what I love about boarding
Introduced myself to this random group of guys (+ a chick that was absolutely holds her own against the boys) After lunch and few runs I got out the camera and shot away with them shredding up the mountain. At the end of the day when I stopped to get everyone’s contact I found that a few of us including the chick were randoms, like me, who met for the first time that day.
I love the randomness of strangers just meeting up and forming this ad-hoc crew. Was awesome to just see everyone pushing each other to go bigger and joke around like they had been friends for ages.
Yeah man definetly the best feeling ever..
This is one of the reasons I love Whistler,,, everyone rides at all possible times, and the towns so small you know alot of people off-snow. Its pretty common to be in a crew of 5 and only know 1 person,but feel like the other 4 are your new best friends. Some of the best pow hikes I had last year were with my roommates work friends, whome I barely knew, but trusted enough to follow them up some of the sketchiest boot packs, and down some ofthe gnarliest chutes+drops i’ve ever done.
Exactly, Here are some images I got out of that day.
Rider: Struan Purdie
While this page was loading I was forming my response to the thread title. I had settled on the thought that it’s the all the random peeps we meet.
My fav is meeting on the chair, usually when I’m boarding alone, I ask if the group minds if I tag along with them or invite loners to join us. I love those days and the stoke of weekend worriers and new friends.
These are indeed good times, and we share a connection with snowboarding that transcends a lot of things. I have felt this from time to time, but not much lately.
I find it best on opening day of most any mountain. There are always more boarders than skiers, but the vibe is great and everyone is stoked to be back on the snow. Lately I have been able to get this vibe from being at the dry slope in my area. Everyone is just stoked to be snowboarding regardless of the fact that it is summer time and hot outside.
What an awesome thing.
One of my best friends, I met on a chair lift. Now we are always boarding together. We ended up talking, we were both boarding alone so tagged with each other, it turns out we both lived in Auckland and even went to the same school! Which was really cool.
You can meet some really cool people on lifts 
chairlift conversations are absoulte winners 
I saw a guy at the gas station in town. He drove a jeep with a board rack and his board on top.
It sparked a conversation. I remember his name, and I just know that I will run into him again.
i love the fact that this is not a “protective” sport and everyone wants to help and give their views around what works and what does’nt (just check out this entire website and all the forums), so you feel like you are part of a community…certainly don’t see that in surfing…
It’s got a great community feeling to it as you mentioned pow wow but quite simply, if you’re on the slopes, you can talk to almost anyone without scoring a wierd look
I think the diversity is interesting.
As much as this is still a middle to upper class white kid sport, I find that talking to others on the lift - there are still very varied backgrounds and educational levels that are drawn to the sport. There can be more opportunities for other groups to get into snowboarding. The Chill program that Burton attempts to do this, and I dont know of any other program, but they try to get inner city kids at the mountain and learning how to snowboard - pretty cool.
Im a rather big fan of what burton gives back to community as they host different programthat teach disadvantaged how to snowboard etc.
The ratio of days riding alone and hense meeting people i don’t know on chairlifts and new friends made is pretty high. In fact some friends i’ve met on a chairlift with and gone for a shred with are really good friends i’ve known for years now. I agree with the comments about opening day too, there is a special energy on opening day. The NZ season isn’t quite over but i’m already really looking forward to shredding in BC!
its always funny when you do a season and theres some people that you ride with all the time and you feel like you know them pretty well
but you see them in the pub minus goggles and whatever distinctive jacket etc that they usually have on and you walk past them without recognising them…..
its always funny when you do a season and theres some people that you ride with all the time and you feel like you know them pretty well
but you see them in the pub minus goggles and whatever distinctive jacket etc that they usually have on and you walk past them without recognising them…..
I have a slightly different problem. I people on the slopes who dress like my mates and then find out that i’ve been calling out to some random guy the whole time…
I’m with CRACKERS on that one. I even miss people on the slopes because they were wearing a different jacket the the day before. Also turns out that a lot of the people I met that day are all sponsored riders. Just keeping up with them cross the mountain was tiring, they are so damned fast.