Winter, as we once knew it, is no more. Resorts, as we once knew them, are not the same. The inexpensive town mountain is nearly extinct, pinched to the edge by big resorts and multi-resort passes that threaten to tear skiing and snowboarding to its core. Finding inexpensive ways to ride snow is no longer easy and the pandemic has made that even more difficult. But there’s still the backcountry, and human power. And powder.
Grain is a throwback to the days of yesteryear, captured on a Super 8 camera from the 1960s last winter, by a group of Colorado snowboarders. It’s sure to fire you up, or at least light the fire – and get you ready for winter, maybe even remind you the backountry is the best place to find the core of snowriding these days. It’s cheap, it certainly ain’t easy, but it’s everything snowboarding once was, and still could be.
