Category Archives: Opinion/Debate

The new 22ft Shaun White Super Pipe  opened this weekend at Northstar Resort. You may remember the big news over the summer when Northstar announced that they had signed Shaun White to a lucrative sponsorship deal. As part of the deal the pipe is now officially referred to as The Shaun White Super Pipe. “I’m super stoked” remarked White, ” Although I live in the Hollywood Hills it really doesn’t take me long to drive up here in my Lamborghini which is why I rock both NorCal and SoCal diecuts on the Lambo. I’ve always been a huge fan of  Park City wait I mean  Northstar and since they offered me the most cash I’m really stoked to tell others how much I love them.”   Shaun, in collaboration with his sponsor Target, have gone through greats pains to personalize the new pipe. “I really wanted something new and unique to really shows my sense of style. The great folks behind my Shaun White clothing line and Target were able to come together and create a totally new process that actually allows us to “paint” the halfpipe with some really cool original ideas. I don’t know how they do it but it is really sick to see. I love art and expressing myself and so do the designers behind my brand. Coming at something with a fresh and original take is really crucial to the creative process that’s  why me and my team  are really excited about this opportunity.  I really hope the new artwork inspires everyone to shred hard.” says Shaun.

We here at burritosandsnow.com were given a special sneak peek at Shaun and Target’s new original halfpipe artwork  and you can scroll down to check it out…….

*Disclaimer .. obviously this entire post (except the fact that there really IS a Shaun White Super Pipe opening at Northstar this weekend) is complete fiction. All Shaun White quotes are fictional and if you don’t get the joke you can check out this little article here. This is not the Northstar Pipe its a shot taken by Sasha Florin of a pipe in Europaland. You can view Sasha’s work here.

Ok by now most everyone has had to have seen the Snowbasin vid that was released yesterday. What I’ve linked here is the new “longer/unedited” version which helps to show the “infraction” that our boarding buddy was stopped for. If you haven t seen it here’s the clip….

First let me address the video directly and then let me branch off into what the title of this post alludes to. As far as the video goes to be honest this sort of thing happens daily at almost every resort in the United States and probably the world. To have a knee jerk reaction and start spamming the Snowbasin Facebook page saying that you are going to boycott the resort is just silly. If that’s the case you better invest in a split board and take to hiking be cause you WILL run out of resorts to ride if you want to boycott every resort that has such an incident. Secondly yes the situation was heated at the onset but honestly that’s how these things need to go down. If you’re the power of authority of must assert that power from the get go to gain control of the situation. That’s what happened here and if you notice by the end its a much less confrontational  scenario (language aside). Basin is far from my normal resort but I have gotten up there a few times in the past two seasons  and I’ll say from personal experience I’ve never had any sort of run in with their patrol even in this area of the mountain. So yeah sometimes shit happens lets all learn from it and move forward and that brings me to the more important portion of this piece….

In watching the extended version above I don’t think there is any snowboarder on the planet that would think there was anything done here to call for getting “pulled over” much less getting a pass pulled. However that doesn’t mean that the ski-patrol was in the wrong. My point here is that if patrolman BELIEVED the kid was out of control or whatever then he naturally would pull him over. That’s not to say I agree with that but its a pivotal point you must understand to follow the crux of my following argument. Its no wonder that the patrol person was older or that the instructor was a skier. What this comes down to is that there is a huge portion of resort personnel that are totally clueless about how the younger generation of snowboarders and skiers ride the mountain. You can see here in the above clip all of the side hits and rollers that have obviously been sessioned by numerous people (believe me I know exactly where this is and these little spots get hammered daily ) yet both the instructor standing right on a small side hit and the one that flagged our skinny pant protagonist down obviously have zero clue as to its use.  Perception dictates reality and if they perceive him as out of control then he is. Honestly you can see the amount of area it takes him to see the second instructor and then stop and it’s not that far so obviously he was not going very fast. Ive seen this all over my home mountain as well. Middle aged or at least “non-core”  (for lack of a better term) instructors that teach their classes some incredibly dangerous tactics such as coming out of the woods at the bottom of a roller or going through the park “just to look” just to name a couple of examples. As more and more resorts move towards modeling their resort to attract a younger demographic ( that’s a real fancy way to say “build more parks”) instructors, patrollers, and other resort personal need to make the move to better understand the culture and the riding style of this younger generation be they skier or boarder (hopefully boarder haha) . First and foremost to understand that they as patrollers and instructors  are engaging in dangerous acts (like stopping on the back side of rollers) and more importantly they are passing their lack of knowledge and dangerous behaviours on to those they teach. As the world changes we are faced with the realization that we must learn new things in order to “survive” the new world. Ski patrollers and instructors are no exception to this rule and it is time an effort is made by resorts to educate their personnel accordingly. If our patrol friend in the Snowbasin clip had such knowledge he most likely would have never engaged the kid to begin with.  I’m not asking for patrollers to start learning switch fives I just want them to understand that just because I am trying to learn them doesn’t mean I’m out of control.  As we can see from the Snowbasin incident failure to do this can have swift and dire ramifications in the court of public opinion.

Have you noticed a profound shift in the dynamics of snowboarding over the last two to three years? What used to be solely a winter activity has now become a year round spectacle. Yes obviously its ALWAYS snowed in the Southern Hemisphere during our summer, and Mt Hood snow camps didnt just spring up over the last few years but there was a time not too long ago where you really didnt HEAR about them too much. Obviously the main culprit is the internet and the instafication of our world in general but thats not the only place to see the evolution of snowboarding into a full year sport. Indoor snowparks and snowflex outdoor summer parks are another aspect of how our sport is becoming less dependant on November through April. You can also see it in your local shops. Here in SLC Never Summer, Capita, Lib, Ride and K2 product is already on the shelf in some spots. Movies are premiering earlier and earlier with July 19th being the first big premiere this season in Hood with Think Thanks Ransack Rebellion.  Companies ,camps, and film crews are all noticing and taking advantage of this new “trend” in snowboarding. Continuous edits, team camp sessions, and well timed weekly teasers are all now part of the summer regimen. So what does this mean to you? Well either it helps sooth the withdrawals a bit or maybe it increases your desire to see the snow fly, probably you, like me, fall somewhere in the middle. So what does this mean for snowboarding? Well I think anything that keeps snowboarding in the limelight is a good thing, good for sales, good for growth, and good  for the progression of the sport. How long till Winter X Southern Hemi? Enjoy the rest of your summer (the days are already getting shorter … isnt it EXCITING!)

Both Think Thank and Capita are releasing installment clips to promote their respective films

Snowboarder Magazine is highlighting the HCSC Diggers in a series of vids .. heres the first one

Windells is posting session recaps each week .. heres the latest for Session 2

Hell even Yobeats normal summer skate edits and firing squad battles have taken a back seat for snowboarding at the end of this epic west coast winter

So hopefully all of his will help make the summer a bit less painful for you. Remember its only a few short weeks until September when those first snows start to fly and  everyone gets their jib hikes on … well if youre lucky enough to have figured out you need to be living out west that is.