Photo: Ben Gavelda
Ambassador Mark Car ter
PHOTO: KEEGAN RICE
FOURPINECOLLECTIVE.COM
EDITOR’S NOTE
Got a cold one in your hand right now? I imagine you standing in the Saloon at the Mangy Moose, peering into this long-awaited new issue of Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine. You squint to read these words–awash in ambient bar light–the lingering scent of spilled beer in your nostrils, and the sound of the live band rattling in your eardrums. Your homies are all around you, safe and warm, drinking in the moment. e vibe is high—exactly like the last time, and the time before that. You take another sip and settle in. Welcome to e Afterparty.
However you found us, wherever you picked up this magazine, we’re happy you’re reading it. e following pages are lled with stories written by other snowboarders, skiers, artists, and wanderers. Check out Randy Strand’s guide to the language of aprés (page 42) and Lindsay Vallen hailing
unsung snowboard hero Alex Isley and his 100th month in a row riding on snow (page 64). Take another sip and turn the page.
e Afterparty Issue is also about what happens when we take o our boots, or hang them up for good. Katie Lozancich gives us a peek at what pro snowboarders turned up-and-coming businessmen Alex Yoder and Cam FitzPatrick are up to (page 51). Mikey Franco tells us about his history in the valley, and how he has stuck the landing with Franco Snowshapes (page 78). We also have a story from yours truly about Tana Ho man and the very cool ILLA app she launched this summer (page 93).
All parties do come to an end though. We never know when our next moment may be our last. Jackson Hole is grieving the sudden passing of Rajat Balu Bhayani. Raj was an epic snowboarder and the legendary
man behind the bar at the Stagecoach. On endless Disco Nights he kept the party going and the drinks owing. He carved out a niche that allowed him to shred as much as possible and make it work in Jackson Hole. Along the way he made countless friends—probably more than he even realized. He will be greatly missed.
So let’s keep the Afterparty going. Enjoy this moment with your buddies in a dim bar after a great day of riding. Order another round, take a shot, and send it. Let another year of JHSM take you away.
Cheers,
EDITOR
Heather Hendricks editor@jhsnowboarder.com
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Olaus Linn olaus@sharpeyedeer.com
CFO / COPYEDITOR
Jenelle Linn
jenelle.linn@sharpeyedeer.com
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Deidre Norman sales@jhsnowboarder.com
DESIGNER
Bethany Chambers bethany.chambers@sharpeyedeer.com
DESIGNER Ryan Dee ryan.dee@sharpeyedeer.com
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Mark Epstein
mark.epstein@sharpeyedeer.com
COPY EDITORS
Mary Pat Walker
Ben Linn
Anders Linn
BIG THANKS
Sarah Christine
James Carey
Liquid Death
PUBLISHER
Sharp Eye Deer sharpeyedeer.com
ON THE WEB jhsnowboarder.com
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MAILING ADDRESS
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CONTRIBUTORS
Jack Guthrie
Heather Hendricks
Andy Lex
Izzy Lidsky
Lynn Neil
Olaus Linn
Katie Lozancich
Sam Morse
Keegan Rice
Joey Sackett
Randy Strand
Lindsay Vallen
BOARD MEMBERS
Halina Boyd
Mark Carter
Mikey Franco
Bryan Iguchi
Rob Kingwill
Je Moran
Lance Pitman
Julie Zell
COVER ARTIST
Valerie Black
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Bar SIP Bar
Pat Branch
Jack Dawe
Ryan Dee
Mikey Franco
Ben Gavelda
Jonathan Gipaya
Joshua Gri th
Kirby Grubaugh
Adam Ireland
So a Jaramillo
David Katz
Jack Klim
Izzy Lidsky
Kaya Morelli
William Nevins
Keegan Rice
Joey Sackett
Jared Spieker
Colin Wiseman
Sarah-Jo Wasylkiw
Woodward at Copper DALL•E
ILLUSTRATOR
Ryan Dee
EDITOR’S NOTE - 05
Heather Hendricks
THE LANGUAGE OF SNOW - 12
Katie Lozancich
DROPPING NEXT - 17
Andy Lex
RATED RADICAL - 18
Shaper Summit Board Testers
MEET SGHETTI: THE ULTIMATE APRÈS BAND - 22
Izzy Lidsky
ISSUE EIGHTEEN
ARTIFICAL SNOWBOARDING - 28
Olaus Linn
THE GALLERY - 32
Photo Contributors
THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF APRÈS - 42
Randy Strand
SETTING THE TRACK - 44
Izzy Lidsky
NEW HORIZONS - 51
Katie Lozancich
DRINK IT BLUE - 58
Keegan Rice
SHRED DEVOTION - 64
Lindsay Vallen
ALWAYS BRING THE POWSURFER - 70
Joey Sackett
SHAPING THE DREAM - 78
Heather Hendricks
RIDING THE WAVES OF LIFE - 83
Lynn Neil
IFYOU’RE NOT FIRST - 88
Jack Guthrie
SICK OF GOING SOLO? - 93
Heather Hendricks
ONE FOR THE ROAD - 94
Sam Morse
Valerie
Valerie Black’s artwork is an ode to the places that make us feel small
WORDS: KATIE LOZANCICH
The number of snow-covered trees on Valerie Black’s camera roll is too many to count. She collects videos and photos of them constantly when she’s on skin tracks deep in the mountains. She can’t help it. “I nd myself studying the environment when I’m splitboarding,” she says. “I’m constantly thinking: How would I paint this? ”
is determination to soak up every drop of her surroundings trickles back into her art, and her body of work is a snapshot of a life spent on snow. Her style is free owing and constantly evolving thanks to the variety of mediums in her toolkit: acrylics, paint pens, aerosol paints, and digital art. Full of intricate detail and vibrant colors, Black’s work uncannily captures that awe-inspiring feeling of being immersed in the mountains.
Part of Black’s talent stems from the sheer amount of time she spends on her board. “It’s so cyclical,” she explains. “I nd when I’m painting these scenes, I’m reliving being in the mountains and it feeds my need to go snowboarding.” Black is Canadian but she is always on the move, usually splitting her time between Jackson Hole and Canmore, Canada. Her snowboard “season” typically starts in October with some early turns up north. en, when the faucet turns on, this human-powered board fanatic heads south for the Teton backcountry. Mount Glory is one of her favorite zones, a place where she earned the title of “Backcountry Snowboarding Robot Sent From e Future” for her prowess breaking trail in waist-deep snow. In the spring she heads back to Canada to chase snow as long as mother nature allows—sometimes stretching the season all the way to June.
“I
e Tetons sparked Black’s artistic career. She rst painted the range during a casual paint-and-sip night with friends and fell in love with being behind the canvas. In 2016, an injury from climbing spurred this new passion even further, and she used the recovery time to paint as much as possible. “I blame the Tetons for my inability to stop painting,” she laughs. In 2019, she quit her day job programming boiler systems for hospitals and became a full-time artist. ree days after leaving her previous career she connected with legendary Jackson rider Rob Kingwill, who became an early advocate of her work. She never looked back.
Black has become a sought-after artist for collaborations, designing everything
from goggle straps for Avalon7, to nine di erent snowboard top-sheet graphics. “ e energy you get from collaborating with other people is so powerful,” she explains. However, her most unique collaboration was the “Temple of Stoke” starting gate for the Jackson stop of the Natural Selection Tour in 2021. “When I saw it rsthand, I had to lie down,” she laughs. “It gave me chills…and seeing the athletes smash their hands on the mural before they dropped in was special.”
Black had a vision for this year’s Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine cover before she was o the concept call with creative director Olaus Linn. Drawing from the Issue Eighteen theme “Afterparty,” the piece is an ode to that last glorious lap
you squeeze in before sunset. ere’s something unforgettable about that nal run back to your car. Maybe it’s the sun hanging low in the sky, illuminating each fractal snow ake with an other-worldly glow. Or it might be the forest coming alive with sounds of powder slashes and cheers of joy. No matter what, you savor each turn as you head in for the day.
The JHSC Freeride Program is Jackson’s only competitive snowboard program that offers training and travel opportunities locally, regionally, and internationally. We offer competitive level coaching in the USASA, USSA, and IFSA competition circuits.
