Klug joined fellow locals Larry Madden, founder of Alternative Edge and owner of Pride Snowboard n Ski Repair; Travis McLain, the Winter X Games gold medalist and Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club coach who owns Radio Boardshop; and Susan Saghatoleslami, a 17-year competitor who works as a snowboard pro for the Aspen Skiing Co., on the panel, along with Kevin Delaney, Jeff Grell, Chris Karol and Chris Tribble, whose histories intertwine with that of snowboarding in Aspen.

Aspen Mountain famously, finally opened to snowboarders on April 1, 2001, one of the final holdouts, along with Taos, N.M. (Alta and Deer Valley, Utah, and Mad River Glen, Vt., still do not allow snowboarders.) While snowboarding was still a new phenomenon in the 1980s and '90s, gaining a foothold in Aspen necessitated looking beyond Ajax.

Snowboarders established a beachhead at Aspen Highlands, which wasn't a part of the Aspen Skiing Co. until 1993. Back then, riding Highland Bowl necessitated getting up at 3 a.m. to hike to the top.

“We were willing to do whatever it took to ride the local mountains,” Klug said.

For the 1984-85 season, Grell and Karol proposed starting a snowboard instruction program, which Highlands denied for insurance reasons. But their presence here provided an opportunity to begin changing the culture from the inside, beginning with reclassifying snowboards as directional devices, like skis, rather than snowplay devices, like sleds.

“Other people were doing things, but I really think it made a difference when Aspen called,” Karol said.

In fact, it was at Highlands and the Aspen Thrift Store that Grell developed the highback (then HyBak) now ubiquitous on snowboard bindings.

McLain agreed: “Highlands was the epicenter of snowboarding in the world, in Colorado.”

But the history of snowboarding wasn't all powder days and what Delaney characterized as drawing smiles in the snow: A video to open the presentation, “The History of Snowboarding in 2 Minutes Flat” highlighted the nadir, Time magazine's anointing snowboarding as the “Worst New Sport” of 1988.

“We became a community really fast,” Delaney said. “Many resorts were considering banning snowboarding because it was getting unruly.”

Delaney and his brother later would move their adult snowboard camps from Copper Mountain and Beaver Creek to Aspen, further cementing the presence of snowboarding in the valley — and among a higher-end clientele.

“The reason I moved to Aspen is because this is the crown jewel in the winter sports crown,” Delaney said. “We had a very elite clientele. The question was, ‘Can I land a (Gulfstream) G4 in Aspen?'”

“Time Travel Tuesdays” continue through Feb. 28, before the “Define the Mountain” program begins in March. The next presentation is “AVSC — 75 Years of Greatness” on Jan. 31.

[Dave Winters]

They should have invited Cliff.

[John Gilmour]

Left to right... Susan Sagatopoulos (cant spell it), Kevin Delaney, Me, Jeff Grell, Anja Schriener (added to make us all look good).

Talk about luck... So a few days ago I got my free pass working as a Mt. Photographer. it snowed immediately.. conditions are perfect now.

I show up for my first day of work..can't find my wallet and pass...It delays me... I get fitted for the dork uniform. They say.. "well john it is too late to take photos now...just come up and help us test some cameras as a test subject" So I go up on snow next to the gondola. I'm hamming it up..even give Robert (my boss) my best version of "Blue Steel" from Zoolander. Who should walk up in the middle of this embarrassing behavior? Kevin Delaney. ONLY in Aspen could you show up to work on the first day ..forget your pass, and get the day off to ride. It's like Aspen was just put on this earth for riding...

So Kevin rounds up the posse.

------

Some history to make this relevant.....

In the early 1980's I was the first Sims and Winterstick rep on the East Coast...I did it to buy boards wholesale for myself. I didn't even have a drivers license or a car.. but I managed to sell every board I could get my hands on. I called the company JASBAR sports an acronym for because I did not want to pay retail for boards. Later JASBAR would run the worlds first snowboard camp... Steve Day sold me the the other half of the company we registered in Boston (to get a tax reseller number) for $1 a few years later. Steve wanted to order ski gear... I just wanted snowboards...Steve never snowboarded... but as a skier who went to MIT he correctly predicted that snowboards would get side cuts, and core profiles, and flat bases like Skis. At the time the boards were straight or were shaped like fish or surfboards. Now ironically... they are rockered, some are spooned, some have weird fish shapes..and split tails.. weird...

