Snowboarding has seen many changes over the past 15 years. Often times, we lose sight of our roots as we only try to peer into the future. Before terrain parks were a thing, riders relied solely on the natural terrain to entertain themselves. Nowadays it seems like everyone is rushing to build the biggest jump, longest rail, or gnarliest gap. That’s why we decided to switch things up a little bit this year at Brighton.
Brighton has a long history in the snowboard community, but I had no idea that this place had played such a large role in the progression of freestyle riding. I recently came across a box of old VHS snowboard videos from the late nineties and early 2000s — half the shots are from the Brighton resort and sidecountry areas — and it was pretty amazing being able to explore some of the areas that these videos were filmed in. Coming from Michigan, I grew up hitting rails and rarely had the opportunity to ride powder or natural terrain. When I first moved out here this year, I focused mainly on riding in the park much like I would have done back in the Midwest. However, after I saw some of these old videos and started riding in the side country with guys like Chris Englesman, Jared Winkler, and Seth Huot, I realized riding natural terrain had way more to offer than I could have ever guessed. Gone were the days of groomed landings and perfectly pushed jumps. Now it was all about finding a way to land in powder without tomahawking out of control upon impact
It is a totally different approach to snowboarding that makes you look at the terrain in a completely different light. Filming for this edit was some of the most fun and rewarding riding I have done all year and I can’t wait to do more. My hopes are that this series of videos gets kids stoked on migrating out of the terrain park, finding natural features and ultimately returning to the true roots of snowboarding.
