It is winter 1988, and in a skateboard shop in Rotterdam I buy the first edition of ‘Transworld Snowboarding’. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The magazine showed soon-to-be-hero’s like Terry Kidwell, Craig Kelly and Bert Lamar transforming surf and skateboard moves to the snow: jumping out of snow halfpipes and making skateboard moves in the air. I was hooked: this is what I wanted to do as well. I stopped skiing instantly, bought a board, and have been snowboarding ever since. The magazine showed a ‘World Cup’ competition held in Breckenridge. This ski resort was apparently one of the first resorts to allow snowboarders and even to host a competition with slalom courses and a real halfpipe. It became my Mecca for snowboarding: one day, I would simply HAVE to visit it.
These were wonderful times. It was the rise of a new sport. We were outlaws. Sometimes forbidden from going up the slope, sometimes picked on by skiers, and sometimes having to travel for miles to find a part or the board that you wanted. While as a skier I mostly skied down the slopes, as a snowboarder I now wanted to jump, do method airs in a halfpipe and seek the powder outside slopes. It coincided with me growing up, and doing my first trips to the alps with friends or with my brother instead of with my parents: I was growing and my sports were skateboarding and (a few times a year) snowboarding.
It wasn’t until 2007 that my dream came true. My at-that-time girlfriend needed to go to some meetings in Colorado Springs, and we decided to attach a long weekend with a visit to Breckenridge. We arrived in Denver after a 12 hour delay (apparently Houston has troubles dealing with snow fall) and checked into our hotel. Leave it to Americans to have the air-conditioning in the hotel room switched on with freezing temperatures outside: in the room it was freezing even more. A few meetings later, and a nice visit to the Garden of the Gods, we drove via the most slippery highway I’ve ever driven, to Breckenridge.
First impression didn’t disappoint: it is a nice little town with a good atmosphere to it. While my girlfriend took some snowboard lessons, I started to search for the halfpipe and make my dream of snowboarding in this Mecca’s halfpipe come true. I only found a small ‘fun park’ with some slides, so moved up and there it was: the more serious park with big jumps and the halfpipe.
And here is where it struck me: over the years, jumps got bigger and bigger, and halfpipes got bigger and bigger. I was now in the place where I wanted to be, only to find that the jumps and the halfpipe were basically too big for my capabilities. After all these years, I think I did one or two runs in the halfpipe, not even reaching the top of it. I wasn’t alone though: while there were quite a few snowboarders in the small fun park, there were maybe one or two snowboarders capable of dealing with the large jumps and pipe. It seemed that the sport was growing into a niche world where only a handful of experts, talented boarders, could enjoy the ever rising size of the jumps and halfpipe. Did the fall of snowboarding start?
Come 2022, and I find it difficult to find any halfpipe at all. Moreover, skiing has made a strong comeback with more freestyle or off-piste oriented shapes allowing skiers to do similar jumps and powder excursions as snowboarding, and ski touring is becoming more and more popular, allowing to combine people’s (and mine!) interest in both hiking and skiing. Snowboard brands are still making big money, but often from selling cloths that also the skiers wear. So in the last 34 years I witnessed a rise and quite a fall of snowboarding. Nevertheless I am grateful to have taken part in the rise. The times where we were only three snowboarders on the mountain, immediately sticking together and becoming friends, inventing new tricks, are times I won’t forget. But now, having small children, I am almost certain that when we do our first trip to the snow, that I will put my kids on skis, and out of solidarity will probably put myself on them as well and relearn skiing. But who knows.. maybe a new sport will rise in the next years, and keep us interested for another 34 years.
Ciao!
Robin
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