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What started out as a powder day on the mountain turned into a snowboarding session at the Cerro Catedral (Argentina) Resort junkyard within a few hours. The morning was filled with powder turns and cliff drops on chairlift-accessed terrain, but Mother Nature decided to warm things up and convert the powder snow to sun bake stickiness, so we dropped elevation and kept ourselves busy being creative amongst piles of discarded ski resort supplies down low. Snowboarder Jeremy Jones grabbed my camera, dropped in and shot this photo of himself executing a ’50-50 to dirt gap,’ one of my favorite photos from the entire trip. Photo: Blotto
When an architect sets out in designing a building, city park, overpass, or any other structure that includes public safety devices, never did it cross their minds that these long metal bars called handrails — sometimes square, sometimes round — would fuel an entire niche within snowboarding while influencing terrain parks worldwide. The handrail, in its simplest form, is the classic down-bar, a piece of metal running straight down a set of stairs used for pedestrian stability, and perfect for enthusiastic snowboarders. It was the early street-riding pioneers taking what they knew from skateboarding and applying it to the snowboarding process during the winter months that fueled a revolution. It’s absolutely incredible where it’s gone from there and hopefully this gallery shows you a little bit of that.
As a bonus, I included the trick names with each image, because you’ll get a kick out of saying them aloud, whether you’re the seasoned snowboarding veteran or an innocent bystander taking note of these freestyle fanatics risky life and limb in the name of fun and filling up video parts. Enjoy.
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