Artistic Footprint

The long and endless battle. Wanks on Planks vs Dicks on Sticks. Who owns the slopes and why?

Skiing was there first. Grainy old photographs line the heritage chalets with ancient wooden whittled 2x4s. but boardsports always had their space. The epitome of going against the grain, the anti-establishment lifestyle took its form on the concrete, surf, and soon to be snow. The funny thing about snowboarding is that it came to be right at the time that snow industry was dying. It took five years for mountain resorts to respect snowboarding as a sport they could endorse, and thats how it all began.

Snowboarding gave way to a huge new way to shred the gnar. You ride sideways, you’ve got a duck stance. You can ride backwards or forwards, and you’ve only got one edge to hold you on the mountain.

Skiing almost lost it. The industry hit a lull just as Jake Burton Carpenter was rubbing in polyeurethane on the top sheet with a scuba mask on. I remember those days. I myself snapped my collarbone while skiing and successively gave into peer pressure in joining the twin tip movement. The term “skiing is for little fat kids” got thrown around a lot.

But as things always do, boardsports just aren’t boardsports if they aren’t lingering in the background. The sub counter-culture. Skiing came back full force. Ski producers like Salomon and K2 reinvented the ski to incorporate snowboard characteristics, specifically twin tips.

So skiing seems to have had a bit of a burp in the retro-years. But it’s still just as strong as ever. But its important to note that skiing would be nothing if it hadn’t been for snowboarding, and you pompous oafs with your season passes, volvo SUVs and spandex onesuits had best come to terms with that.

Snowboarding helped bring in a whole wack of other amazing good things. The underground marijuana industry creates $4 billion annually in Vancouver alone (coincidence? I think not) We’ve also created awesome new terrain features like the half pipe and terrain parks, which otherwise would never have existed. For those of you unfamiliar with the industry, a mountain in New Zealand, Snow Park, is… well just a huge park cut into a mountain, and any self-respecting boardsport filmmaker would make the trip down there if he plans to sell his DVD. We’ve also created a new language all of its own to describe the conditions of snow or outcome of the day of riding (see below)

One thing I’ve noticed has remained static. Skiiers, for the most part, still ride that boring old way. The perfect S-turns, synchronized to the beat of some Journey track, making a fucking mess of a fresh line, or at worse, creating these moguls to swell up their knees on. The thing that I love about snowboarding, and is so natural and innevitable to those that try the sport, is that snowboarders ride to have fun. Theres no business in it unless it starts with monkey. Snowboarders move left and right, up and down, with the spontaneity of what they see. “I’m gonna check this out – oo that looks like fun. Lets ride over this”

Where skiers do prevail is the trade of expertise. It seems the natural option to progress and learn more about their sport. Snowboarders habitually learn till they turn, and then think that they own the sport. Snowboarding IS hard to master, and I’m fully aware of my boarded brethren that are foresakenly chained at the ankle, the power-sliders with an invisible friend. If you’re new to snowboarding, embrace your title as a wank on a plank and take some lessons. Learn a thing or two, break the bad habits and figure out how to manage your sleek, cambred, sidecutted beast.

What’s most important here is that we’re all having fun. Gravity sports is a great way to beat the trend of 9-5. to come up top and forget about life and just shred. Doesn’t matter if you’re on a monoski, snowblade, snowboard or ski. Just get out there and find something you love that keeps you eager to depart the norm.

For those of you still reading, here are a few synonyms for the word snow that I’ve added to my vocabulary:

pow

groomies

gnar

kibbles and bits

muffins

cookies

camel snot

hoar

shreddies

trackout

slush

sugar

chicken-soup

velvet

champagne

corn starch

Bean Bag Filling

Beach Sand

Snowment

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9479741

This woman is entitled to her opinion, but not on Television. That’s the beauty of a news network. They are SUPPOSED to provide factual information. Of course we all know that this is not the case due to omissions and network bias and government regulations. However this Christine Brennan has withdrawn her role as a USA sports columnist and publicly expressed her opinion on national news. Will her words have any effect on the olympics? no. Any effect on snowboarding? fuck no. If the olympic committee wants snowboarding for “ratings” then so be it. But it’s not up to Christine, and personally, she was an idiot for commenting.