bear mountain, california WORDS: T. BIRD
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nils mindnich
This massive booter was the marquee feature at The Launch 2012 and seeing as it was held on a run called “Gambler,� it was no surprise that Nils Mindnich went all in and kept upping the ante. PHOTO: MIKE YOSHIDA
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mark mcmorris Looks like it was another “banner” year for the sponsors of The Launch. Mark McMorris. PHOTO: HUGGY
I’ll never forget the first snowboard contest I entered. It was 1996, and Pat’s Peak in Henniker, New Hampshire had been hyping up the Big Air Showdown in the Turbulence Terrain Park for weeks. The takeoff of the jump looked like a piece of driftwood—it hadn’t been groomed in weeks and was iced over and rutted out beyond all recognition. The landing, however, sat in the sun for most of the day, so I decided that when the time came, I would go all out and try the hardest trick I knew. When those weeks of hype dwindled down to seconds before I dropped in toward that fifteen-foot jump, I was nervous. All twelve sets of eyes were on me as I pointed my board down the runway, speed-checked one too many times, and took off down the road to snowboard superstardom. Turns out that road was a dead end, at least in retrospect to my dream of being a pro. I quickly came to find out that my best trick, a tail grab, was only good for fourth place (out of six—one kid fell trying a spin, and the girl who beat me got lucky) and a $15 gift certificate to the cafeteria in the lodge, the value of which still left me $10 short of what I paid to enter. I immediately cashed my prize in on two chocolate chip and M&M cookies that I ate all by myself to burden the heavy blow my ego had just taken. Sad story, isn’t it?
jaeger bailey
Normally, shots of Jaeger are something we have trouble remembering, unless of course they’re shots of Jaeger Bailey. PHOTO: KEVIN WESTENBARGER
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sam taxwood
Fathers make it a priority to keep their daughters off the pole. Sons? Not so much. Sam Taxwood. PHOTO: E-STONE
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caden michnal
In tribute to Bear Mountain’s area code, Caden Michnal over-rotated this 900 just enough to make it a 909. PHOTO: HUGGY
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jaeger bailey
Due to the age of The Launch invitees, no rude gestures or gang signs were allowed on the hill, but we didn’t care much about Jaeger Bailey flipping off the quarterpipe into this boardslide. PHOTO: E-STONE
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Fast-forward a decade-and-a-half, and things haven’t turned out all that bad. Somehow I scored a job that (technically) pays me to snowboard, though my skill set is very much more reliant on how many words per minute I can type rather than how many corks I can do, and that tail grab is still there when I need it, albeit distractingly ugly and increasingly painful. In those fifteen years, snowboarding has changed immeasurably, and this realization has only recently begun to take hold. Not only have tricks become much more complicated, but the features that are the paramount platform for this evolution have grown exponentially in size. Tabletops are no more. Step downs, channel gaps, hips, redirects, transfers, and other peculiar obstacles have taken shape in terrain parks all across the globe. However, the biggest change seems to be that as I get older, the kids I write about get younger. The personification of this realization started in 2008 when my boss, Pat Bridges, wanted to extend SNOWBOARDER Magazine’s Superpark stage to a younger generation. We called it The Launch, and its aim was to provide young riders with the opportunity to showcase their skills to the world in an environment that catalyzed progression by way of world-class terrain park features and a magazine photo shoot with the best photographers on the globe, but ultimately, we wanted to introduce these talents to each other in an unassuming and relaxed atmosphere.