To learn more about our program, camps, and events, please contact
JHSC Program Director Andy Lex
andy@jhskiclub.org
jhskiclub.org/freeride
Photo // Woodward at Copper Rider // Ace EmeryYou know the fantasy you’ve had about living in Jackson Hole so you can go snowboarding every day? e dream where you wake up and hop out of bed to the sight of 10 inches of fresh pow, ready to ride in zones that remain untracked for hours because you have the ability and knowledge to nd them? In this dream you don’t pay rent, school attendance is weather dependent, and your family is not only supportive of your lifestyle but they actively encourage it. Well, 14-year-old
Jackson native Ellis Swain has carved out that lifestyle for himself with focus and a hunger to progress his riding beyond all reasonable expectations. To put it bluntly: He is punching the clock on snow more than anyone I know. at dedication has earned Ellis the feature as this year’s “Dropping Next” rider.
e rapid progression Ellis made last season demonstrates why he deserves this recognition. In his rst USASA Nationals invite, Ellis placed in the top third in his age group (Breaker Boys) in halfpipe, slopestyle, and boardercross. Pretty respectable nishes for having no halfpipe to train on and competing on the big slopestyle course! Ellis is leaning into the work necessary to punch above his weight class in the coming winter season. He began last season working on cleaning up his 360s and 540s. By the end of the winter he was lacing up 720s. A few months after that he almost clinched his rst double back ip at Woodward Copper.
One of Ellis’s best qualities as a rider is that he easily avoids getting mysti ed by technical lines that perplex many more experienced riders. He has the ability to improvise stylistic
runs that span big mountain lines and manicured terrain park features. It’s like he has gured out exactly what he wants to do with his life and is pouring all of his physical and mental energy into the sport. When you get an Ellis Swain—an athlete that possesses natural talent and a growing work ethic—it’s exciting to see how the story unfolds.
Ellis: You were chosen for this year’s “Dropping Next” column because of how hard you worked last year and because of your endless drive to compete around the region. Don’t take your foot o the gas—you have a solid athletic foundation and your whole team is excited to see where you take your snowboarding. AL
Rob Kingwill’s Shaper Summit Board Test is held annually at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. A motley crew of shredders assembles for three days and tests hundreds of boards. This event is the proving grounds for our Rated Radical board recommendations. We sift through the results after the test to find boards that stand out. We keep the riders’ opinions in their own words, so you get an unvarnished take on what’s Rated Radical this season.
TESTER: KNUT CARTER
SIZE: 155
“ e Ark is one of my favorite boards to ride. For me, the Arkane made hard snow even easier to ride. For the icy conditions we had in the morning, this board was on point. Hard bumps had less jolts to my knees than most boards. e dampness was amazing while keeping control. ”
TESTER: VALERIE BLACK
SIZE: 144
“My rst impression of this board was that it would be too big for me and I shied away from it previously for that reason. It is a little heavier than the others, but I LOVED it. It rides like a surfboard; it has zero wobble and snaps tight turns. It’s perfectly suited to both tree riding and wide open groomers. ere is a noticeable dampness and shock absorption to the ride. I would love to know what this is like in a powder situation, I bet it’s funnnnn...”
TESTER: MICHAEL INGERSOLL
SIZE: 162
“ is board ticks all the boxes for me: traditional camber bend (Burton’s directional camber is only a slight rise in the nose), good amount of taper (18mm), and 8.1m side-cut for those good turns (not too short, not too long). A very similar feel to past Burton tapered/freeride shapes i.e. Malolo, Piranha, Landlord, Dump Truck, etc. If you loved any of those shapes I just listed, it’s likely you will love the Straight Chuter too.”
TESTER: KELLY COLLADO
SIZE: 147
“Super playful and had great maneuverability and responsiveness with my turns. I honestly want this board in my arsenal. Had a great feel on the snow. Was able to hold my edge no problem. Had awesome pop and was light, making jumping super fun. Decently stable in uneven terrain for the size. Moderately fast. Awesome surf shape.”
TESTER: ROB KINGWILL
SIZE: 156
“ is is a powerful free ride charger snowboard, designed by one of the most unique characters in snowboarding. e shape on this board is just about perfect, and the construction and urethane sidewalls allow it to ride like a true smooth operator. e graphics are a throwback and call out to the old days and the history of Mike Ranquet. Overall just a damn good snowboard!”
TESTER: REBECCA HAIL
SIZE: 151
“ is board is a stable table, baby. It will never let you down and you can dance on it if you want to with the peace of mind every party girl needs. It’s like if your best friend was turned into a snowboard. You know they’ll always have your back no matter what! Wide, long, and big– not what you’d expect to love but what you need to love. Can pop but also can lock and drop it.”
TESTER: ERIC DOYLE
SIZE: 158
“ is board has been dialed to perfection. e addition of camber and the carbon build add to an already great shape and ex to make a solid, fast, fun little rally car of a board. Could easily ride this 80% of the time, just leave it at home when you want to get jibby.”
TESTER: JEN FOX
SIZE: 153
“So playful and fun for spring and low tide. I love this board. Great stability at high speed.”
TESTER: JOHN REED
SIZE: 160
“I really love this shape. My son has this board and I’ve compared it all around. I like the camber and long sidecut better than my Westbound. I know it might not oat as well, but I’d prefer a directional version of this with early rise keeping the tail and sidecut from this board. ”
TESTER: VALERIE BLACK
SIZE: 148
“It’s PERFECT. Not only do I have the time of my life on the Dark Star, people bigger than me and way smaller than me have the time of their lives on this board. I am fearless on this board! It is poppy and stable; it’s so dense and shock absorbing, it’s like ying with absolutely e ortless steering. I want to borrow this one for a really deep day. ”
TESTER: JENELLE LINN
SIZE: 147
“I only got one run on this beauty, but it will live in my memory for a long time because it was so fun to carve. is board is super responsive, even to the most subtle of movements. It wasn’t too sti which I personally love. I could plough through deep, sticky slush with no problem. Very damp, very fun. Rated radical for sure!”
Members from two of Jackson Hole’s favorite bands have come together to form a supergroup
As I drove into Victor it seemed particularly quiet, even for a Tuesday night in o season. I parked in front of a house on a side street and climbed out of my truck. Echoes of Marcy Playground’s 1997 jam “Sex and Candy” wafted out of the open garage door into the cool autumn air. I was at Sghetti lead singer Bri Moore’s house, and she and the rest of the band were inside rehearsing for their upcoming Halloween show at the Knotty Pine. For the last couple of years Sghetti has brought a unique sound to the music scene in Jackson Hole. ey’ve played everything from fancy weddings to Gaper Day shows at the Mangy Moose. If you haven’t seen Sghetti at least once, odds are you’re living under a rock.
I cracked open the door to the garage and a blast of heat hit my face from the wood stove in the corner. e music swirled around me as I took in the quirky decorations scattered around the garage. Sghetti is made up of eight members: two percussionists, a keyboard player, a guitar player, a bass player, a saxophone player, a trumpet player, and a singer. ese musicians work day jobs as ski techs, bike mechanics, cooks, wildlife tour guides, and ski patrollers. One even owns a handmade hat business. e band formed during the pandemic when members of Sneaky Pete and the Secret Weapons and Rude Noodle started having late-night garage jams. ey quickly realized they had similar sounds that worked well together. e two bands became interchangeable when Rude Noodle covered a gig Sneaky Pete couldn’t play. In the past year they have combined forces into one big super-group: Sghetti.
As a ski town band, the members of Sghetti are skilled purveyors of après tunes. What does après mean–aside from being the French word for after–to those hired to set the mood for it? “It’s how my mom described smoking pot to me,” joked Sam, the bass player. “Like when your body is really tired, but your mind is still awake.” Après is about keeping the good times going after the shredding is done. It’s about spending time with your friends after a great day out together.
Anyone living in a ski town knows it can be tough. Life is expensive, you have to deal with tourists, and it’s dark and cold for much of the year. Supplying live music that’s catered to locals is one way that Sghetti works to keep the ski town dream alive. e members of the band have a cumulative 66 years of living in Teton County between them. Working seasonal outdoor industry jobs allows them to get out and shred as much as possible. Music is their creative outlet and a way to give
something back to the community. ey hope to inspire their audience to keep life light and have fun. “When the crowd is dancing, we play better.” I found myself moving to the music as embers crackled in the stove and the band played on.
We get real horny for the Knotty Pine. I’ll show myself out.
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IMAGES: DALL•E
The rapid pace of technological change can be both exhilarating and terrifying, leaving many of us feeling lost and unsure of how to navigate the rapidly shifting landscape. As new technologies are developed and old ones become obsolete, we are forced to adapt and learn new skills in order to keep up. But this constant change can be overwhelming, leaving us feeling disconnected from the world around us and unsure of our place in it. The machines that were once tools to help us now seem to be racing ahead, leaving us behind. And as we struggle to catch up, we can’t help but feel a creeping sense of dread about what the future holds and whether we will be able to keep pace.
