Ryan Winters

Boom, Winter is over. For myself I still have until the end of July for ripping around on my snowboard (sorry, it’s a life choice) but for most of the northern hemisphere it is done. With the closing of the last of the US resorts and everything in Canada but a select few special places.

This year had nothing but promise. With everyone still hard from last years snow fall and La Nina-ness there was a buzz in the air… Will it be better? It looks like our minds and the bastard meteorologists predicted wrong.

Early season starte, everyone was stoked for those first chairs to go. Wolf Creek in Colorado beat everyone to the punch this year, opening October 8th, 2011 with 36inches of fresh. Everywhere else opened with park edits and face cams of early season face shots.

Early season avalanches were wild. Corona Bowl in Whistler (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O65CFK0zoFk) and Puckerface in Jackson Hole (http://vimeo.com/34534418) were just a reminder for us to keep it real out there. We are very fragile in nature and can get pretty messed up when we miscalculate or disregard signs of danger.

Then the snow kind of stopped… It sucked… When the snow slows down it seems to come with a wave of injuries. There were a couple sets of ribs blown apart in Whistler compliments of natural and man made objects, a robotic arm formed in Breckenridge Colorado, some back injuries in Utah, it was all over the place. No snow is shit, but there is about a million things worse than a shitty day on the mountain.

For some of us we got lucky… In the North West and up in British Columbia it started snowing hard after we got rid of that garbage we like to call February. March was Nuts. (yeah capital N for that shit)
Baker, Whistler, Revy, got dumped on. March was insane so many epic turns, huge drops into bottomless powder. Hero days day after day. Some frisky weather comes a frisky snow pack. Baker drop some huge slides (http://unofficialnetworks.com/huge-avalanche-closes-mt-baker-ski-resort-110-inches-snow-6-days-mt-baker-wa-ski-resort-closed-yesterday-downed-trees-83299/) and many parts in BC held a high Alpine avalanche rating for weeks. Inbounds people were stoked and lift lines where small. It was literally send it before looking kind of pow. New friends were made as well as memories, March was epic!!

We are now looking down the barrel of the gun. April is just over halfway done. This past Sunday we saw a whole handful of places close for the end of the season. Some of us are sitting back and waiting for next season. Others are counting down the days until summer riding starts back up, some are just plain chasing winter down to the southern hemisphere in hopes to obtain the elusive endless winter! Some of us are lucky enough to live in a place where the chairs are still running. Whoever you are or where ever you live I can guarantee that you had a sick time on a snowboard this season. Pretty cool how I can predict shit like that…

As summer slowly melts away what is left of the 2012 season look back and think of how sweet it was. Even if it was the worst winter in the books or whatever it probably was better than a lot of other things in your life. So cheer up, buy a bike, a skateboard, a pogo stick whatever. Enjoy the summer and we will see everyone on the mountain next season!!!
Ya bastards!