garrett warnick Garrett Warnick must watch a lot of television when he’s not snowboarding, because even when he’s on the hill he can’t stop channel surfing. PHOTO: HUGGY
cam fitzpatrick
The riders got scared when they heard there was a rock in the gap, but after further clarification, they realized it was just an E-Stone. Cam FitzPatrick. PHOTO: E-STONE
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hans mindnich
Despite the name of the mountain, the only wildlife we spotted on the hill was a Huggy bear running around. Hans Mindnich. PHOTO: HUGGY
stefan krumm Stefan Krumm should open a Kickstarter donation fund to buy a new back binding. PHOTO: T. BIRD
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jd dennis
Dare we say that this is a photo of JD Dennis doing a frontside “tree?”. PHOTO: MIKE YOSHIDA
With the initial Launch rider list, we hand-selected who we thought represented the future of snowboarding, and since then, many of them have defined themselves within the elite as Olympians, X Games medalists, and video part-producing phenoms. But perhaps the most important expansion (in our eyes, at least) of The Launch is our new Minor Threat issue, a single print publication that highlights the best riders in the world under the age of twentyone. The Launch has opened our eyes to the next generation that is soon to take the reins from those that are sitting atop the pedestal of professional riding, and with every step these kids take in this swift evolution, The Launch aims to be the medium for them to inform the world that the new vanguard is better than ever. Bear Mountain, California is a modern-day terrain park mecca. As one of the foremost advocates of snowboarding, Bear plows an ungodly amount of their resources into the snowboarding side of their business model, and unlike other resorts across the country that once strictly catered to the two-planked and one-dimensional elite that ruled the slopes in the early nineties, only to embrace snowboarding when it became cool enough to put money in their pockets, the mountain management at Bear has always seen snowboarding as more than simply a cash cow. Because of this, they were on the cusp of cutting-edge terrain park design, and they now sit atop the freestyle foundation they helped build with a dedicated following that flocks to their slopes every day of the week, all winter long. Clayton Shoemaker is one of the best builders in the world, and the crew of die-hard diggers that maintain Clay’s crazy creations are some of the most hard-working and knowledgeable in the business, and so when the SNOWBOARDER staff went up on the hill for a site check the day before the event kicked off, we knew they wouldn’t disappoint. Running parallel to Bear’s All Mountain Express quad was one of the most unbelievable Launch courses we had ever seen. Part training ground and part playground, Clayton and his corps pushed up a park littered with possibilities and able to lend creativity to every invitee’s approach. The most prominent feature sat on the rider’s left at the top. It was a true step-down road gap, unlike anything ever constructed inbounds. Its lip hovered forty feet above the abrupt landing and fed into a snake run that slithered seamlessly through a maze of quarterpipes, redirects, channel gaps, and transfer options. At the top of the rider’s right side of the course sat arguably the biggest jump built by Bear. Measured at ninety feet from takeoff to knuckle, the monster afforded any takers the opportunity to go well beyond the hundred-plus mark, and a session later in the week would confirm this hypothesis, as Ben Ferguson led a handful of participants off, up, and into the abyss. 75
ben ferguson In honor of the 2012 Summer Olympics that just came to a close, we’d like to pay homage to the city of London in this caption by saying that this is a photo of “Big Ben” Ferguson letting the rest of The Launch riders know what time it is. PHOTO: MIKE YOSHIDA
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spencer schubert
From the looks of the logo in the background, you’d think that SNOWBOARDER Magazine was kinda square, but you’d be wrong. Spencer Schubert. PHOTO: T. BIRD
Immediately below that kicker was perhaps the most sessioned jump at The Launch, a sixty-foot booter that launched the Launchers over an island cluttered with dirt, rocks, and trees. However, as dicey as the consequences below may have been, Shoemaker and his squad made sure it was safe, and the hit provided an infinite amount of stomps rather than slams. When exiting The Launch through the channel of the snake run bowl that fed out onto the main trail, a ninety-foot poppy sunset session jump sat in wait. With a steep takeoff and landing, the feature matched up perfectly and put the riders right in the pocket from four stories up when hit properly. The riders in attendance were a veritable who’s who of the soonto-be superstars in snowboarding, and their style and preference spanned genres from jibbing and jumping to big-mountain exploits. Mark McMorris, Blake Paul, Garrett Warnick, Jaeger Bailey, Ben Ferguson, Zak Hale, Spencer Schubert, Sam Taxwood, Caden
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Michnal, Griffin Siebert, Zander Blackmon, Zach Normandin, Red Gerard, Hans and Nils Mindnich, Broc Waring, Ben Bilodeau, Cameron FitzPatrick, Stefan Krumm, Erik Leon, Jake O-E, Matt Penny, Ole Christian Hagen, Emil André Ullsletten, and a slew of others took to the slopes of Bear with reckless abandon and fueled a highlight-filled week of web videos and the photos on these very pages. The core contingent of McMorris, Ferguson, the Mindnichs, Waring, FitzPatrick, Taxwood, and Michnal opted to take to the sky, while the battalion comprised of Bailey, Schubert, Bilodeau, and Blackmon chose the street features scattered about the hill. But no matter who was riding—from the on-the-cusp breakout stars to the young tykes a few years away from making an impression— every attendee of The Launch 2012 at Bear Mountain had the opportunity to ride in front of the group of talented photographers and videographers that were there to document all the action. Most importantly, they all had fun in the sun with their friends, and that’s truly what The Launch is all about.
