Both Marko and I own snowboards in addition to our (many) skis. Being the cheap bastards, both of our boards are some left overs from the Finnish snowboard pros we have known/contacted (through friends) over the years. We haven’t been even riding for ages. If there is time on snow to be had, naturally we hop on our skis these days. I haven’t even thought about riding a single plank for a while.

Then, one day I was going through some old pics on my computer. Damn, couple of ones from the year 1999 – the legendary snow year in the Alps – where I was riding a snowboard. Yes, I rode a board because there was not (or they were really rare) ordinary fat skis at the time. I needed to float on that one meter of bottomless, soft snow. And my Burton Supermodel 168 did that, giving those effortless, weightless powder turns.

Without having (that much) skateboarding or surfing background riding a snowboard was just a way to slide down the mountain. Actually, I still thought I was skiing. Everything was still the same: snow, mountains, lines, the feeling. I was just standing sideways. (Note: I understand that some people relate snowboarding more to skateboarding and focus more on the skate style tricks and maneuvers though. Good for them. In my opinion there’s always room for variety).

What I find pretty cool that these days even ski-pros like Eric Pollard and Pep Fujas are changing back and forth from two planks to single stick. Watch Idea from Poor Boyz Productions and you know what I mean!

This all made me pretty stoked to go try snowboarding again. Yesterday evening I waxed my board, checked the stance and angles and even tried to sharp the dull edges a bit. I guess I’m going to start this ski season with a day or two snowboarding. Before there’s any interesting features built up in our local mole hill I think I can get more kicks on trying to make some decent turns on a board again. That might got interesting, six years of hiatus on boarding must do something to your skills. Stay tuned!