I told Jeff Grell that it was nearly impossible to do a heelside turn on Hammer proof East Coast Artificial snow..asked for snowboarding tips (as I had never seen any video of snowboarding) , and out of desperation to make a heelside turn and help with heelside traverses finally glued soccer shinguards together with shoe goo and duct tape and put a skateboard spacer block on the back to allow for lean adjustment- to get heel support like a waterski binding (I thought the plastic would tear on those holes,,,,but surprisingly they were far more durable than the production hi-baks made of ABS from Sims that followed. The ABS was stamped and was bent and tended to crack..I was forever drilling these out and replacing them with shin guards..mostly because I could not get replacements fast enough. I would speak to Jeff Weekly...trying to find out when boards would come in... sometimes I would not get 2nd reorder boards until March or April...and we always said we would look forward to riding together. I remember talking to Jeff ...wondering if the Hi-bak should be patented... I was hoping he would say he was making thousands of boards..BUT that year production was 250-350 boards (and Sims was the second biggest manufacturer) ... I said "You know... you take such a brutal beating your first day out...I doubt if many people can take this sort of a beating to go back for a second day- I really don't think this will ever be mainstream- only skateboarders and surfers would bother with it" and that was that... we both thought a patent would be a waste of effort. I had never experienced Colorado snow... I only knew East Coast frozen Granular.

I went to hard boots immediately... Koflach Valluga Lites - copied Tom Sims set up- converted my bindings with extra long bails ..and hoped the hi-bak would just go away or mutate into something entirely different and more efficient and effective. I still think it is ridiculous that the toeside has so much less leverage than the heelside. Ironically I would have to cut the hi-baks off to fit the Koflachs. And later when I had Madd.... I was frustrated that I ever made softbooting viable. Today... I enjoy the comfort and warmth...but agonize over the foot pressure (and later cramping) in fast turns.

For Jeff and I it took 30 years- after promising in the 1980's to ride with each other at some point in the future- (I doubt he remembered that promise from the 1980's) , but we rode today. Ironically...Jeff could not ride super hard because his rear toe strap was about 1/8 of an inch from cracking off completely. We laughed that bindings were holding back the inventor of the first manufactured hi-bak binding.

There was a snowboard magazine back them... Originally called "Absolutely Radical" by Tom Hsieh- it was renamed ISM for International Snowboard Magazine. It was a newspaper mag..that later would have colored covers.. I took an ad out in the 3rd issue for the First snowboard camp ... I still have it. Jasbar sports was set up to take the liability- which freaked out Steve since we would be going to avalanche prone Europe. I got a cool slide of Tom Sims in a Striped Shirt jumping to use for a photo in the Ad...I had it typeset and rasterized..and sent off the ad. I think it was $179 for an 1/4 page ad.

I had met a guy "Milo" who was working at the Winter Sports show in Boston selling a trip to Tignes Val d'Isere for $714 for 2 weeks, airfare, airport transfers, and all lift tickets, and lodging included with food! I asked if I could sell this same trip to snowboarders, and house them in their own complex, and have access to snowgrooming machines to make the worlds first halfpipe made using machines instead of shovels. He made a call and it was approved..something that would have been hard to do with liability in the USA at that time. Milo and I pitched the same trip at the same table...he for skiers, me for snowboarders. The movie Apocalypse Snow was being shown over and over again at the same SKI show..and I would wait until the end and try to herd the movie viewers to our table to try and sell them the trip. I think they thought I was insane and just came over to humor me. The price also was super low...-perhaps too low, ...many people doubted it was real. We also both looked too young to be taken seriously... I also didn't speak French well enough, and had never seen Tignes... it was a hard sell. I ended up selling the trip to my friends who believed in me. I made about $70 per camper and needed 20 to cover Jeff and my costs.

Jeff Grell was really excited about this camp..he started a company called "Snowsurfing International" and he sketched a half pipe that started out really wide on a gentle slope and as the slope increased it got narrower with higher walls eventually blowing out into a large bowl. I told Jeff I would hire him to teach..he was really excited.. Tignes had about 114 lifts (many were surface ones) at the time. BUT I needed 20 campers to pull it off. I only got 7 (not enough to pay Jeff to come) and it snowed so much that the lifts were shut down for about 6 of the 14 days. The lodging was tiny...like nearly closet size. Pretty much the crazy snow and small number of campers and the difficultly of riding surface lifts made it a disaster... some just started skiing again.