The previous paragraph was entirely written by a machine. I asked it to write something haunting about the pace of technological change, and this is what it
produced. I have the eye of an editor and the soul of a writer, yet I can’t find much to critique in that passage. It is grammatically perfect. It’s a deep, complete thought— one that could have been pulled from any technology article in WIRED. The sentences are conversational and complex, including phrases like “both exhilarating and terrifying” and “feel a creeping sense of dread.” I could not identify this writing as anything other than human.
But it isn’t human. It’s not even exactly intelligent—the program that generated that text is a “language model” called ChatGPT. Language models scrape huge amounts of text data from all across the internet and scan it for patterns. They are then carefully trained by humans to produce responses to text prompts that are relevant, factual, and well-written. In other words: ChatGPT read a ton of stuff, looked for
language patterns and facts, and now it can spit bullshit back to you in perfect English. It’s not thinking about your question; it’s mashing together bits of all text it has ever analyzed and then forming a plausible answer from that soup.
This magazine is about snowboarding. I love snowboarding because it takes me up into the mountains where the cold air sharpens my focus and clears my thoughts. I don’t ride with music anymore because I want to hear the snow and the wind. Shredding is an action that takes place completely in the moment, at speeds humans rarely experience, and it requires balance, dexterity, and high-consequence split-second decision-making. We do all of this automatically, on every run, without thinking. Snowboarding is a marvel that only human beings can achieve.
e photos accompanying this story were also generated using an AI tool. e process is similar: enter a text prompt, and the program produces an image based on millions of other photos, illustrations, and artworks that it has been trained on. e results are occasionally nightmare-fuel: grotesque, cursed images of twisted humans with backwards limbs and horrifying grimaces. But more often than not, the program will produce a facsimile that’s hard to distinguish from the real thing. It can mimic any artist and any art style, and can produce everything from abstract works to photos. Not just images that are photorealistic: shots that are indistinguishable from actual digital photography, apart from small digital artifacts and errors. On a phone at Instagram-size it can be impossible to tell they’re not real.
What happens when these tools get so good that we can no longer tell the di erence between a real photo or video and one created by an AI program? We have built the entire economy of snowboarding–and the entire economy of the world–on the commodity of human attention. I’m already seeing the limits of that saturation; with so
much media screaming to be heard, I nd myself no longer listening. at saturation is going to get exponentially worse.
When I scroll through Instagram or TikTok I’m presented with content featuring other humans doing things. ese people are creating that content in the hope that I will interact with it, the algorithms will then favor their content, and they will be rewarded with more attention and, maybe, money. I trust that what I’m seeing really happened, but I fundamentally have no way of knowing that for sure. e day is not far o when people are going to start going viral for clips and photos created by AI. e attention economy will guarantee that they will be rewarded for taking this shortcut. You will see their images of athletes hitting backcountry kickers and making sunset pow turns, and you will not know the di erence.
is will break the attention economy. When any piece of media could be fake, without any way to tell, all media will be worthless. You might as well be watching a Pixar movie rather than a snowboard lm. Hell, at that point maybe Pixar movies will
also just be regurgitated automatically—an endless feedback loop of AI-generated plots and characters. Eventually the machines will just be copying themselves.
Now there is a haunting paragraph about the pace of technological change. Using these tools can be exhilarating: there is a wild joy in how mind-blowing it all is. And I can’t predict the future with any kind of accuracy, only speculate on the eventual end result. What I do know for sure is that computers can’t snowboard. ey can’t stand pressed against a frosty Tram window watching the cli s on either side of Corbet’s Couloir materialize out of the morning clouds. e only moments that can’t be manufactured are the ones you yourself experience.
When you go riding with your friends, that’s as real as it gets.
@olaus“You will see fake images and you will not know the difference.”
WORDS: RANDY STRAND
PHOTOS: ADAM IRELAND
Après means party. Well, no, it doesn’t. It’s actually French for “after,” but in the snowboard world, après is the party after an epic day. My friends Adam Ireland, Tristan “Teton” Brown, Veronica Paulsen, and I had the chance to go to Switzerland to do a short lm segment for Backcountry Access and Trew Gear. We were in Verbier–considered one of the best big mountain freeride resorts in the world–for three weeks. We did some amazing riding. We hit some fun jumps, hiked around the Alps, and rode down some incredible couloirs. But I’m not here to tell you about the snowboarding. is is the story of the après.
Back at home in Jackson Hole, après is where we connect with our friends after a rowdy day on the hill. It’s where I try to convince the local band playing at the Mangy Moose to let me hop on stage for a few songs, and where we cheers our glasses in the shared camaraderie of snowboarding. In the Swiss Alps, après is much the same but on an entirely new level. ere are dozens of après bars to choose from, each with their own electric energy and stunning views.
roughout our time there, we explored the Alps and met up with some friends from previous ski trips. One was a local named Mathias, who Teton had met two
years prior when he was skiing in Japan on a guided trip (something about an old sponsor, and some important lost footage… you’ll have to ask Teton). Mathias skied with us every day of our trip, showed us the local spots, and introduced us to his crew. He took us to a couloir on the backside of the mountain that we never would have been able to nd on our own because getting to it required a 15 minute hike, a traverse around the peak, and a short rock scramble. Mathias’ friends were true locals, and we had a shared love of riding big lines and celebrating afterwards, so we immediately all clicked.
On our rst day of riding–a beautiful sunny afternoon in the Swiss Alps–the lifts shut down and the après began. We found ourselves at a little log hut on the side of the mountain. From the deck outside there was a 360-degree view of the insane steeps of the Alps. People were clinking beer steins together all around us. A woman was belting out acoustic rock into a microphone, leading the crowd into doing shot skis and jaeger-bombs. “Santé! Bon enculé! Un Deux Trois Quatre! Ma Boucher!” We chanted as everyone threw one back (don’t Google that phrase at work). I looked at my friends and could see we were all thinking the same thing: is is exactly like the Mangy Moose! A few rounds later I found myself on stage with a guitar in my hand. I thought to myself–again–how did I get here?
I told the crowd, “Here’s an original song I wrote in high school.” I started to play the intro to “Simple Man” and the crowd erupted in laughter. It turns out that the Swiss have heard of Lynyrd Skynyrd too. At the height of the chorus I deployed my avalanche airbag on my back, and a woman holding a baby threw her bra on stage. In all seriousness this actually happened: Take a look at the photo. I was on the other side of the world, but felt right at home.
We made some close new friendships in the mountains and at the après bars during our time in Switzerland. On the last night of our trip we found ourselves in Mathias’ home, enjoying local meats, cheeses, and wines and talking into the early morning hours. We vowed to meet up again. He invited us to return to his place in Switzerland any time and we started planning his inevitable rst trip to Jackson.
Even halfway around the world, snowboarding and skiing make us more alike than we are di erent. We all speak the language of après and where we come from, après means party. RS
Randy Strand lives the dream one day at a time...You don’t even want to know what the 3 in his name stands for ;)
@randystrand3
“We all speak the language of après and where we come from, après means party.”
Izzy Lazarus is blazing trail for women in the world of splitboard guiding
WORDS: IZZY LIDSKY
PHOTOS: DAVID KATZ & JACK KLIM
Irst met Izzy Lazarus while photographing Teton Gravity Research’s International Pro-Rider Workshop in the winter of 2022. Given that we shared the same rst name and last initial, I was intrigued. Who was the other Izzy L? Watching her teach crevasse rescue techniques, avalanche safety, and wilderness medicine, I discovered she was a con dent, knowledgeable woman in the outdoors–the kind I look up to.
What struck me about this Izzy L was not just her ease on a splitboard or her high level of knowledge in the mountains. It was the kindness and comfort she o ered everyone, and her natural talent for teaching.
One morning this fall, we were both visiting our families away from Jackson and we chatted more about her guiding career, the process of learning to be intentional with her time in the mountains, and about how being surrounded by women in the outdoors is more than just representation.
Izzy grew up in New York City and experienced the outdoors through the ocean. She recalls wanting to spend every free moment at the beach. “I had no idea what mountains were,” she explained. “So I would argue with my parents about
the validity of the Adirondacks being mountains because I’d seen photos of real mountains ,” she continued. It wasn’t until she attended the University of Vermont in 2011 that she had her first experience in the mountains she had dismissed. “It was a really profound moment for me. My first summit was a tree covered knob in Vermont, and it blew my mind,” she said. Soon after, she learned to snowboard and she was hooked on life in the outdoors.
The concept of outdoor education became ingrained in Izzy through her experiences at UVM. After graduating, she worked as a lead instructor for experiential education non-profit Outward Bound. It felt like a professional extension of what she’d been doing in college. She didn’t see herself as a guide then, but as an outdoor educator. She hadn’t given the guide path much consideration. In her mind guides were tall, skinny men in khakis and flannels who moved through the world with an air of condescending arrogance.
