Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Snowboarding comes of age

All the rage, winter sport catching up to skiing in popularity

By MARC DAVID
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Tim White, 26, of Cedar City, Utah, rides his snowboard at Brian Head Resort last weekend. Photo by Clint Karlsen. At 24, snowboarder Brad Miller feels like an old-timer. SPECIAL TO REVIEW-JOURNAL

Tommy Adler remembers his early days of snowboarding, going from ski resort to ski resort in Colorado only to be turned away. There might as well have been a sign that said, "Skiing Only."

"We stopped at Winter Park and Keystone and they wouldn't let us on (the slopes)," said Adler, a part-time Las Vegas resident. "Only Berthoud Pass would rent us equipment."

Today, Adler has his own equipment. Even those who don't can find it readily available at ski resorts virtually everywhere in the West. In fact, snowboarding has caught downhill skiing and even surpassed it in popularity in certain locales.

At Brian Head Resort in Southern Utah, snowboarding and skiing are even in popularity, according to Craig McCarthy, director of marketing and public relations. Ten years ago, snowboarding was almost nonexistent at Brian Head.

But things have changed. This is the seventh year Brian Head will play host to the Utah Winter Games snowboard events Jan. 4 and 5. There also are major snowboard competitions Feb. 1 and March 1.

Southern Nevadans frequent Lee Canyon to snowboard locally and also Mammoth Mountain, Big Bear and Snow Summit in California to get their fixes.

"As of 1996, snowboarding accounted for approximately 35 percent of all Brian Head user days," McCarthy said. "By the 2001-02 season, it was 50 percent."

That's good news to people like Adler, who was a surfer growing up in Florida. Active, but one who never felt comfortable on skis, Adler turned to snowboarding as a winter activity in the mid-1980s. His wife, professional bowler Kim Adler, also is a snowboarding enthusiast.

She learned the sport on Mount Charleston in 1997.

"I didn't enjoy it much at first," Kim Adler said. "I wanted to be moving more. It took me about six months until I started to enjoy it. Whatever I've done, I've picked up quickly. I found you need to have a good teacher in the beginning.

"Now I can spend a whole day (at Mount Charleston). I like to use the bunny slope (beginners). It clears my head and helps me forget about bowling. I think about nothing but the mountain, the fresh air and the sky while I'm out there. Snowboarding is a lot of open space, and I enjoy open space."

Adler describes herself as a "soul snowboarder, an old-school, go-with-the-flow type not out to impress but to enjoy the moment."

Of course, there are other more hard-core snowboarders. Unlike Kim Adler, they are not "old-school." Most are Generation Xers.

Nevertheless, 24-year-old Brad Miller feels like an old-timer in the sport. The Las Vegas native is a top snowboarder who has won competitions at the Utah Winter Games and is sponsored by Burton Snowboards, Anon Optics and Missionsix Clothing and locally by Sub Skates.

"I definitely feel old," Miller said, "not as far as the pro scene, but in everyday life. Most of the kids doing it are in high school and junior high school. Then there are guys like me who have been doing it for 10 years or more. We're the old guys."

Miller's first exposure to snowboarding came on a family skiing outing to Elk Meadows in Utah. Only 12, he watched the snowboarders with excitement.

"I saw some guys doing it and I thought, `Hey, that's cool,'" Miller said. "It looked like more fun. I asked my dad to get me (a snowboard) for Christmas. I've been snowboarding ever since.

"Back then, it wasn't accepted by the public. Now, it's more mainstream."

Miller learned to snowboard 45 minutes from home at Lee Canyon. He remembers when the snowboarders were restricted to Saturday nights under the lights.

Miller's dad, Dr. Scott Miller, was an avid skier who grew up in northern Utah. His son convinced him to try snowboarding about five years ago. According to Brad Miller, his dad snowboards exclusively now.

"He had skied for 20, 30 years," Miller said. "I turned him on to snowboarding and he's been doing it ever since."

Miller doesn't go back as far as Adler, but he can remember the "Us vs. Them" mentality that existed when he started snowboarding.

"They hated us at first," Miller said of skiers. "We were all pretty loud, acting like punks. But it started to mellow out five, six years ago.

"We all get along now. There's no rivalry. (Skiers) have seen it long enough where it has started to grow on them. In fact, some of the competitions they have now are what snowboarders have done from the start."

Snowboarding first got into the homes of average Americans when the X Games were embraced by ESPN.

"To an extent, that's true," said Tommy Marx, manager at Sub Skates and a snowboarder for 15 years. "The public was more accepting when they saw it on television."

Marx gets annoyed when he hears snowboarders bad-mouth Lee Canyon. In fact, Marx and Miller are part of an unofficial group that calls itself LCP (Lee Canyon Prisoners).

"We're a hard-core group of five or six guys who go up there and compete against one another," Miller said. "We love Lee Canyon. It's our home mountain. We represent it."

Because Lee Canyon wasn't slated to open until the second week of December, Miller and Marx went to Brian Head for their first snowboarding experience this season.

Las Vegan Greg Alverz, 23, took up snowboarding eight years ago. Like Tommy Adler, he felt uncomfortable on skis. He was a skateboarder looking for a winter activity. Alverz does most of his snowboarding at Mammoth and Snow Summit.

"It was a natural crossing over from skateboarding to snowboarding," said Alverz, a UNLV senior. "It's a real individual sport that is not real expensive once you get past the initial cost."

Alverz said initial costs are about $1,200. That includes the board, bindings, boots, pants, jacket and goggles.

"It started for me as something to do during the winter," Alverz said. "I started putting more emphasis on snowboarding than skateboarding. It's nice to get into the back country and have a lot of fun with friends. If I could do it year-round, I would."

Miller, who works part time at a dental lab, is able to earn money from some competitions, but he emphasized it is not enough to make a living. At least he gets all his equipment for free. Miller said the ultimate spot to snowboard is Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, Canada. His favorite U.S. spot is Mammoth.

BoarDeep, a Las Vegas store that sells snowboarding equipment, has contracted to build props for Brian Head's terrain park.

"We have done various things with them in the past," said Duane Alexander, BoarDeep owner. "What we're doing for them now will be used for slopestyle and jib contests."

Alexander, a 29-year-old Las Vegas native, has been a snowboarder for seven years. He has no skiing background. Like many locals, he made the transition from skateboarding when he went to Lee Canyon with a group of friends.

"Friends got me down on the mountain and I've been stuck on it ever since," Alexander said.

It's a familiar story for a relatively young sport that has gained popularity to the point it has become a staple at ski resorts throughout the West.

With the growing popularity of snowboarding, there's still a backlash from skiers who think their sport is the purest form of winter athletics. The argument persists in a recent story titled "Skis vs. snowboards: The debate rages on," on Brigham Young's NewsNet Website.

One skiing enthusiast, Rick Norton, was quoted as saying: "They should try the real sport. Do something worthwhile."

BYU students and husband and wife Travis and Sarah Foster, however, swear by snowboarding.

"Full-time snowboarding, part-time student," Sarah Foster said. "That's the plan. Enhances our marriage."