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Snowboarders trek to backcountry spots -- some of them secret -- for powder and solitude By
Julie Sulunga
Snowboarding down Tony Grove at what feels like Mach-80 as the wind is hitting your face making the skin wrinkle back into your ears. Hearing the snow descend down the same mountain sounding like small mice running down a mountain at a 90-degree angle. Turning or carving down the mountain past the trees that look like they have been there before the pioneers settled in Utah. It has been a good day as you reach the bottom and you have the rush of someone who has just caught air off a 40-foot cliff, landed it and lived to tell about it. For a snowboarder it is the best time to be alive. Lee Bleier has been snowboarding for about four years. He loves it so much that he is taking only six credits of school for the spring semester at Utah State University, so he can board the rest of the time. He does not have a job because he lives for boarding and saved up a lot of money in the off season to sustain him through the winter and buy a season pass to Beaver Mountain, a ski resort about 45 minutes from his house in Logan. He is not one who sticks strictly to backcountry or to the resort. "I suppose you could say I'm a powder snob," Bleier said. "I go wherever the freshies are and if there aren't any, I go to the resort." When he does explore the fresh powder of the backcountry, he goes to Tony Grove, off U.S. 89 between Logan and Beaver Mountain. In addition to Tony Grove, he goes to a few more places that he wishes to not name because then everyone would go to them. As he parks his truck off of 89 and pulls his friend's snowmobile off his friend's trailer he already has his waterproof pants. He then yanks his shoes off and puts on his Northwave supra boots over his two pairs of wool socks. He slips into his Sessions jacket and puts his Volcom beanie on over his scruffy hair. He shoves his hands into his 4 square brand name gloves and then hops onto the snowmobile and rides up. He gets to a good stopping point at the top of the mountain above Tony Grove Lake; his friend is with him so he will ride the snowmobile down after Bleier boards down and then they will switch off. They get more runs in this way but not every snowboarder is so lucky. Some have to hike back up after each run. Bleier does this twice in order to save gas. Now that he is at the top, he takes his board off his pack and puts his boots into his clicker bindings that are attached to his board. He takes a deep breath and off he goes down the mountain making artlines with his fresh tracks. He catches air off this 10 feet incline in the snow, lands it and disappears into the trees. Snowboarding was not formally introduced to the world until 1980 by Jake Burton. The first model of a snowboard has been around since the beginning of the 20th century when MJ Jack Burchett cut out a piece of plywood and secured his feet with a length of clothesline and horse rein, said www. Sbhistory.de. The art of the snowboard had a couple more tries in the 60s and 70s by some eighth grader, a dad, and a kid sitting in shop class. When Burton introduced snowboarding in 1980, it was called the winterstick. It had a reputation like that of a rebellious teen who is the biggest punk in school. The traditional snowboarder of the '80s had long hair, or dreadlocks. He was probably already a surfer and looked to snowboarding as something else to do on a board in the snow. It was very popular in California for these reasons, and that is where Bleier, from Ukiah, started snowboarding. He would go a couple times a year whenever snow would permit and when he could get a ride up the mountain. He moved to Utah because he heard the snow was "the best ever" and started to go to Utah State because he heard there was a good mountain he could really bring the progression of his snowboarding along. He hasn't left since and his stint at USU has been extended a bit longer because of it. Mike Lauder, snowboarder and sales representative at Norda's in Logan, said, "Snowboarding didn't make the whole transition into the winter sports area in Utah until 1987." Up until 1985, snowboarders still had to pass a test to get a lift pass at Beaver, and they had to do that up at Powder until 1986, Lauder said. The ski parks would make the snowboarder board around some cones doing turns to make sure the boarder wouldn't fall out of there snowboards. This was to enable safety on the mountain and if you failed the test, you couldn't buy your lift pass. Backcountry snowboarding could be compared to how surfers are with their secret surf spots, unknown. If they were known, everyone would want to go the there or try it. Tony Grove is a place like that for the snowboarders. In the middle of the winter, you can't even drive up there because the roads get too much snow. But, a lot of times snowboarders go up there in the beginning of the season before the resorts open up to get there first couple runs of the season in because they can wait no longer to get on their boards or to lay the first tracks in a place seemingly so untouched and pure. Amelia Adams has been boarding two to three times a week for the past year and up to four times a month the previous three years before this year. She loves the backcountry and feels there is nothing like boarding by yourself on a mountain where you have it all to yourself. "There is nothing but nature and you on your board," Adams said. "Nobody gets as many runs in as they would if they went to the resort but, sometimes the whole experience is worth the one to three runs that you get in throughout a full day." The stereotypical snowboarder has changed as well. Cindy Allen has been a secretary at Beaver for the last 10 to 11 years and has seen the transition. The few snowboarders that were around 10 years ago used to be rude and obnoxious. They used to go down the mountain so fast causing havoc almost knocking people down. Beaver had a couple runs that were closed to boarders and the snowboarders used to go on those runs even if they go citations. After Beaver opened up those runs to everyone, snowboarders stopped going on them. "When we didn't let them go everywhere, they wanted to go everywhere. When we let go them go everywhere, they didn't want to," Allen said. "It is almost as though they were defiant. Now there are approximately five to six snowboarders for every one skier that frequent Beaver Mountain otherwise called "the Beav" by both Bleier and Lauder. Cindy also thinks that all the snowboarders aren't all rude anymore because the typical snowboarder has changed, its no longer teenagers to young male adults in the twenties. There are men anywhere from there thirties to sixties boarding as well as children. There are women that are in their teens, mothers and grandmothers. Snowboarding will come that much further in the next couple of years just as it has from the 80s when boarding was outlawed and out of control. The whole binding system will get even better making it easier to get boots onto your board, Lauder said. There might even be a board with the bindings connecting the boot to the board so you can just step into the whole set-up. Children are learning how to board at a younger age than Adams and Bleier did so they are better than ever. They can do jumps and go off cliffs that Bleier and Adams only dreamed about doing when they were that age. "The little kids are becoming so good at the sport," Bleier said. "I don't know how much more snowboarding can progress." Snowboarding has endured a lot of barriers to be what it is today. Now someone can turn on a sports station such as ESPN and find a snowboarding competition on. Snowboarding is on the Olympics now and you can actually make a living off of it if you are insane enough to drop 20-foot to 40-foot cliffs. If the cliff thing doesn't suit your fancy than try boarding in a half-pipe doing 360-degree flips in the air. Snowboarding is pretty much allowed on every mountain in the country except Alta in Utah, Taos in New Mexico, Mad River Glen in Vermont and until recently Ajax Mountain in Colorado, according to an article in the Denver Post by Jason Blevins. Ajax Mountain is only letting snowboarders on the mountain for 20 days starting April 2. "Alta is privately owned by this guy who couldn't telemark ski on this resort when he first tried to do it," Bleier said. "It"s dumb because he couldn't tele ski, so he isn't going to allow snowboarding, it"s a vendetta." Snowboarding is just another winter sport that got the same stereotypes skiing first got in the sixties. Whenever a new sport is introduced into the gamet of life, it always gets harsh criticisms, Lauder said. "I was talking to this older guy on the lift one time and he was saying how all snowboarders were punks and I quickly asked him "Isn't that what people used to think of skiers when downhill skiing was first introduced onto the winter-sports scene in the '60s?" He didn't have anything to say to that," Lauder said. People of all ages and races just want to have fun and if they have fun going backcountry or on a resort, that"s great and that is why Adams and Bleier are out here. They can't experience the rush they experience snowboarding with too many other facades of their lives. "Snowboarding is all about having fun with my friends," Bleier said.
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