She pursued her own outdoor education and dove into learning technical climbing systems. Along the way she began meeting people who changed her ideas about guiding. Izzy took an American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA)
rock guide course in 2015 in Joshua Tree, California, and met people who were guides but also weird, genuine people. “Then I met my friend Erica Engel, who’s a fully certified mountain guide. She was the 11th woman in the United States to do that.” The following spring, Erica invited Izzy up to Jackson Hole to try her hand at guiding in the Tetons.
Talking with Izzy brought to mind other women in the action sports industry I’ve met who’ve shared similar experiences. Representation is essential for many women to believe they can do something. Having Erica say “You should do this,” pushed Izzy to believe she could. But ultimately, her motivation to become a guide was intrinsic. She explained that currently, “no other women are certified splitboard guides, and I could be the first. I’m doing it for me because I want continued education and work opportunities.”
Izzy took her ski guide course through the AMGA in 2018 as one of the first steps towards full certification. There was one other female snowboarder pursuing the same certification. Since then a few other female snowboarders have started down the same path, but the number of
female AMGA-certified guides is small, and no snowboarders have finished their certification yet. So it’s a race between Izzy and a handful of other women to see who will be the first.
The outdoor world isn’t known for welcoming those who fall outside the usual straight, white, male category. But sometimes it presents women with unique opportunities, which Izzy quickly acknowledges. “I sometimes think, being a woman and working as a guide, there are many opportunities. More and more, identity recognition brings more clients to the table for guide services. But here and there, there are some ugly moments,” she said. Izzy recalled leading a group of three female clients up the Grand Teton with one other male guide. She had been keeping pace in front of that guide, and when it came time to switch spots, Izzy went to the back to tail guide. The crew continued up the trail and came upon two younger men at the base of a boulder field.
Although Izzy was at eye level with the men and wearing an Exum Guides hat and shirt, they called to her fellow guide for advice on how to get up the boulder field. Being closer, Izzy interjected to try and tell them the route, and one of the men put
“No other women are certified splitboard guides, and I could be the first.”
his nger up in her face and said, “I’m not talking to you.” Her co-worker and clients went slack-jawed. Finally, one of them said, “She’s the guide!” e men stammered apologies but there was no doubt: ey failed to realize she was a guide because she was a woman.
Many of her experiences have been positive and heartening. She reminisced about guiding an all-female ascent of the Grand with the SheJumps organization. She and the other guides had strategically dispersed themselves through the group so that everyone was moving at the same pace. She remembered looking down from the top of the Friction Pitch on the Upper Exum Ridge to several belay stations below her and only seeing women. “ at was mind-blowing to me just because I had never seen that. Not only were we women, but we were crushing it, you
know?” Izzy’s question now is not only how to create all-female spaces outdoors, but how to bring everyone into the conversation. How can we work together to make sure all are welcome in the outdoor world?
Her challenges in building lasting community go beyond gender. It’s always about the next big mission for some athletes and guides. eir lifestyle of constant risk can be heavy and tiring and–like many young people in Jackson Hole–Izzy has struggled to build friendships that aren’t based around recreation. “It feels like: If we’re not doing this sport together, are we actually friends? I have tried hard to have a life outside of the mountains because I want multiple avenues to feel happiness or satisfaction or just engagement with life,” she revealed.
“I watch some people totally shrug o the weight of being in the mountains all the time. at makes me question if I should be there at all.”
Part of overcoming that doubt has been working outside of the guiding industry. She is behind the cash register at Picnic in Jackson one day a week, and it allows her to make money in a safe setting with no risk of injury and no life-or-death decision-making. Being able to choose when to prioritize snowboarding and outdoor adventures, rather than it simply being her default, has allowed Izzy to spend more meaningful time in the mountains. ese days, she is genuinely excited to be out there. IL
You gotta hand it to Cam: he knows how to land on his feet.
Mountain town living requires ingenuity and tenacity—especially in a highly sought-after place like Jackson Hole. We’re all in pursuit of nding that perfect balance of work and play, and the formula is di erent for everyone. For Cam and René FitzPatrick, their ticket to success came unexpectedly in the form of a 1991 Circle J horse trailer. e couple scooped the trailer up in 2018 with aspirations of using it for more than hauling horses. After a complete restoration and a clean coat of cobalt blue paint, they transformed the trailer into a mobile bartending service. Bar SIP Bar has been going strong ever since.
e couple initially dreamt of a sloshy bar on wheels but decided to take their vision a step further with a full-service bar. Bar SIP Bar gives Cam the freedom and exibility to pursue his other career as a professional snowboarder. Filming and traveling demand a lot of time and energy, which makes it challenging to balance a traditional nine-to- ve job. Aside from a few holiday parties and summer season prep, Cam mainly uses the winter months to be on his board as much as possible, lming for projects like Day Job from is Is Us In. “It was cool for René and I to go from the service industry and take
this idea into our own hands and create it together,” Cam re ects. “Being able to fully focus on snowboarding in the winter is a treat.”
e Fitzpatricks drew from their extensive bartending experience to launch Bar SIP Bar. René worked at Teton Tiger as a bartender and mixologist for many years. “I have always loved to cook; mixology was another creative platform to combine avors and make something delicious,” she explains. René is the mastermind behind most of their creative cocktail o erings.
Both Cam and René are born-and-raised Jackson natives, and they know that making a living in the valley usually requires wearing many hats. “You can’t put all your eggs in one basket of being a professional snowboarder or skier, and you always have to be creative and create something of your own—I think that’s how you become successful in this town,” Cam explains.
For Alex Yoder, entrepreneurship is a conduit for activism. Yoder is a professional snowboarder and now the CEO and cofounder of Overview Co ee, a sustainable and ethical brand looking to make a di erence in the world. Overview has six di erent blends for sale online and at local retailers, and a co ee truck in Japan. ey also have a compact full-service co ee shop tucked into the outside corner of the Mangy Moose.
Yoder didn’t plan to run a co ee business. He only discovered a love for co ee a few years ago. e idea for Overview came about from a culmination of his experiences. He grew up working in restaurants which fostered his curiosity for food quality and sourcing. en he spent a summer volunteering at Cosmic Apple Gardens, an organic farm on the other side of Teton Pass in Victor, Idaho.
e major turning point in Yoder’s life came when he su ered a severe concussion while lming on an 80-foot gap in Mosquito Creek. After he recovered, he was no longer willing to risk another blow to his head. He shifted his focus from massive airs and cli drops to a more holistic approach to snowboarding—one driven by the stories and places we nd with our boards.
is mentality led him to take his environmental activism to a new level.
“Being able to fully focus on snowboarding in the winter is a treat.”
He drew inspiration from his friend Yvon Chouinard and the model Chouinard created at Patagonia. “Working closely with Patagonia for the last decade, I’ve learned a lot about clothing supply chains and the nuts and bolts of operating a purposedriven business,” he recounts. “At some point, I felt I could be a more e ective environmental advocate by starting a company that works within our global food system than I could with advocacy within the outdoor sports industry.”
Overview Co ee di ers from a run-ofthe-mill co ee brand because it’s rooted in regenerative agriculture, a farming practice that restores degraded soil and sequesters carbon. Healthy soil means a healthier planet. Co ee is one of the most important agricultural commodities on earth, and
Yoder views improving co ee production as a tangible way to make a di erence. “Climate change is an overwhelming issue, so it’s hard to know how you can help. My thinking is that we need to collectively change our habits, large and small, to make positive change,” says Yoder. He hopes that by focusing on making a daily ritual more sustainable, we can look at our other dayto-day decisions and shift to more planetfriendly options.
Running Overview Co ee has been as much of an adventure as his snowboarding career. “When you’ve spent two-thirds of your life developing a high level of pro ciency in something, it can be tough to be a beginner again,” he re ects. Despite that, Yoder has appreciated the journey and growth along the way. He worried
about how he would balance these new responsibilities with his riding, but his two jobs actually coexist symbiotically. Creativity and problem-solving are a big part of snowboarding, and they are crucial to running a business.
“In sports without rules—like snowboarding—you get to do whatever you dream up. And for a lot of snowboarders, there seems to be a fairly short distance between dreaming up a trick and then trying it and learning it. When you pursue all of these capabilities purely to have fun, it becomes a part of your being, and those experiences passionately inform how you move through life.” KL
Always wear orange for safety on the open water.
