Whether it's bending rules in the air (first frontside double cork 1260 anyone?) or in his genre-busting films, from Robot Food's "Afterbang," "Lame" and "Afterlame" to "91 Words for Snow," Germany's David Benedek has long been one of snowboarding's most creative forces. February 6 saw the official launch of Benedek's most recent undertaking, "Current State: Snowboarding" -- a book that is so much more than a book and a true testament to the man's talent. Written, edited and designed by Benedek, "Current State" is 450 pages, covering snowboarding's most influential characters, interviewed, exposed and assembled to offer a window into shredding in the here and now.
From Jake Burton to Mike Basich to Scotty Wittlake, the culture's architects, luminaries and harshest critics are given an intelligent platform from which to examine snowboarding, helped along by world-class imagery and design. The book is actually two full-sized books that are fused at the edge of the back cover (see photo below), which makes every epic spread into a four-page feast for the senses. Expect a design award or two.
Knowing that nobody else in snowboarding could have pulled off this project with Benedek's trademark intelligence and light touch, we hit him up in Munich to find out how he's feeling now that "Current State" is actually in his mitts, three years after he first started working on it.
Chapter four of Jeremy Jones and Teton Gravity Research's "Further Unplugged" series finishes a two-part story about a backcountry mishap that nearly ended in tragedy. The webisode catches back up with Jones, Xavier De le Rue and ski mountaineer Jimmy Chin in Jackson, Wyoming while the crew is still reeling from an avalanche accident that, all things considered, should have killed Chin.
The avalanche occurred when the group was heading back to the trailhead after shredding the Sliver couloir in Grand Teton National Park. The route home mandated riding a sunny mid-elevation slope. When Chin dropped into the pitch he set off a massive wet slide that took him for a harrowing 2,000-foot ride before spitting him out unscathed in a debris field of rock hard snow boulders below.
Jesse Burtner has been producing snowboard movies for well over a decade -- first with Jason Borgstead as JB Deuce Productions, and then under the Think Thank label. Nine years deep into the Think Thank volume, Burtner and company have released the trailer for their latest effort, "Mind the Video Man." Burtner's creative approach to filming and riding have created, or at least popularized, the mixed bag, ride-anything, with or without bindings genre of shredding. A perpetual student of the snowboard film format, Burtner is finding himself in the position of commenting on the constantly shifting landscape of the venerable video part. With the teaser out, we sat Burtner down to find out who the video man is and what he's got to say.
Who is the video man and how will he be investigating the state and the future of the snowboard video?
The video man is a representative of the snowboard movie and those who produce and star in them. He's a progression of communication technologies and methods. Also the video man is those of us who put our years into making snowboard videos, the rider who lives or dies by his video part, the guys that hide out in the streets, resorts and backcountry with their group of friends quietly pushing their limits and stumbling upon snowboarding's next big breakthroughs. In "Mind The Video Man" we'll be taking his temperature seeing how he is standing up in this storm. We'll be weighing culture against convenience and asking the viewer to "mind the video, man."
Supernatural Day 3 Gallery
Images from the final day of Red Bull Supernatural. Gallery 
Every activity has rare moments when the people who do it best turn it into something so beautiful that it becomes poetry. If you are lucky enough to be there when it happens, it is not something you will ever forget. The Red Bull Supernatural is not an event that will translate well into words. You have to see it for yourself. Even if you just have a passing interest in snowboarding -- perhaps you wandered over here from the football section of ESPN or clicked on this link randomly from a friend's Facebook page, it doesn't matter -- take out your phone and set an alert for this:
At 1 p.m. ET March 31, the Red Bull Supernatural will air on NBC. The event was filmed and produced by Curt Morgan and the Brain Farm crew -- the same people who brought you "The Art of Flight" and "That's It, That's All." It is not hot smoke I'm blowing when I say that, not only have you never seen a contest like this, you've never seen one shot like this before, either. Do not miss it.
American snowboarders Chas Guldemond and Jamie Anderson won the men's and women's Slopestyle finals, respectively, at the Burton Canadian Open on Saturday, a 5Star event on the TTR World Tour.
Anderson is the current leader in both the 2011/2012 Burton Global Open Series and the 2011/2012 TTR World Tour Women's Slopestyle ranking, after beating Swiss rider Sina Candrian and New Zealand's Stefi Luxton in the women's final on Saturday at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Aberta. The defending 2011 TTR World Tour champ is undefeated in TTR World Tour competition so far this season, with wins at the 3Star 100% Pure New Zealand Games, the 5Star Burton New Zealand Open, and the 4Star Billabong Slopestyle, all in August during late-summer trip to New Zealand.
Finnish snowboarder Peetu Piiroinen won the Billabong Air & Style Innsbruck-Tirol on Saturday at Innsbruck, Austria, throwing a backside 1260 mute grab to beat out Belgian rider Seppe Smits, Swedish rider Niklas Mattsson, and Canadian rider Sebastien Toutant in the four-man Super Final at the 6Star TTR event.
