American Made: Postal Snow, POW & The Splitboard Revolution

Posted February 12, 2010 | Filed Under American Made, Community
Written by Shred White | Comments: 1

Postal Snow

Airmail, America (Shred White and Blue)—Shred White and Blue is heading to the Olympics this week, ready to hand out stickers, deliver a few t-shirts and mail some missives about how our homegrown shredders are handling the scene north of the board. To that end, the new Shred Mail stamp should come in very handy.

The U.S. Postal Service is commemorating the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games with the issuance of a snowboard stamp created by Illustrator Steve McCracken. In Wiki-scoop fashion, it’s not the first time stamps featuring Olympic themes have been invoked to help ‘send it.’ During the first modern Olympiad in 1896, Greece issued 12 commemorative stamps. And since 1932, when the Olympics were held in Los Angeles, U.S. stamps have honored the Games.

Jeremy Jones and POW Ride Capitol Hill

Capitol Hill (SWB)—Jeremy Jones (8-time Big Mountain Snowboarder of the Year!) along with a coalition of winter sport filmmakers and industry representatives shared a new perspective on climate change with lawmakers on Capitol Hill: the economic, social and intangible values of winter.

Jones represented Protect Our Winters (POW), the environmental non-profit he founded in 2007, and was joined by Chris Steinkamp, Executive Director of POW, big brother Steve Jones, Founder of Teton Gravity Research (TGR), Elysa Hammond of Clif Bar and Elizabeth Burakowski from the University of New Hampshire.

The two-day agenda included a screening of Generations, a film about climate change, to a theater of Congressmen and environmental leaders, and a meeting with key lawmakers from US mountain states to discuss how climate change effects winter sports culture and the $6 billon winter sports industry. Said Congressman Jared Polis, (D-CO). “The ski industry is the lifeblood of my district and climate change is already taking a toll.” FOMO on POW, check here http://protectourwinters.org. (you can find the Generations move there as well). Or watch a clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPCObLVislY

The Splitboard Revolution

Venture Split Storm

The Backcountry, Colo. (SWB)—Longtime SWB buddy Mike Horn – when not riding deep backcountry pow in the mountains around Crested Butte – keeps a keen eye on the latest developments on the snowboard scene. What does he says is the next big sensation?

“Splitboards are going to go mainstream,” says Horn. “The companies like Never Summer and Venture that have been honing this market for years are going to see brands like Lib-Tech and the new Jones Snowboards introduce their own big mountain boards for backcountry stash skinning.”

In the SnowPress Show Daily, the official magazine of the SIA Snow Show (just held in Denver for the 1st time), Horn writes, “Not only are there at least eight snowboard manufacturers producing splits—Jones Boards, Lib-Tech, Atomic, Burton, Never Summer, Prior, Venture, and Voilé—but two big mountain heroes named Jeremy Jones and Travis Rice will have their own signature decks.”

These guys at Spark are making very cool splitboard bindings – check out their how-to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuiTKdFVttc