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At the risk of sounding like the old guy, i have to agree with your post. I think i was there to witness the first on your list, and it was by far the sickest thing i’ve ever seen on a snowboard. One of those moments that made me want to progress and ride all the time. The last five years or so, seems to be a progression towards something similiar to, ….well…… those aerial ski jumps they used to do in the olympics. How many spins and flips can you do? OR….how big of a rail can you slide and still do a switch back lip to nose tap. Last year, i got to ride a day with Tim Carlson in Alpental backcountry. Got stoked to do some bigger stuff in the backcountry, definitely inspiring. Sometimes the coolest thing to me is to be able to land the simplest of tricks on the sketchiest terrain. Lately….and i hate to say it…..been getting kinda bored in the park. Can’t wait for some u jump though. I think the younger generation definitely has the balls to do some crazy stuff on terrain, but the focus seems to be on manmade, artificial features. O well. Keeps the park crowds from taking my powder lines.

One of the most memorable things I have witnessed on a snowboard took place back in the mid 90’s on 7th Heaven (Stevens) chair. A guy was riding the lift in front of us. He was super tall, had hard boots, a 1 piece, and a Glissade longboard. Some of you may know who this guy is/was. He stood out. It was a good day and he was pretty stoked, turning around and talking our ears off, which was cool . We were stoked too so… He got on this rave about the Scorps, how he saw them live a bunch and was all into ‘em. He went deep into a story about Klaus Meine and how a fan threw a shoe at him and he screeched back”IS THAT VAT YOU VANT SEATTLE? EEES THAAAAAAT VAAAAT YOU VAAAAAAAAAANT.” The 1 piece guy was yelling this out now, over and over, and it just seemed like such a beutiful moment frozen in time. We were getting up over the rocks and he got off the lift. He bombed away and we went for a hike. We kept repeating what Klaus had said, and actually repeated it often for about a year or 2. It was a pretty dumb/funny incident to begin with, but when I got behind the guy again 2 or 3 years later on the same lift, it seemed like magic. Riding with some friends who had heard the whole story too many times, I was destined to relive it and share it with them. All I had to do was mention the scorps and out flowed the exact same story, almost word for word. It was so awesome to see the look on the face next to me. That one piece guy is my forever state of snowboarding. Bright one piece guy with hard boots, somewhere you are keeping that dream alive. And I thank you.

I’ll tell you what, i sold a nearly brand new 168 glissade for 225$…….worst mistake of my snowboarding career. That board was sick, and was responsible for my best Banked Slalom ever. If harvest/glissade comes back, i’ll be the first in line and i’ll stock up.

1. Danny Sullivan goofy footer. Silver Fur, Prob 92, get off chair skiers left between silver fur and bonanza. The big broken off tree that snow builds up on and makes a huge booter at times and jumps into Hogs Wild or back. Super fast huge tailbone method into the tree dunk! and then catches a landing 20 ft done on the backside of a mogul. The first time I saw a true Northwest Tailbone with a true Northwest landing.

2. Jeff Collins. Huge frontside 360 with a tweaked out indy grab staring back at me on top of Kings cliff while holding the super tweaked indy all the way around and sticks it clean riding a 153. The first time I saw a really solid technical trick off a good size cliff. Damn.

3. Scott Forcier. (a)Riding a black snow, Kamik boots, and a flannel. Coming in hot down tripple sixty face, hits a mogul and flies out of his boots. Which then obviously progresses to running down in his socks to get his board at the bottom. Good stuff. I bet that will never happen again to any of the new kids with their laced up hard boots. No way your coming out of those. The first time i saw something very funny at the ski hill.
(b)Also a good one from scott. Super tweaked lein backside grab between the trees at the top of Bonanza chair right under the lift(maybe called the Great Wall), at night, into the ice, on ski club and in the 9th grade. Me on chair. 10 seconds before pulling a between the legs backside grab method (Roast Beef for the children) off the same booter. Food Grabs. Where have they gone.

4. Also have to throw in Elan for the first time i saw someone effortlessly molest the gnarliest stuff at alpental without slowing down. Huge cliffs, charging steeps, and did a 720 all in one run. Prob 93 or 94. Also riding like a 180 glissade i believe. woo hoo.

this year i was ridin with my roomate, whos a skiier, but he charges big mountain shit. his brother is zack barrett. hes a baker local and even more insane. anyway, we get up to alpental and i just say im gonna follow him wherever he goes since it snowed a foot and a half so everythings got to be good. so we get off chair 2 skiiers left and traverse high left around the bowl. we kinda drop down left of the chair and he leads me to this chute that threads these two trees which are about 4ft apart, then opens up and you have to cut right before sonny bono-ing off the other set of trees. i followed him without really thinking about it, but pointing 80-90ft, then between trees, was pretty intense. not much margin for error. then the line continued right, off a little 5ft drop under the chair just charging the whole way. and i see him hit this other 10-15ft drop that i wouldnt have seen if he wasnt in front of me. so of course i do too tryin to go bigger and gap to this little tranny to the right. stomp. the run continued to the bottom of the lift and we both had a new respect for each other. that was the warm up run for the day.

after that i ditched the skiier and met up with jr, ki, shane, some chick, and some other dude and they showed me some shit id never seen before in elevator. spines and all kinds of good shit. a good day indeed.

but as for that warm up run between the trees goin about mach 3 (mach 5 is top speed), i was impressed.
besides that, this is what else stands out to me:

-watchin clem ride at tahoe, when i lived down there. switch back 3 to switch back five over 50 then 60footer.
-my friend, unsponsored sean kelly switch back five off a cliff jump, through two trees in grizzly gultch 4years ago.
-danny kass somehow boosting 10ft out of a shitty ass kinked pipe at last years grenerd games.
-pete line air to fakie at last years holy oly. so huge in shitty/foggy conditions. everytime i see or ride with that guy my understanding of the universe changes.
-lucas debari at the sesh up at baker last spring. good sized/fun jump but he was solid at granite off that thing. i dont think he can fall. his pipe run at the snowrider thing was pretty impressive too.
-austin hironaka front ten in the central park last spring. you wont ever see me attempt a 1080. especially off a 40 footer. i get dizzy just thinkin about it.

but i would agree, most of the riding i have seen has been ballerina park stuff. even up at baker when i rode with people, no one was tryin to land switch or really spinnin off of much. or droppin off of shit switch or anything. laura his this pillow line that she was kind of sketched about. which was pretty sick. but i dont know. i probably just didnt ride with anyone enough to see anything……

speakin of baker im headin up tues/thurs. anyone gonna be there? holler.

oh i wanted to tell you guys all to fuck right off for telling swappy about the semi auto air-soft. my fucking fingers are still hurting from two days ago.

i’m right there with you if glissade/harvest/crap comes back i will being waiting in line with clem.

I guess you guys ain’t really been watching me ride, huh? …I’m still at on the razor’s knife cutting edge of all big mountain and freepark stylz, making all stand up and take notice.

look for me.

thanks.

i promise i will never try and look at secret surf spots in washington again. I will spend years and find them on my own before i try and cheat. oh my!

Bee Dazzle I don’t have a copy, Darrin doesn’t even have a copy he’s been trying to get a hold of the dude who took the shot but lost contact.

Duke I think you taught me how to do suitcase airs and Bertlemans(sp) respec