Smits was the biggest winner of the day, however, taking home the 2012 TTR World Tour Big Air championship title.
"That was such a nice surprise up there on that stage," Smits said just minutes after learning, from his perch on the podium, he'd won the Big Air title. "It's just a magical moment, a magical moment. It's so nice … It was an awesome contest and a great prize. So sick."
nomadda.tumblr.com/Red BullYou can try to describe the course that Travis Rice has built for this contest, but pictures don't even do it justice. The thing is insane.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Or, at least, when they decided to block a week out for a "weather waiting period" for the Red Bull Supernatural, no one imagined that the variable they would have to plan for would be sun. It's never sunny for a week straight in February in Interior B.C. And yet, right now it's bluebird skies with no snow on the horizon for days.
Red Bull Supernatural
A look at the pre-run, course-inspection day at Travis Rice's brainchild: the Supernatural Gallery
You would think, with a seven days of cat time at a private backcountry lodge reserved that everyone here would want to just rip powder laps, get their legs on, and have the contest go down later in the week when they'd gotten their bearings. But there is a fear that warm temps and blazing sun will change the snowpack, and the course is perfect right now. And so the contest is on. Riders shuttle up to the top of the run at 7 a.m.
The Supernatural was two years in the making. It took months of intense planning and log work to build out the backcountry freeride run of Travis Rice's dreams. As I type these words there are guys out in the dark on snowmobiles hand shaping the lip of the mid-run super kicker so it will be perfect come go time. And there's not even enough time to build up the momentum of hype. It will all be over before you drink your second cup of Saturday morning coffee.
Spanish snowboarder Queralt Castellet beat out Americans Gretchen Bleiler and Ellery Hollingsworth to win the women's Halfpipe finals at the Burton Canadian Open on Friday night, grabbing $10,000 after posting a Run 2 score of 84.73 with a run that featured a frontside 900, backside 540 mute, frontside 540, a backside air, and her first frontside 1080. That makes Castellet just the second rider to land a 1080 in women's halfpipe competition: Kelly Clark has been dominating the women's field with the trick for the past year, winning an unprecedented 13 halfpipe competitions in a row.
"I am very excited to win tonight as this was my first time at the Canadian Open, my first time landing a frontside 1080 and my first time winning at an Open," Queralt said in a statement after the competition. "I feel really, really good tonight."
In the eye of the hurricane there is no wind. There is no noise, no screams, no chaos. There is only the knowledge that the world is spinning crazily around you, and that it will catch up and blow you off your feet soon enough, but in the moment there is only a surreal calm.
Supernatural Load In
Who needs professional photography when everyone's got Instagram? Check out photos of the event straight from the phones of the people riding in it. Launch Gallery
At Baldface Lodge, nestled in the mountains outside of Nelson, Travis Rice makes a welcome speech. He thanks Terje Haakonsen for showing him how to dream of making your own contest your own way, and make that dream happen. Glasses are raised in a toast.
Eric Jackson checks to see if his latest Instagram photo has enough likes to push it to the "popular" feed, while DCP [David Carrier-Porcheron] bounces his baby boy on his knee and Jake Blauvelt and the two Marks -- Landvik and McMorris -- discuss which method of determining rider order is less biased: ping pong or ax throwing.
In the morning 18 pro snowboarders -- 16 legends and two legends in the making -- will board three snowcats, and all but one will see the Red Bull Supernatural course in person for the first time. They will pick their lines and mentally plot their courses through the Chutes and Ladders maze of backcountry obstacles.
But for now there is only a surreal calm, and the smiles that come from the anticipation of not having any idea what's going to happen this weekend, when the Supernatural storm hits.
With all the fancy corporate housing, cushy salaries, and catered dinners today's pros enjoy you might think the days of "The Hard, The Hungry and The Homeless" are long gone in snowboarding. But you would be wrong. There is a group of snowboarders on the competition circuit who do it just like our early 90s forefathers did: counting pennies, fighting over food, and sleeping wherever they land.
Call them underdogs or call them by the name this crew is most commonly known as: "The Rat Pack." No, it's not a tribute to Bogart and early 60s cinema stars. The crew name comes purely from them living like a bunch of ratty snowboarders -- because you can't put nine guys in one house without things getting a little dirty. These guys are driven by a love of snowboarding, and they are all, by far, the most hungry in the sport.
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- Snowboard Big Air: McMorris wins
- W's Snowboard Pipe: Clark wins
- W's SNB Slopestyle: Anderson wins
- Snowboard Street: Bailey wins
- Louif Paradis wins Real Snow Fan Favorite
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Another Winter X has come and gone. Here's what you missed....
- Announcing: Real Snow Backcountry
- Awesome: GT Memorial Noboard Race
- Red Bull Supernatural: Rice explains » | Gallery
- Triple rodeo: Watch | Interview »
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