Kevin Delaney threw well organized Adult snowboard camps. I would read about him in the Mags and got to skateboard race with him this summer. He won a world championship too.

OCEANSIDE 2011 OPEN SLALOM CONTEST

by Chris Yandall on Monday, July 25, 2011 at 1:00pm

GIANT SLALOM - MEN’S A GROUP

1. Joe McLaren 24.2000

2. Kevin Delaney 24.2230

3. Richy Carrasco 24.5940

4. Jason Mitchell 24.6040

5. Ryan Ricker 25.6000

6. Brent Kosick 25.8710

7. David Hackett 25.9390

8. Paul Price 25.9770

9. Lynn Kramer 26.1780

10. Josh Harvey 26.4590

11. Keith Hollien 26.5640

12. Jonny Miller 26.6860

13. John Gilmour 26.8380

14. Max Capps 27.1050

15. John Oshei 27.1460

16. Key Dougherty 27.1500

17. Chris Pappas 27.6540

18. Tim Kienitz 27.6600

19. Michael Kaelon 28.0370

20. Pat Brickner 28.1690

21. Tiger Williams 28.5080

22. Chris Yandall 28.5820

23. John Ravitch 30.7050

24. Alec Bryant 33.6830

DQ

Mike Hess 99.0000

Taylor Clark 99.0000

GIANT SLALOM - OPEN B GROUP

1. Pat Fisk 24.6

2. Lisa Scott 24.7

Divisions

O=Open M=Masters

Tight Slalom A Group

1 O Joe McLaren 14.857

2 O Richy Carrasco 15.438

3 M Paul Price 15.671

4 M John Gilmour 15.979

5 M Keith Hollien 15.985

6 O Lynn Kramer 16.217

7 M John Ravitch 16.525

8 M David Hackett 16.681

9 M Brent Kosick 17.521

10 O Josh Harvey 18.093

11 M Chris Pappas 18.387

12 O Kevin Delaney 99.000

13 O Tim Kienitz 99.000

Tight Slalom B Group

1. M David Hackett 15.422

2. O Ryan Ricker 15.930

3. M Chris Yandall 17.091

4. M Michael Kaelon 17.108

5. M Pat Brickner 17.154

6. M Lisa "Baildog" Scott 99.000

Hybrid Slalom B Group

1st Brent Kosick 22.730

2nd Josh Harvey 23.201

3rd Pat Brickner 23.49

4th Chris Pappas 24.572

Speed Trap Results

1 O Ryan Ricker 11.715

2 O Max Capps 11.869

3 O Key Dougherty 11.906

4 M Jonny Miller 12.086

5 M Brent Kosick 12.178

6 O Joe McLaren 12.258

7 O John Oshei 12.264

8 M John Gilmour 12.379

9 M David Hackett 12.385

10 O Jason Mitchell 12.416

11 O Josh Harvey 12.572

12 O Lynn Kramer 12.592

13 O Richy Carrasco 12.619

14 O Tim Kienitz 12.807

15 M Mike Hess 12.855

16 M Michael Kaelon 12.883

17 O Alec Bryant 12.977

18 O Taylor Clark 13.170

19 M Chris Yandall 13.277

20 M Paul Price 13.654

21 M Chris Pappas 14.074

22 O Patrick Fisk 14.809

HYBRID

1 Joe McLaren, USA /Pro

2 Richy Carrasco, USA /Pro

3 Kevin Delaney, USA /Pro

4 Mike Maysey, USA /Pro

5 David Hackett, USA /Pro

6 Lynn Kramer, USA

7 John Ravitch, USA

8 John Gilmour, USA /Pro

9 Keith Hollien, USA /Pro

10 Paul Price, Great Britain /Pro

11 Brent Kosick, USA /Pro

12 Josh Harvey, USA

13 Pat Brickner, USA

14 Chris Pappas, USA

15 Tim Kienitz, USA

16 Michael Kaelon, USA

17 Chris Yandall, USA

18 Ryan Ricker, USA

19 Lisa Scott, USA

20 Patrick Fisk, USA

So it was odd for me to skate with Chris Pappas and Kevin Delaney before I got to snowboard with them. I had almost snowboarded with Kevin...in that I was helping to give programming feedback to Bruce Caselwitz (Wild Duck rep) who was running the snowboard and ski simulator at the Sports Club LA in NYC on Columbus Ave. I would get on this machine with a huge 10 foot video screen in the 1990's and follow virtual Kevin through a mogul field.. in the end..it felt pretty real.