Keegan Rice’s new co ee table book turns eeting moments into lasting memories
My time in Jackson began in 2014, just a few months after I turned 19. I was young and stoked to share my wild new experiences with my friends attending college or back on the east coast. What I was up to felt unique, and I was proud to share my adventures. Back then I mostly used my phone: posting Instagram stories and sending Snapchats. I grew up with a hobby photographer dad and I took classes in high school, so I had a background in photography. But it wasn’t about that. It was just about sharing the shit I was so hyped to be doing.
I eventually stopped caring about Snapchat videos of underage drinking and bragging about how much snow we get. I found myself picking up my camera
rather than my phone to document life. Instagram stories and Snapchats felt too eeting. I hated that those good times were gone. I had brie y shared them with the world and then they disappeared. I deleted Snapchat, and my Instagram only still exists because I feel like I need it as a part of my job. I post there about as frequently as I call my grandmother. I should be doing it more, but sometimes it just feels hard.
is spring, I got an invitation that led me to a new endeavor. My friend Chandler Keene–who I met a few years ago in Japan–runs a guide service on the north island of Hokkaido called Stealth Backcountry. With Japan being closed to tourism for the last two years, Chandler
wanted to get some of his team back together, and a trip to Alaska had been on his bucket list for years. He decided to pull the trigger and bring along two of his guides from Japan for this North American shred trip.
JR Yamada and Yama, aka Orange Man, are both legendary Japanese snowboarders that ride for Gentemstick. Chandler graciously decided to bring me along to capture their Alaskan experience. e 10-day forecast called for snow every day. e mountains in Alaska are equally magni cent and dangerous, so snowfall usually means zero-visibility, and zerovisibility means no snowboarding. We thought we might get lucky and get one day of riding in. But the trip was
Whatever you do: stay in the boat.
booked; we were going anyway. We ew into Anchorage and spent a cold night in an RV rental parking lot. e following morning we began the journey to Valdez.
Every day for 10 days, we stayed up late drinking beers and whiskey, thinking the next day was supposed to be another storm day. But then every morning the clouds gave way to pure blue sky. is phenomenon is known as drinking it blue. You wake up to perfect weather after partying the night before, thinking you could sleep in. It turns out we scored the best weather window and snow of the season.
Picture the scene: 10 days in a 32-foot RV with two Japanese Zen Masters using snowmobiles, a bush plane, and a boat to access long runs of glorious powder. e only catch is: You don’t speak japanese… and they don’t speak english. Without the means to communicate with language, we connected via smiling, snowboarding, sweet reggae music, and what I captured through my lens.
I ended up shooting 10,000 photos by the time I returned to Jackson. I wanted to show the homies what I had shot and experienced, but there was no good way of doing it. An Instagram post would not have done it justice. Making prints and
having an exhibition could have worked, but there were too many photos to choose just a few to print and frame. In the end, I decided to make a co ee table book—a simple, clean way to present my photos and share them with my community and beyond. e resulting book is called Drink It Blue, and it includes 160 of my favorite images from the trip. It’s the culmination of my years honing my photography skills in the Jackson Hole snowboarding scene.
I started by choosing all my favorite photos that I felt told the story of the trip, and then printing them out as little 5x7s. I laid them out on the carpet and basically designed the layout of the book like that. Seeing them printed out made it easy to cut a handful of the B-grade images and narrow them down to the best of the best. en my good friend Carson West helped me set up the digital les of my layout so they could be sent o to the printer. I really enjoyed the artistic aspect of creating this book and I plan on making more in the future!
Buy your copy of Drink It Blue at keeganricephoto.com or at Franco’s Shape Shack in Teton Village.
@keeganrice
Alex Isley has ridden his board on snow for 100 consecutive months, but who’s counting?
Alex Isley has ridden his snowboard every month for more than 100 months. He ticked off that milestone in October 2022, and–for those who are bad at math–that’s eight years and three months of consecutive riding. Is your mind blown?
“There was zero goal of riding every month until I met this guy Ryan Halverson,” Isley revealed. The two worked together at Teton Gravity Research after Isley got fired from the Casper restaurant at the resort. Isley had given out a few too many fry surprises and free burritos. “Halverson was approaching riding ten years in a row and I was like, dude that is so sick, I wanna do that!”
Halverson eventually hung up his boots for the monthly riding quest, but Isley continued. He recruited friends to join him in the summer and fall.
“The winter months are easy, and the spring ones are super easy. Generally, July is also easy, but August and September are really bad, and you already know that going into it. This year and last year were insanely bad. It’s like snowboarding on rocks. You’re still on snow and ice, but you’re just dodging and weaving. It’s still super fun.”
Isley almost missed the month of September in 2020. He realized his peril in the afternoon of the 29th. So he quickly recruited another Jackson Hole
local, Cam “Burt” Lang, for a night session. “I thought: There’s no one that’s going to want to do this . So I hit up Burt, and I was like, dude, I’m in this situation where I need to do this if I want to keep this thing alive, and we have to go snowboard up on a glacier tonight,” Isley says. “And he was like: I’m down.”
The duo reached the trailhead as it was getting dark and made it to the Cloudveil glacier just before midnight. “We sessioned the glacier, and it was a full moon. The whole glacier was just glowing,” he recounts. “It had rained a bit in the valley that day, so there was a perfect layer. You could just cruise; there were no rocks.”
Other months didn’t pan out exactly as planned. He tells a story about early on, when he dropped in going way too fast, lost his edge, and slid the length of a couloir. He hit a bump at the bottom and popped up right before he would have slid into a field of boulders. “That would have fucked me up,” he admits. “I learned a lot from that one.” Isley, Burt, and Joey Sackett set off on a mission this past July that started at the top of the tram and ended with the trio bushwacking for hours to get out to Wilson. They did find three sections of snow, and that was enough for a few turns to keep Isley’s consecutive run alive.
Where does the motivation come from for his quest? Isley got his first taste of snowboarding one night when he was seven years old, at a local park in TK, Indiana, after a fresh dusting of snow. “My parents bought me one of those plastic snowboards where you slide your feet in. I rode down this little dinker of a hill, two or three turns, but I was like holy shit—this is it. This is what I’m going to do for my whole life .” But riding in Indiana was lonely; his family and most of his friends didn’t go skiing.
“I didn’t get to Jackson until I was 23, so it was a long time coming to just finally be able to be in the mountains and be here. It’s such a treat. I’m going to ride every month, and I just love snowboarding.”
Lindsay Vallen loves winter. She’ll be slaying pow all season. Catch her if you can. @itsmelinds
We certainly believe he means what he says.Photo: Joey Sackett
“This is what I’m going to do for my whole life.”
The power of powsurfing saves a big mission in Alaska from going sideways
WORDS: JOEY SACKETT
PHOTOS: JOEY SACKETT & KAYA MORELLI
Ipractically smeared my face against the oval window as we neared the Chigmit Range on the North of the Cook Inlet in Alaska. Our little bush plane, crammed with a team of Alaskans and Jacksonites, soared over the open water and then into the vast wilderness this past spring. White plumes exploded from the plane’s skis bouncing on the snow as we landed.
Our crew of five jumped out of the aircraft. We were instantly buried up to our thighs, hooting and hollering. We had a big
weather window and just a few goals: ride the Iliamna Volcano, avoid crevasses…and powsurf.
Standing 6,000 feet above our basecamp, Iliamna was no small feat to ascend. We started up the mountain in unrelenting wind and unknowingly found ourselves bootpacking on a peculiar rib-like wind slab. The slab popped right underneath Frenchie, one of our crew members. Before anyone had time to react, he yelled “Avalanche!” and pulled his avy airbag.
Luckily, he only went for a short ride down the slope as the balloon behind his head filled up.
We were high on the mountain and in a state of shock. After regrouping we agreed to change our ascent route. We hoped we had found the only wind slab on the mountain. Our new route involved a short ice climbing pitch, which split the group. Half did not feel comfortable climbing and the others continued to the summit. It was a strange day, but we
“Powsurfing reminds me of the feeling I would get while sledding as a kid.”Step 3: Go on big missions requiring lots of ropes. Rider: Barbara Cross Photo: Joey Sackett
Step 4: Take it all in. Seriously, all of it.
talked over our decision-making and group communication when we got back to camp. en we celebrated returning home safely with some powsurf turns at our little private resort.
Most of the crew had never ridden a powsurf board before. For those who haven’t tried it yet: You ride a short, wide board with no bindings and use the resistance of the snow to surf downhill. Our base camp was at the bottom of a mellow north-facing slope holding untouched snow—the perfect terrain for powsur ng.
