East Coast Expression Session 2001 - Part 2
January 8th to 14th
by Jack Michaud
The original Expression Session is an event in Colorado hosted each year by Purecarve Snowboards. Started roughly four or five years ago, the Session was intended to bring alpine snowboarders together for a few days of riding, revelry, and camaraderie in a non-competitive, get-together type atmosphere. Each year the event draws more and more carvers, and now its success has spread to the east.
This year a college student named Todd Brown and a professional snowboard-o-holic code named CMC (the trailing C is for Curt) asked the obvious question: why the hell can't we have one of those here? After all, the east is the unofficial heart of North American alpine snowboarding, with its perennial lack of powder and abundance of machine groomed manmade snow. So the two set upon the task of inviting any carver anywhere to Vermont's Stratton Mountain for two days and Stowe for five, and secured some casual corporate sponsorship in the form of raffles, demo's and give-aways.
Being your typical full-time working stiff, I was only able to attend the latter weekend portion of the Session at Stowe. Friday night's drive from Portland Maine to Stowe Vermont was the cliché "ya can't get theah from heah" four hour voyage on two-lane roads. I was reminded of my dad lamenting, "you know when I was a boy and we went skiing, we only had two-lane roads and we liked it!" With plenty of time to think, I wondered what everybody would look like, what everybody would ride like, if anybody would approach me and tell me that my articles are full of crap... you know, that sort of stuff.
I also wondered just why we felt the need to have this rally of sorts for alpine snowboarding. Obviously, one reason is that we are one of the smallest minorities on the hill, possibly already overtaken by telemarking and skiboarding/snowblading, and outnumbering only teleboarders and monoskiers. But do we also feel the need to congregate because we fear our numbers are slipping? I'd like to think not. Many of us are lucky enough to have another carving buddy to ride with, but many of us find ourselves the lone hardbooter on the mountain all too often. Being able to all ride together provided an opportunity to simply have fun watching others laying trenches, chasing each other down the mountain, and talking shop about alpine.
Stowe bills itself as the capital of New England skiing, and it has a multitude of inns, boutiques, restaurants and bars to back up the claim. Most New England ski resorts are somewhat self-contained, without much of a surrounding town to speak of, and the mountain providing most of the attractions at its base. Stowe takes a more European form. There is Stowe the township, and then there is Stowe the ski area. The ski area consists of two mountains, Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak, two more traditional base lodges, and a total of 11 lifts. The town has zillions of restaurants and bars, B&B's and inns, including the world famous Trapp Family Lodge, and golf courses. Together in the winter, they form Stowe the resort, a unique symbiosis that becomes a major ski destination for much of New England, Quebec, and New York.
Waking up the next morning in time to drive from the B&B, get tickets, and meet the crowd at 7:30 would have been a real chore had it not been for the promise of fresh corduroy under blue skies with fellow carvers. Within about ten minutes before the gondola opened at 8:00, about twenty-five hardbooters appeared a few at a time at the casually suggested meeting location in front of the gondola base. People somewhat shyly introduced themselves, recognized faces and online names, and checked out other people's equipment. Among the weaponry were Donek, Madd, Prior, Sims, Burton, Rossignol, Elan, PureCarve, and Volkl (hope I didn't leave any out). When it became apparent that the group had solidified, we all stood around looking at each other for a few seconds, waiting for someone to say something official. CMC piped up merely to suggest some nice spots to ride, and that there would be a raffle at 11:00. Then the gondi doors opened up and we filed in to queue.
As the gondola made its way up to its 3,640' destination, below Mt. Mansfield's highest-in-state elevation of 4,395', magnificent views of the surrounding mountainscape arose under morning sunlight. Mt. Mansfield is a beautiful, rugged, twin-peaked formation with cliffs at its summits and along the rocky bowl ridge connecting the two. Stepping out of the gondola building into the splendor of this natural amphitheater makes the first time visitor feel like an extreme adventurer in a high alpine documentary.
Usually being the only schlep in my crowd who has to mess with clipping into a back binding, it was a new experience being surrounded by a whole group doing the same. As I sat waiting for everyone to get ready, Vlad Popov came right up and introduced himself. I was immediately bedazzled by his Donek 186, the longest board in the bunch, and a handsome specimen of quality snowboard engineering. Then Mark Bock pointed out that Jake Burton was two gondolas behind us.
After deciding on the run Gondolier, we struck off down the trail like a pack of wolves, hungry to sink our teeth into the freshly groomed carpet. With hardbooters ahead, behind and to each side, I felt like a fighter pilot in formation with a squadron. The weather was a perfect sunny 25 degrees, and our edges found flawless purchase in the snow. Everyone was railing deep, round, smooth carves, one after the other, dicing up the hill like Zorro leaving his mark – but with S's instead, and lots of them. One great thing about carvers: even after we had taken a run, all the corduroy save for our thinly sliced ruts was left intact, not sloughed off by the swish of skidded skis or freestyle boards.
