^—–Reagan holding our new little niece Clover

^—-Me, holding our new little niece Penelope

While NYC was having a snow day (our firm even closed early), I was having a little bit of a snow day of my own, enjoying all of the fresh pow that had fallen the night before. I took Reagan back country snowshoeing/snowboarding for the first time in her life. She loved it. I was so impressed by her toe touch, while wearing snow shoes.

^—-Looking down at Little Cottonwood Canyon from UT back country.

^—-”Flipping out” over all of the fresh powder. Heheh, I couldn’t resist, the pun.

Not long afterward, several other Resorts along the Wasatch range decided to allow those pesky mogul wrecking “ski-boarders.” The early 90′s brought in the Jim Crow-type of era for snowboarders. “Sure, you can come on the lifts with us since you are buying a ticket, but don’t get too comfortable around here, you lateral stance hip-hop loving freaks.”

What happened next, I still have mixed feelings about. Snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic event, which was kind of the catalyst for world acceptance of the sport. Before that, I think that it was still viewed as a passing fad, to a certain degree. It was so exciting, as a snowboarder, to feel validated. At the same time it was kind of sad, because snowboarding was losing it’s edgy nouveau freshness. Suddenly snowboarding was all the rage. All of the little silver spoon turtleneck wearing Austrian tourists were riding, instead of skiing. Those were the same kids that we got in fights with on the ski-bus bus in jr. high.

Suddenly the sport was flooded with tons and tons of money. From the perspective of a kid who had to save for months and months to buy his first deck, and who wore Sorel boots because he couldn’t afford Burton, it felt kind of sad to see the sport change directions so abruptly. It felt like the sport went from a bunch of rag-tag hoodlums to glitz and bling, over the course of a few short years.

After 2002 SLC, I embraced the new “snowboard culture.” I accepted the fact that, like anything else, the sport and culture associated with it, is an organic thing. I was a little irked at Park City Ski resort, that vying for the Olympic bid is what it took for them to finally open their doors to snowboarders, and buy a pipe dragon. There are still a few resorts that don’t allow riding. Not surprising, two of them are in UT. One is Alta, another is Deer Valley. I like to think of them as the dirty south good old boys of ski-resorts. Since Alta is located on BLM land, there is no stopping riders from poaching early season pow, before the lifts open. In honesty, I prefer the bird anyway.

Before this rant/manifesto carries on too much longer, I’ll get to the point. One of the things that I absolutely love about the modern snowboard culture, is that the roots rowdy originality that has always surrounded the sport, still comes through in modern snowboarding innovation. Only– now it is super deep with funding. The DC mountain lab is a great example of this. I’m sure that Ken Block isn’t the first dude to come up with the idea of a rally car-style snow cat. But since DC supplied the cash flow, he was able to make it a reality. When I saw this video, I was smiling ear to ear. Who else is getting stoked for snowboarding season?

BTW: all references to the American civil rights movement are tongue-in-cheek. This post is not meant to diminish the struggle for racial equality, in any way. I fully understand that the struggle for snowboarders to be recognized as athletes, can’t even be measured on the same scale as the magnitude of the civil right movement. So there is my disclaimer

Burton is one of the brands that is featured on SoJones.com. As a result, I attended  a couple of Burton parties last night for their fall video release (“B” Movie). I had an extra enjoyable time hanging out and chatting with pro snowboarders all night, since I grew up in SLC and have been riding since I was a young pup. These events are the kind that I dreamed about attending, when I was in high school. I invited Reagan to come meet Shaun White. She told me no thanks but tell him that I like his red hair, for me. Hahahah. Anyway, it was a really good time. I posted about it over on SoJones, along with mucho mas fotos. Check it.

[photo: Brian Mohr for The New York Times]

Nothing makes me miss the homeland, like when a national paper runs these kind of articles. Today the NY Times ran this article about Powder Mountain Resort. The author, Stephen Regenold (a two planker), spends the entire article rubbing in my face, all of the spring powder days that I am missing, while I sit here at my desk 2000 miles away. At least I can take comfort in the fact that some of our good friends are leaving this evening for a trip out west, to do some riding in the SLC area. I hope that they get in some turns for me.

[photo by trevor Little]

-I missed out on the Red Bull Snowscraper event yesterday/last night. I don’t feel too bad about it, since it was way too cold to be standing around outside for a long period of time (and I was working, kind of late). There is a rumor that it is going to be open to the pubic, before they tear it down. Really? That would be pretty freaking awesome.

-Where I come out of the subway at Chambers, it is one of those floor to ceiling turnstiles, with the cage-looking bars that works like a one way revolving door. About 50% of the time, there is a sticker (when I say sticker, I mean an Avery address label with a message printed in Times New Roman, Bold), on which is printed “Amplify Love, Dissipate Hate.” Pretty profound. The MTA scrapes it off about twice a week, but it always re-appears. Thanks, who ever goes through the trouble to print those out and stick them on there, every week. Even when I see the little grey patch, where it was removed, I am reminded each morning of the phrase.

-I finished “TSAR,” last night and started 1776 this morning, during my commute. I have heard a lot of good things about David McCullough, and I can see why. For a purely historical book, “1776″ reads pleasantly smooth, almost like a novel.

-I’m looking forward to seeing Piper awake this weekend.

Reagan and I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday we went riding at Mountain Creek. We arrived at the resort pretty early, and were able to get some good time in before it got too crowded. It had been a while since the last time Reagan did any snowboarding, so we just kind of took it easy, while Reagan got in her groove again.

In afternoon, we visited Piper. She was doing great. She has been really mellow, the last couple of weeks. It makes the visits a lot of fun, because she is content just hanging out on laps and playing with whatever is handed to her.

Sunday, I woke up fighting off a migraine, so I decided that it would be best, not to tempt it. I stayed in bed pretty much all day. I feel like it is probably a result of my lack of rest, over the past several weeks. Reagan was very nice to me all day, and made me crepes for dinner. Mmmmmm, Crepes.

The snowboarding trip was a nice way to cap off a pretty relaxing weekend. Which is totally what we needed, after such a couple of weeks. Reagan and I were finally able to sit down and have a meal together, talk face to face, etc. I hope that everyone else enjoyed their 3 day weekend.

I have been so excited to go riding tomorrow, that I can’t really stop thinking about it. It will be the first time in 2 seasons. I didn’t go once last year (redundant redundancy). Anyway, some of our friends came over last night and I made everyone watch snowboarding videos for about 3 hours. Everyone was a pretty good sport about it. Today, as fate would have it, we got a storm. In fact it is still snowing out side. How great would that be, to get a little fresh covering up the ice tomorrow? It will most likely be overcast with flat light, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could get a day like the one in the pic above (Jake/Snowbird/ circa 2003)? I have my fingers crossed for the sun to come out tomorrow. But in all honestly, I will take what I can get, and be pretty happy about just getting out, at all. Wish me luck. I haven’t been in so long that it is likely I have forgotten how, and will come back in an ambulance. Hahahah