I felt obligated to get a lap in before bed each night, no matter how big the day had been. Pow-sur ng reminds me of the feeling you’d get while sledding as a kid, that giddy combination of absolute freedom and minimal control. It energized me to run back up for another lap, even when my legs were jello after a 6,000-foot vertical day.
Our route up Mount Iliamna had now been established and the weather was still clear, so we decided to go for the summit again, as a team. We settled in and took a relaxing rest day lled with pow-sur ng rst. We left for our second summit attempt the next morning. Frenchie stayed back at camp; he had been nursing an ankle injury all winter and he didn’t feel up to it. He didn’t want to jeopardize our chances of success.
Four of us set o for the summit of the stratovolcano high above our heads. We reached the ice pitch, set the rope, made an anchor, and safely ascended the ridge all the way to the summit. At the top we hugged and danced; we were so happy to make it all the way up together as a team. Once the celebration subsided we rode 5,000 feet of soft turns on the way back down. We stayed far away from the wind slab area and kept to low-angle terrain. e riding and the setting were surreal.
Everyone gave Frenchie a big hug when we cruised into camp. He was thrilled for us, but we had missed having him there at the top. To me, he was the true hero of the whole trip. It takes a lot to listen to your body and turn back, and I commend him for making that call. Naturally, we celebrated our successful mission with some evening pow-surf laps, reveling in the joy of it all.
It’s funny: We set out to conquer a huge volcano, but when I look back I remember those moments on the powsurfer the most—laughing, falling, and trying something new. Carrying the pow board up the bootpack felt like the perfect way to end each day. I would often take a break at the top of the hike and look out at the sun setting behind the in nite Alaskan peaks on the horizon before dropping in. JS
Joey Sackett learned to surf in Wyoming. He might have longer hair than Olaus. @jsack_foto
Mikey Franco of Franco Snowshapes gives us a glimpse into his past and how he’s shaping the future
WORDS: HEATHER HENDRICKS
Aseason-ending injury ended up inspiring Mikey Franco to start Franco Snowshapes. e bespoke snowboard brand manufactures hand-crafted boards that elevate the shred machine to a work of art. How did Mikey become one of the most revered snowboard craftsmen in the industry? We scratch the surface of this local legend and get a glimpse into what’s to come.
Name: Mikey Franco
Age: 52
Sign: Capricorn
Years snowboarding: 38
Let’s start at the beginning. Where are you from?
Altoona, Pennsylvania.
When and how did you first get into snowboarding?
I was a skater from about age 10. en when I rst saw a Burton Performer, aka Burton Woody, I immediately fell in love. I had to try it. Mike Parris [who would go on to found Igneous Custom Snowboards in Jackson Hole] was the rst one of our group of junior high friends to get one.
When did you move to Jackson Hole and why Jackson?
I moved to Jackson in 1990. I visited with my best friend Mot Gatehouse [also from Igneous] for spring break in 1989. We had been teaching snowboarding at one of the few resorts in PA that allowed it. e reason we originally chose Jackson was because of a story written in International Snowboarder Magazine called something like “Sur ng the Teton Reef.” It was all about Jackson Hole and Targhee. ere was never anywhere else to consider after reading that story! We got o ered jobs teaching snowboarding by Robert Garrett, the supervisor of the snowboard school and the rst known person to snowboard in the valley [in 1980]. If we came back the next winter, we would be set. It turned into a 32-year-long spring break.
Tell us about those early years living and working in Jackson Hole. What was it like? How was snowboarding perceived?
You know, it was great, all things considered. Jackson was one of the few places that never really banned snowboarding. From what I recall, the McCollisters needed to sell lift tickets more than anything, so they accepted the sport so long as you had steel edges
and bindings. In a way, that helped snowboarders not feel like we had to walk on eggshells. Don’t get me wrong: ere were plenty of haters back then, but we had the likes of eo Meiners, Doug Coombs, and many other leaders in the ski community that stood with us, mentored us, and helped us forge our own path.
What kind of snowboards were you riding then? What types of shapes?
I showed up here sponsored by K2 from my time back east. I had a 154 Gyrator HP and a 177 XRS. I still have both! e HP has a short, at tail, big nose/shovel, and NO sidecut. e 177 was a downhill board with even less sidecut.
Talk about the beginning of Franco Snowshapes: When was the fateful snowboard trip to Japan? Tell us about your time with Taro at the shop.
It was January 3rd, 2010. e trip was to train instructors in both Japan and China for Burton’s Learn To Ride program. I had been training the Jackson Hole Snowboard School instructors and guiding clients for about 30 straight days on really hard snow, right up until I got on the plane. I had an old spinal disc injury from the early 90s that had ared up after so many days in a row riding hard-pack.
“Mikey Franco is so engaged in the culture, the business, and the pure passion of snowboarding. It’s really inspiring to me.”
-ROB KINGWILL, FOUNDER OF AVALON7
I thought the 20-plus hour travel day to Japan would be plenty of rest before I had two weeks of riding Japanese powder and training instructors. I was wrong. I could barely walk o the plane. My season was done, and I knew it. Now I had to break it to Burton and everyone that was counting on me that I couldn’t walk, let alone ride.
e Burton crew asked if I could stay for the rst week and attend the o -snow meetings. I did, and it was the most painful week of my life.
Seeing how much agony I was in, the president of Burton Japan at the time tried to cheer me up by taking me to meet Taro Tamai of Gentemstick. is was one of the most important moments in my snowboarding career. All I knew about snowboarding was American style and
American aesthetics. e Rocket sh was the rst board I saw, hand-painted and lacquered, sitting in a shop full of wild powder shapes, vintage snowboards, and surfboards. I’d never seen anything like it. Taro’s soft-spoken demeanor and obvious passion for snowboarding ignited a re in me that was smoldering in the excruciating pain of a herniated disc. It changed the course of my life.
When did Franco Snowshapes start? At what point were you like, yeah, this is it?
I left Japan early to come home and organize back surgery. While I was recovering, Mot Gatehouse and Michael Parris invited me to come hang out at the Igneous factory and make a board. While
I loved what Igneous was making, what I had seen in Japan could not be forgotten. I built my rst board with the help of Mot and Mike. I actually never got a single run on it! It soon found its way to Summit County, Colorado, to be ridden by another high school friend of ours, Billy Anthony. The following summer, I made another one. And this one was all mine—it’s hanging on my wall at the new factory.
I spent three more years learning the art and craft, following in Igneous’s footsteps, adding my own tweaks here and there. Finally, in 2014, I decided it was time to head o on my own. I wanted to go beyond wood sidewalls and wood topsheets. Again, I never forgot what I had seen at Taro’s shop in Niseko.
Can you tell us a few of your highlights of owning the business throughout the years?
ere are a couple of big ones. First, I didn’t realize how much I loved creating things. Being an artist, really. I’m still uncomfortable saying that, but I guess that’s what propelled me in the rst place. After all, I never made a single turn in Japan on that trip. I never got to ride a Gentem; I didn’t need to. I could see from the boards’ lines, the transitions from nose to sidecut, the tapers, and last but not least, the beautiful nishes that Taro’s boards were known for. I wanted people to have that same visceral reaction from simply looking at what I had made. Knowing, without even stepping on it, what it would do for their riding.
e second highlight, again inspired by Gentem, was to have a showroom that exudes snowboarding and all the love and passion I have for this sport and this community. I looked for two years and got really lucky. No one was paying attention to the empty cabins that were the former home of the Jackson Hole Nordic Center. I made some calls, asked around, and found a home for Franco at the base of my favorite place on earth.
I started the showroom and AM/FM Tune Shop in 2014.
How does the Tune Shop space help fuel snowboarding and keep aspects of the core past alive?
I think it helps fuel snowboarding by putting the boards front and center. Go
into any other shop in Teton Village and tell me how long it takes to nd the snowboards. Most retail shops have become more about trinkets, knickknacks, and souvenirs. It’s understandable when rent and retail space is at a premium. For us, our landlords have kept our rent very a ordable, giving me a huge opportunity to focus on the number one thing we love about our community: snowboarding.
For readers that may not know, where is your new factory? Tell us how that came to be and what people can expect.
e new factory is located on Lupine Lane in Victor, Idaho, behind Valley Lumber. It was born out of the pandemic. I was renting space from Kelvin Wu & Maiden Skis south of town, but we had agreed that when I reached a certain
number of boards, I’d have to move on. I hit that moment just as COVID struck. I knew it was now or never, and I began the search for a new home. Unfortunately, the skyrocketing prices in Jackson proved to be too much. So I reluctantly began to look elsewhere. An amazing friend, client, and mentor o ered to help us get what we needed in place to create our own factory. is new building now houses my shop, Highpoint Cider, and Sego skis! We’ve o cially dubbed it the “Makers’ District” as nearby we also have New West Knifeworks and Give’r gloves. I was wrong to be apprehensive about the move to Victor.