zander blackmon Right after this photo of Zander Blackmon was snapped, SNOWBOARDER Magazine Senior Photographer Ethan “E-Stone” Fortier had a snack attack and tried to eat the Bear claw on the left side of this photo. Needless to say, it didn’t end well. PHOTO: E-STONE
Keeping with Launch tradition, at the end of the week, the staff members of SNOWBOARDER chose the one rider that epitomized what we aim to accomplish with this event, and it was none other than Hans Mindnich. The teenager from Vermont who showed up to The Launch as a free agent had a demure demeanor that couldn’t have been juxtaposed by his savage riding any more radically than it was during the four days he was on the hill. Hans lapped Bear from sunup to sundown and showed everyone who watched that it wasn’t necessarily about how many rotations you could complete but the manner in which the rotations were completed. From frontside three transfers into the bowl to backside five seatbelts and a slew of tranny taming and rail ruling, Hans had a hand in every session and emerged from The Launch with the designation of being the most dominant rider, and—from what we’ve heard—a few voicemails from team managers looking to scoop up this promising young prospect. In 1996, Shaun White was ten. However, at such a young age, he was an enigma in the snowboard world. He was oddly talented and so young that it baffled all onlookers as to how he could do what he could do, and currently, his influence can be felt all over the world (as much as we don’t like to credit the guy too much, we’ve got to at times). I’m not talking about the women’s jeans he wears while winning the X Games pipe, nor the red carpet he frequents with Hollywood’s highfalutin’ fame-mongers. Hell, it’s not even the world’s hottest woman he’s rumored to have been dating. If you erase all that from your memory (and trust me, it’s hard to do), it’s impossible not to credit the guy with giving young snowboarders all over the world the inspiration to one day be granted those same opportunities. Shaun and the riders who chased him have inadvertently ushered in a new era in which age doesn’t dictate potential, and that theory is showcased at The Launch in real time. It’s the embodiment of all that has changed over the years and the pace at which it did. It takes me back to Pat’s Peak, New Hampshire and the Big Air contest that crushed my dreams in ’96. It’s crazy to think how things have shifted since then. Now, there are kids who weren’t even born in 1996 that can do tail grabs while double corking, $15 won’t even pay for parking at the mountain, and as for that girl who got lucky and beat me…she’s a skier now, so I guess it isn’t that sad of a story, after all. E 80
zak hale & friends Zak Hale boosting over the Bear builders. [From Left to Right]: Desi Hauer, Dan Nielsen, Clayton Shoemaker, Justin Karrer, Greg Sebree, Bob Tonseth, Bruce Keating, Brandon Reppond, and H.J. Fergeson. [Not pictured: Jesse Hallstead, Scary Terry.] PHOTO: HUGGY
SNOWBOARDER Magazine would like to thank the following people for making The Launch 2012 possible: Bear Mountain, Chris Riddle, Karl Klouzer, Brent Tregaskis, Clayton Shoemaker, Rio Tanbara, Mindy Clark, Dan Nielsen, Desi Hauer, Lee Stockwell, Adam Ruzzamenti, Tex McCullar, Kirk Kaufmann, Red Bull, Ryan Runke, Ryan Snyder, Raechel Ball, Sam Bennett, Giro, Bob Scales, Chuck Platt, Dustin Vance, Eddie Wall, Jade “Jelly” McLain, Big Bear Vacations, and of course all of the riders who participated.