Each rider danced his or her own dance with gravity, some aggressively, some gracefully, some playfully. After the general public descended upon the wonderful terrain under the gondola, we made our way over to the high-speed quad, ahead of the wave of late risers. Each time we stopped to rest, I couldn't help but to survey the posse of carvers and smile. Watching all the riders execute their carves revealed that we are all students of the same laws of physics, and the similarities of styles in people from hundreds of miles apart reinforced the fact of our common bond. As everybody took more runs, the group split into smaller more manageable groups, reducing the grimly realistic possibility of slicing off another rider's hand in mid-carve.
Riding up the lifts with each other, everyone was able to get to know each other on a more personal level. Being able to put faces, voices, and personalities to the typeface on the discussion board has given a new sense of "family" to our little corner of the web. Teachers, computer scientists, graphic designers, engineers, consultants, managers, students, a windjammer captain, professional recreationalists, and others completed the broad cross-section of society. On one gondola ride, a long time Burton test rider, and a mighty good carver, leaked some disturbing gossip about the largest manufacturer of alpine hardware. He revealed that after this, the 2001 season, Burton will cease production of alpine consumer goods. They will continue their international racing effort, supplying custom boards to their team, but further activity in the general alpine market will be suspended indefinitely. This, of course, is complete hearsay, and has not been confirmed by any authoritative source. But it does make you stop and think. No more alpine at Burton... the end of an era.
We gathered at the Midway Lodge for the raffle where the spoils included free tune-up service, Catek bindings, and a full custom Donek board. Jeff Caron of Catek was in house to greet the bindings winner (and the rest of us) and hand out free Catek paraphernalia. Big thanks go to Jeff for making the drive from Rhode Island to participate in our event and help make it more "official". Big thanks go to Sean Martin of Donek for providing the generous raffle prize. Big thanks go to the Pressure Drop snowboard shop for the service. Too bad John Gilmour of Madd had to back out at the last minute. He gets forty lashes with a wet noodle! An honorable mention must be given to Amy Oliver, the only she-carver at the session. Not so fast fellas, she's engaged. As luck would have it, the winner of the full custom Donek was Vlad, who we were already envying for the Donek he already has. But he earned it by making the trip all the way from Virginia.
We spent the afternoon at Spruce Peak where we found fewer crowds, and some great pitches with near perfect snow for practicing our passion. Carve Master Curt lived up to his name, although Circle Master Curt would fit as well. Whenever our group would stop, he'd eurocarve all the way around us, finishing in a tight crouch, wheelie-ing his Madd 158 up onto its tail so hard, it was incredible the board was even still in one piece, let alone performing as well as it was after years of this "use".
Apres-ski commenced at the Matterhorn at 4:00. A three-piece ensemble belted out classic covers, and a rep from Corona ran a special on Corona Light. I don't know, but on the planet I'm from, when Corona Light goes on special, it's for a buck-ninety-nine at most... not $3.50! But not to fear, because the big winner Vlad bought a round of whatever anybody wanted. As the evening progressed, many people felt generous in the company of their fellow carvers and bought rounds, making the gathering very well lubricated indeed. We all shot the bull, talking about sidecut radii, binding setups, and why we got into alpine, while our significant-others enjoyed themselves by making fun of us and our carve-geek speak.
The next morning we awoke to a complete 180 of the day before. Socked-in fog covered the mountain, and a heavy mist moistened the valley. On the hill it became obvious that a sizeable chunk of the posse had taken a look at the skies and opted to get a head start on the drive home. Ken Boivin and I were lucky enough to secure demos of Donek 171's from Curt for the morning, so we and the other determined souls put up with the freezing mist and poor visibility. Ken and I agreed that the boards were the best we had ever ridden, providing a new level of confidence inspiration and carving smoothness. The sweet rides more than made up for the lousy weather. The smaller group adjourned once again to Spruce Peak in search of better visibility. We all spent the morning pushing our limits and having more fun than I'd had under such gray skies in a long time. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and we had to give the demos back to Curt by 11:00 so he could hit the road. So our group disbanded then, but rather than having to say, "see you next year", it was much nicer to be able to say, "see you online". As I drove down route 108, I noticed a bar called The Roadhouse with a sign out front reading "Welcome ECES Carvers". Ha! I gave them a honk.
The first, hopefully annual, East Coast Expression Session has come and gone. For those who attended, the world of alpine snowboarding simultaneously became larger than life, and as small as a family. Names were finally linked to faces, and friendships seeded online grew roots in reality. Carvers from all over the ice coast learned a few things about other people's riding styles, and especially our own. We drove home with smiles on our faces and excitement in our guts, daydreaming about the next time we'd get to bend our boards into perfect snowy arcs, and the next time we would all return for another Session.
Special thanks to Todd Brown and CMC for organizing the event, to Ivy & Prentice Chang for contributing photographs, to all the event sponsors, and to Stratton and Stowe resorts for their hospitality and extending professional courtesies.
Join us on Facebook!