Having my own space means not being afraid of breaking someone else’s CNC router, or afraid of trying something new. I’m not afraid of doing it wrong. Now the sky is truly the limit.
Approximately how many snowboards do you think you’ve ridden in your lifetime?
I’ve never thought about that! I’d say between 750 and 1000.
How many personal decks do you have these days?
I like to think I have about ten until the day I come into the shop and every one is being demoed or ridden by a friend and suddenly, I have none!
Favorite shape and why?
My favorite shape right now is the Aluminate, a board I dreamt up consisting of a solid aluminum sidewall, titanal and copper topsheet, and a carvy, shortbread shape. I wanted to push the limit in terms of materials as well as aesthetic. Copper and aluminum have tremendous damping qualities and just look insane! is board
literally has no speed limit. I do, but the board does not.
What are your plans for this season?
Get out on my splitboard more, build another all-metal shape but with an anodized titanium topsheet and aluminum sidewall, and work on expanding our business.
Throughout the years, what is it about snowboarding that keeps you stoked and shredding?
Sometimes I’m not sure. I mean that in a good way. I got the chance to follow my dreams as a fourteen-year-old, and every day someone or something reminds me of that original source of inspiration. Like right now, I’m reminded of all the amazing people, places, and boards that I have come across over the years. It’s really back to my family. My parents may not have understood why I always wanted to skate
or snowboard, but they never held me back from following my dreams.
What else should we know about Mikey Franco?
I have the greatest wife on earth. I still have my rst car: a 1950 Dodge Meadowbrook given to me by my dad. I still have my rst cool bike, handed down to me by my brother: a 1972 Schwinn Orange Krate.
Parting words about Franco Snowshapes?
at I am eternally grateful for the help and support of an amazing family, our incredible community, and my generous mentors. ank you Jackson Hole!
D“Dropping!” someone yelled from behind me. I was sitting at the top of the halfpipe, eyes wide and muscles shaking, as I watched a rider barreling through the crowd to drop into the crazy thing. He reached the rst wall and shot up into the air, above the crowd. My heart stopped as I watched him. “ at guy is going pro!” someone shouted.
at young rider was Travis Rice. He was only a few years older than me, and he was already a god in the Jackson Hole snowboard world. By the end of his run, I was jaw-dropped. At the time, I was taking
a snowboard clinic with Rob Kingwill and I was struggling to ride halfpipe. Rob advised my parents that if I wanted to progress my snowboarding, my gear would need a major upgrade. e boots I was using for my Switch step-in bindings weighed more than ski boots. My dad reluctantly agreed, and I was at the shop picking out my very rst Lib Tech the next day.
at day, at 12 years old, I became a snowboarder. I was on the hill riding with my dad or friends every weekend after that. My dad, Tom Neil, was a professional ski
bum working in the tune shop at Teton Village Sports. I was lucky to grow up on the mountain, skiing in daycare every day. I learned to love the outdoors; nature fed my soul.
I was also passionate about gure skating and began traveling nationwide. When I was a freshman in highschool I moved away from home to pursue gure skating at the next level. My friend Elaine drove us both up to Crystal Mountain almost every weekend to shred. When we were out snowboarding I was free from the pressures of school, gure skating, and reality. ere was nothing like that feeling, and I knew I needed more.
I moved back home to Jackson for my last three years of high school and joined the Jackson Hole Ski & Snowboard Club Snowboard Team with the goal of getting good enough to compete. ere were other
girls on the team, and we fed o each other. Competing was always fun—meeting new people, seeing old friends, and winning prizes and money. It was a world I wanted to be in. I won the Crested Butte Extremes in the junior category and Winterstick Snowboards was the event’s main sponsor. I won a board and Winterstick called me the next fall to ask if I wanted to ride for them. e feeling of landing my rst sponsorship was unreal. I had dreamed of that moment ever since watching Travis in that halfpipe years before.
My love of snowboarding continued to grow as I grew as a person. I met the president of the Weber State University Ski Club while studying there. She invited me to partner with her to start the Snowboard Club, a club that is still actively running today! I hired my boyfriend, Dustin, as our assistant coach and he absolutely loved coaching the students. I became even
more obsessed with snowboarding and decided I couldn’t pursue competition and school at the same time. I graduated with my Associate’s Degree and called it good. en I dove head rst into the world of competitive snowboarding.
Dustin and I created a program for young athletes to come live with us and train called the Wasatch Project. Dustin coached them, and I made sure they were doing their homework. We met so many awesome kids, including future Olympians Jessika Jensen and Red Gerard.
I was competing in boardercross races and loved the adrenaline rush. I was invited to Gold Camp at Mt. Hood to train with the U.S. Team. I raced in events like the Grand Prix and World Cup, and I started entering slopestyle events. My park skills were rapidly improving, and I eventually traded my race board for a freestyle deck.
Snowboarding took me all over the world, competing in events like the Dew Tour and the Burton Open. I even tried to qualify for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia. I traveled to the World Cup in Spain that year which was my shot to make the Olympic team. I spent all my savings on the trip, only to have the event get canceled due to foggy weather.
It was a rough life being a competitive snowboarder without a travel budget. I also spent a lot of money at the emergency room: I had three ACL surgeries, a broken neck, dislocated elbow, broken back, and various other injuries.
Eventually I decided to step away from slopestyle competition. I convinced Dustin to move to Salt Lake City so I could shred Snowbird daily and compete in Big Mountain events. I got a job at Cli Rentals and had tons of phenomenal days riding pow. Life was good. But one day I insisted Dustin go to the doctor to get
an odd symptom checked out. He ended up getting diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. It was the spring of 2016 and our world had ipped upside down.
I stopped competing and got a job at Natural Grocers so we could a ord vitamins and healthy organic food. We eloped to the hills of Sandy, Utah, and after 15 years of dating we were nally husband and wife. A year later we had a baby boy and named him Kiran, which means “Ray of Light.”
Fourteen months after that, Dustin lost his battle with cancer and the Great Spirit took him. My world crumbled. If it weren’t for Kiran, I wouldn’t have been able to go on.
e pain of that loss still hurts, but our son lls my heart. I had dreamed of growing old with Dustin, having two kids close in age, getting back to competing, and traveling the world as a family. But now he was gone and I knew I had to move on, with him in my heart. e emptiness will never fully go away, but some days it hurts less.
e past four years have been the hardest I’ve ever endured. In August 2021, my best friend, Jenna, passed away unexpectedly due to complications with alcohol. Ten days later, my dad took his own life. Our family was shocked and broken. I had just visited him at his home in Jackson four days earlier. So many of my questions will never be answered. My grief comes in waves: some are ripples and some tower overhead before they come crashing down.
When my stepmom decided to sell the home she had shared with my dad in Jackson, I o ered to buy it. My heart had never really left and I knew I wanted to come back home. My dad taught me to always follow my heart. A year after he passed away, my son and I packed up our stu and moved back to Jackson Hole. Kiran started kindergarten, and I am grateful he will have the same opportunity I had to grow up in this beautiful place.
Adam Dowell–a good friend growing up–reached out to me to see what I was planning to do for work. He was looking for someone to ll the Executive Director position for his non-pro t Carving e Future. I had been on Carving e Future’s advisory board during the foundation’s rst year. I was thrilled by the opportunity to jump back in and make a di erence.
Carving e Future aims to get underprivileged kids on snowboards and skateboards. We work with youth in Teton
County and on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming. We focus on mental health issues and creating a positive, fun environment to help the kids feel empowered and con dent.
We strive to get gear, access to terrain, lessons, transportation, and meals to all the kids in our program. e generosity of our donors, community, and sponsors help us give back. is is just the beginning: To date we have helped over 400 kids go snowboarding, out tted over 200 kids
with gear, and provided over 55 kids with scholarships to join other programs.
Snowboarding has saved me many times. Now I’m working to give others that same lifeline. ere’s so much more we can do.
Deep in the Montana wilderness a bunch of shredders put on a banked slalom race unlike any otherWORDS: JACK GUTHRIE PHOTOS: KIRBY GRUBAUGH
The Beehive Basin Banked Slalom was more than just a reason for me to get out of bed before nine on a morning in mid-April. I thought it would be an excuse to spend time with my friends, meet other snowboarders from Montana, and make some of my gnarliest thigh-burner turns of the year. I didn’t realize it would also be an opportunity to discuss the things I am struggling with in life.