So for Kevin it only took 20 years before he and I would ride together. Tom Sims and I rode together at Stratton about 10 years ago.

The day earlier... I jumped into a gondola only to find a guy in it with a snowboard... at first... I thought..."hey this guy is too good looking to be a regular snowboarder" (remembering this was the tail end of Aspen's gay ski week) , and then I started talking to him...and realized... oh.. is this?.... hmmm.. is this?... well... it was Chris Klug, who had lost about 20lbs since I last saw him...his face a lot slimmer.

Chris Carol used to rep. Madd for us in Aspen..and he was there today too. I remember Chris using a funky Snowboard and tilting Funky hard bindings at Loon certifying people to snowboard circa 1983-84... yes..you needed to get approved to ride (I think they wrote it on your ticket- and you had to wait sometimes for 2-3 hours to get recertified every time and PAY $10-$20 every time) ..and iF there were no certifying instructors... you had to rent skis AND COULD NOT SNOWBOARD EVEN THOUGH YOU DROVE THERE TO SNOWBOARD..... Only Stratton offered a upper mountain and lower mountain certification cards to show to lifties (so you did not ahve to retest every time... though that took a year or two) ...I had to use a scuba diving license for ID to get a card...as I did not drive at that time. I endlessly had to convince people to drive-everytime I wanted to snowbaord..which meant I had to teach people to ride , and get them hooked.....and when I finally got my license I was renting cars from National (Who rented to 20 year olds) and the ONLY TIME I DROVE was in snow storms ....because the weather forecasters would "predict snow".. and I would drive up on dry pavement only to find it didn't snow and the snowboards were a disaster on frozen granular... so the only way to guarantee fresh snow was to drive in a massive snow storm.. rear wheel drive sedans with no snow tires and a novice driver with only a few hours behind the wheel trying to read maps when i never navigated before. (My concept of driving was from NYC- sticking your hand in the air for a Yellow cab) ... it's amazing I ever survived. I practically fell asleep on every single sleep deprived exhausted drive back home. Some drives would take 6 hours skidding everywhere..no SUVS to rent back then. Snowboarding then...on that gear... was soooooo exhausting.

The days of finned snowboards with no hi-baks, no side cut, and virtually no tail... trying to ride those on bullet proof artificial snow made by gap guns....(no HKD guns existed in the 1980's) those were painful days... but also in some ways the most fun. It was a brotherhood like no other..and I doubt a bonding like that will ever exist again. All snowboarders were instant comrades. It was impossible to be a dorky snowboarder.

I thought...and still think..that many skiers look like dorks. (sorry skiers) I hated the clothing.... the skin tight pants of the 1980s... and the cost of ski gear at the time... was like $400 for an outfit. I used to borrow ski gear when I skied before snowboarding... but when I first snowboarded..I didn't want to be dressed like a skier on a snowboard.

So the first day I snowboarded at Loon...I bought some huge baggy dutch winter Army pants for $15, and I bought this cotton woven hoody for apres surfing...the thing was like 1/2 inch thick. I wanted to look like a person surfing on the snow. It was all cotton. I froze my butt off (the stuff got wet and froze into a solid mass) , I got beat to death on the frozen granular and could only turn toeside well and barely could turn heelside without heel support...I was using LL bean boots and the Sims bindings had Fastex clips which gave me bone spurs on the top of my feet for years later. Later the bindings would have these coat hanger type wire hoops. Burton went to rachet straps (which always broke) the Sims bindings could release after landing jumps. None of the boards allowed for stance width adjustment, or many angle adjustments. The metal edges were segmented and nearly impossible to hand tune. (Gilmour Bias ...however was possible- as the bindings on Sims boards had two arcs).

The boards worked OK only with about 4 inches or more of powder... but didn't work very well on anything else other than slush. Whenever there was a storm... snowboarders would figure out which resort had the greatest snow accumulation and we would all be at the same resort. Jerry Morse "G-wood" was one of the crazier Flite riders who landed a teaching position at Magic Mountain... we would tear it up. Every storm was like a snowboarder reunion.

30 years later.... it's still the same stoke.

Edited August 8, 2014 by John Gilmour