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| The first time I snowboarded I went down pure powder on the Duluth hillside near my home. It was so awesome to float on the snow and fell in love with snowboarding, that was December 1982. I got the guts to approach Spirit Mountain and after showing them that I was able to get on and off the chair lifts they were fine with it. I continued to master the art of snowboarding with the technology I had at the time. I could board anything, moguls, jumps, ice, etc. Spirit had a natural quarter pipe that I got huge air on and literally as high as the chairlift on Gandy Dancer. Well, in 1985 Spirit got new management and even though I was a skier there since 1975 they banned me from boarding there. I continued to promote snowboarding but being a one man show it was too difficult. After graduating from college in '88 ski areas started to see that they were losing revenues from limiting snowboarding so they started to allow it back. It helped to have more people interested in the sport. It's really cool to see how far it has become and glad I was a part of it, even though I had to go through hell back in those days!!! Just ride and don't pose!! |