How Snowboard Parks Have Ruined Snowboarding
****Disclaimer**** You are likely at this page because you googled snowboard parks. I don't know if you were looking for the sweetest park to hit up this year or if you take snowboarding too seriously or if you were just bored, but since you are spending your time reading about snowboard parks on the internet, you are probably into hanging out in them. That said, you will not like this story. It will probably make you angry and inspire you to write me some dumb letter about what a bitch I am and how I am bad at snowboarding, etc. Please don't bother. I already know I am a bitch and I have been snowboarding since you were in diapers. Someday you will be able to talk about how much better things used to be too.
I'm a sucker for snowboard history, but usually I'm totally opposed to nostalgia. Everybody knows snowboarding was so much better five years ago, (and the same will go to five years from now), but I've finally been able to put my finger on one of the reasons why.
Sure, this park looks innocent enough. |
Snowboard parks. An evil, evil device manufactured by ski areas to destroy everything that is good about snowboarding. Originally, parks weren't built to serve snowboarding, merely to keep skiers happy by confining every snowboarder on the mountain to one trail. These days, things are a little different, as skiers now want to catch big air too, and snowboard parks have become "terrain parks." But this is not why they are evil.
First off, snowboard parks create a different type of snowboarder. One who can't actually snowboard, but rather opts to sit around the park all day and watch people hit jumps. Generally, these people choose to sit in the landings. They are not the kids who hike the park all day and don't know how to turn, just to rodeos. This is an entirely different sect of the population that has always been around. They just use to hit jumps in their backyards and on the golf courses of the world, with no masses to impress. It's these masses my qualm is with.
Do you think Tom Creamer would have landed this backside three if it was off of a wrap around hit next to a lift tower? Not likely. |
Next off, parks have destroyed the creativity snowboarding once harbored. When there's no park, any log, rock or mogul could be the sickest hit on the mountain. When the conditions were crappy, the quest was to seek out this singular fun thing and hit it all day. Now, when the conditions are crappy, it automatically becomes a "park day." Should the park be crappy, it's time to go home. There's no need to find something fun to do, because the kickers will be sick some other day, and why waste perfectly good energy riding something that's not cool?
And don't even get me started on park rails. |
Finally, snowboard parks make natural jumps look bad. Suddenly, people can land every trick they try because every jump they hit has a good landing. People never used to care about landings. If a jump shot you up in the air it was sick, and whether you landed on you feet or your ass was superfluous to the experience. Those were the days.
So in summation, the evolution of snowboarding is evil, and I'm pissed at Baker for ruining my fun jib jumps with their crappy park. The end.
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