Banked slalom snowboard races are held on single-track courses with banked turns, rollers, and jumps. Riders have two simple objectives: make it to the bottom on their feet, and do it as fast as they possibly can. Flame decals are encouraged. ese races are tests of the fundamental snowboarding skills of turning and edge control. e winners are the ones who ride their boards the best, not the ones who can do the biggest airs or spin the most.
Part of what sets the Beehive Banked Slalom apart from more famous races like the Dirksen Derby at Mt. Bachelor–or
Dick’s Ditch at Jackson Hole–is its location. e event is held deep in the backcountry in Big Sky, Montana. is means if you want to race, you have to hike the course and get yourself to the zone and back— roughly a two-mile round trip. You have to trudge back to the top of the eighteen-turn banked slalom course ve or six times. If you aren’t on the verge of collapsing or bar ng up your last beer when you reach the bottom: You should be going faster. e remote location and grueling setup thins out the crowd to a passionate bunch of riders who are willing to sweat in order to participate.
e 18 hand-dug berms are the core of the event. Turns like those are unmatched by any machine-built boardercross track. Hand-dug courses are where it’s at for banked slaloms, especially when a solid dig crew has time to build and session the course for days leading up to the event. e turns this year were fast and smooth, set up perfectly by the diggers.
“If you aren’t on the verge of barfi ng up your last beer when you reach the bottom: You should be going faster.”
But the Beehive Banked Slalom isn’t just about snowboarding. e entire group also did a “Lap For e Lost.” It’s a ritual of remembrance adopted from the Nate Chute Banked Slalom in White sh that’s partly a conversation about mental health and partly a massive party lap. Kirby Grubaugh, the event organizer, led the discussion at the top. He reinforced the importance of checking in with your friends and discussing mental health with people you care about. He spoke about our roles as individuals to be there for the people we love. He also talked about the devastating e ects of suicide on everyone involved. en he opened up the conversation to the
crowd, and let riders take turns dedicating their laps to friends and family they’ve lost.
e discussion brought out some intense energy. Many people had thoughts and feelings to contribute, and together we created an environment where members of the crowd felt comfortable sharing some tough stu . It struck me as extraordinary that I had the opportunity to race with one of my closest friends after he talked to me about his struggle with depression. It was a conversation neither of us expected to have at a snowboard event. e Beehive Banked Slalom ended in tears mixed with sweat,
and shouts of joy rang out as the crew piled up at the bottom.
I am incredibly thankful for this event and for Kirby. I got to snowboard with a huge crew of homies. It also helped normalize having di cult conversations with people I care about. e event seems to grow yearly, and I am already looking forward to racing again this spring.
Tell your friends you love them.
New to town and looking for some pals to shred with? Or are you a super local wanting to get out in the woods and explore more? Maybe you’re somewhere in between. ILLA is a rst-of-its-kind matching platform for connecting women in the outdoors.
ILLA was founded by Tana Ho man in February of 2022. It launched as a pilot in Jackson Hole this past summer, followed by a public beta test in Denver. As the platform continues to scale, it will be accessible throughout the country.
Tana is a hard-working super-connector and multifaceted entrepreneur. She is constantly evolving and thinks the way we connect should be too. First, she earned her chops in the outdoor industry through positions with Teton Gravity Research and Winter Park Resort in Colorado. Next, Tana founded Mountainist, a revolutionary e-commerce store for womens outdoor gear
rentals. She then took all that knowledge and used it as a springboard for ILLA.
A little over a year ago, Tana joined VF Corporation, the parent company of Vans, e North Face, Smartwool, and others. She was one of two young founders selected to join the inaugural VF Venture Foundry Fellowship. is program is designed to equip next-generation outdoor entrepreneurs with the tools, resources, and guidance to build and scale their ideas.
“A few months later, I was invited to become an Entrepreneur in Residence, to take ILLA from a concept to reality, and build out the companion app MVP with investment support from VF Venture Foundry,” Tana told us.
Tana knows what it’s like to be a newcomer to intimidating sports like backcountry snowboarding, snowmobiling, and dirt biking. She knows how hard it can be to
nd adventure buddies on a similar level and those willing to let you into their crew. Her experiences working and being a part of the outdoor and tech industries lit the spark for ILLA.
With partnership perks for members on the horizon, it’s a good time to get into the ILLA community. Right now, women are using the ILLA app to make plans to shred tomorrow and hit up the hot springs after. So why wait to build friendships and explore? Forget swiping for randoms: Build your own adventure instead.
Interested in checking out ILLA? Head to weareilla.com and get started.
Heather Hendricks was recently promoted to CMO of @ILLAwomen…. She thinks her new title means ‘Creator of Mountains of Opportunities’
@HeatherHendricksHH
Rhonda the Honda’s studded tires attacked the icy pavement of Teton Pass. e frosted roadway was barely visible through dumping snow. Together–man and machine–we rallied up the steep switchback turns. At that point Rhonda and the Pass had a long-running love/hate relationship. It loved her, she hated it. It was far from her rst rodeo, and she often did more with two wheels than most cars can do with four. She was my full-send 2WD bad bitch till the end (or until I could a ord an upgrade). As we climbed, the snow intensi ed. And I stomped on the gas harder.
At the top of the Pass, the parking lot was gone. Each space was covered with drifted snow. Before swimming Rhonda into the deep end, I paced out a rough spot for us. en we carefully backed in with Rhonda’s two good wheels facing outward. Wind
ripped across the ridgeline and loaded the leeward aspects with snow. I fought through the storm, put my kit on, and headed out into the furious blizzard.
Back at the road an hour (and many face shots) later, I found Rhonda, and every other car in the lot, totally and utterly buried. But we had seen this before at Silverton, Kirkwood, and Wolf Creek. is dig would be no di erent. I pulled out my shovel, turned on Rhonda’s engine, and got to work. Fifteen-ish minutes later, we were in pretty good shape with a new path dug for Rhonda’s escape, visible wheels, and a defrosted interior.
Just as we were about to roll away, a stranger emerged from the whiteout and asked if I’d help dig out his friend. “Sure,” I shrugged. I followed him to the outline of
an all-wheel drive, turbo-shred wagon that was hopelessly bottomed-out and buried with its ass-end facing the road.
“Holy shit, that car’s fucked!” I shouted to no-one in particular.
e owner of the entombed vehicle turned and looked at me. “Hey, I’m Jimmy,” he yelled through the storm. “ anks for the help!” Jimmy Chin–one of my personal heroes–extended a gloved hand. I knew that he lived in Jackson Hole, and over the years he’d passed me many times while hiking up the Glory bootpack. Usually I was heaving for breath as he and a posse of pro bros powered past in full conversation, barely breaking a sweat.
But now here he was, stuck like the rest of us, his car buried by the same
unforgiving storm. Human after all. A erce determination took hold of me. I couldn’t let him down. e guy who climbed Meru! e dude who lmed Alex Honnold making history on El Cap! Now he needed my help. I threw myself at the wheel wells and crawled into the snow-choked nook under the hood. I hammered my shovel into the loaded snow until it hit grit. ere in the dark under that car, I waged war against the Snow Gods—for Jimmy.
Twenty minutes later I was saturated with sweat and Jimmy Chin’s wagon was nally ready to roll. He thanked me with a st pound and that was that. Rhonda and I made a show of tearing out of our parking spot, both front wheels spinning and spitting up gravelly snow chunks. e ex was aggressive, and I’m sure Jimmy’s squad was either deeply impressed or emasculated.
Maybe a little of both.
During the drive back to town I pondered the meaning of it all. Up to that day, I’d always put some people on a pedestal. In my mind they were ‘hero-proofed’ from consequence. Groceries, bills, ghting with a partner, getting stuck in a storm—the mundanity of life surely didn’t a ect the likes of Jimmy Chin?
But I was wrong. Nobody is immune. Everybody is an equal, at least in the eyes of nature. And no matter how much you’ve accomplished, your car can still get buried. Seeing a hero humbled that way made me realize that if such a man could fall, surely I could rise. And then, gripping the steering wheel and crawling downhill at a meager 10 miles an hour, it hit me: It wasn’t Jimmy that I aspired to be like. It was Rhonda.
A humble steed, maybe even a little beat up, but ride-or-die and willing to step to anything. She punched way above her weight for a two-wheel-drive Civic. On any given day in Jackson Hole, it was Rover, Wrangler…and Rhonda.
I never saw Jimmy Chin again (not counting his Disney+ series). And I eventually lost Rhonda to marauders in Salt Lake City. But the lessons I learned from both linger still. Any of us can get stuck, so you might as well give everything you’ve got, fearless and free. at’s how I want to be–in life, storycraft, and riding–powering through the falling snow.
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