Snowboarding - U.S. Open
Snowboarding’s oldest competition retains its joyful spirit
The 25th Snowboarding U.S. Open ran at Stratton this weekend, showing the sport's growth, but also its original grass roots attitude and appeal.
Snowboarding’s Burton U.S. Open was staged this past weekend at Vermont’s Stratton Mountain. It was the 25th anniversary edition of this contest.
It’s rather hard to believe that the snowboarding U.S. Open has been going on for a quarter-century.
It has.
And it has evolved into a big deal, attracting the sport’s biggest names: Shaun White, Lindsey Jacobellis, Ross Powers and Brooke and Spencer Shaw.
Long before snowboarding was accepted into the Olympics, and before the made-for-TV Winter X-Games had been invented, there was the U.S. Open.
The event put Stratton on the world map.
It made Burton Snowboards a household name. At least in the ski/snowboard world.
And, it attracts thousands of spectators, riders and wintersports enthusiasts to southern Vermont for a week, transforming Stratton from a high-end winter travel destination into a hip, happening place.
Ever Thus?
But was it ever thus?
Back in the day, when my elder child Dan began snowboarding, snowboarders’ presence on the slopes wasn’t yet fully accepted.
Now, of course there are but four major North American snow resorts that refuse to allow them on the trails. (Taos, Deer Valley, Alta and Mad River Glen, for those who don’t know.)
Back then, riding was a rebellious thing to do. Snowboarders, who were mostly young males, banded together. They did radical things like sit on the trail when they rested. They wanted to do even more radical things—like jump.
They were resented, misunderstood. (And, often still are.) But they revitalized the winter resort scene.
Their propensity for jumping led them to build their own jumps. Their attraction to sliding over unlikely objects—like stair rails and picnic tables—led them to ride in unacceptable places.
Their growing numbers forced ski resorts to accommodate them.
Gone Mainstream
Resorts now spend thousands of dollars on building and maintaining terrain parks, halfpipes and superpipes just to keep these guys entertained. They employ legions of personnel to build and even hand-groom these facilities. They employ coaches to teach riders how to master these parks.
And, the phenomenon has spread back to skiers.
Ski makers completely changed the way that skis were designed, thanks to snowboard designs. Thus the birth of the so-called parabolic or shaped ski.
Ski makers now produce twin-tip skis that can be skied "switch" (backwards), and are for use in primarily in terrain parks.
And the parks themselves have been formalized, given ratings of "small," "medium" and "large;" supervised by park patrollers; and, in the grandest of parks, a special park pass for entry is required.
Park elements have evolved into elaborate constructions: rails with kinks; rails that loop; picnic tables to grind; jumps with 30-foot gaps—and larger; walls to ride up and down; and halfpipes with 21-foot walls that are frightening just to look at.
The sanction, of course, comes not only from ski and snowboarding resorts. It comes from the International Olympic Committee. It comes from TV networks like ESPN. It comes from sponsors like Red Bull, Visa and Chevy Trucks.
The Good News
The good news in all this commercialization and mainstreaming is this: the collegial essence of the terrain park hasn’t been lost in the shuffle.
The U.S. Open remains more of a festival than a contest. So does the X-Games.
The folks who gather at these events spend more time and energy celebrating their sports—and each other—than they do worrying about who wins. Those who actually participate in the sports, as opposed to being simply spectators, still gather in the terrain parks and along the sides of ski/ride trails to talk, tease and encourage each other.
Even the sports’ superstars are happy to just hang with the regulars.
My elder child has three times entered the Open. He’s a good rider, but he’s not elite or on the world-class level, and he’s never gotten beyond the early qualifying rounds.
But, he hangs with the likes of Olympic silver medalist Danny Kass and the others, shares the joy and they, in turn, share their intangible wealth: they offer advice; they offer companionship’ they ride with the regulars.
And, that’s what makes the Open—and those who participate in it—different. Hopefully, that’ll never change.
