by Tina Basich
Working on my graphics in my hotel room in Alaska.
Copyright © Jeff Curtes
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what to pack in your backpack for a day in the backcountry
1. Water in a plastic bottle—it’s so important to stay hydrated.
2. A lunch and a snack—my favorites are Lunchables and a peanut butter Tiger bar.
3. Sunscreen is a must, even on stormy days. It’s always good to have it in your pack in case the weather changes.
4. Chapstick with a sunscreen in it.
5. A compass—even on what looks like a sunny day. If the weather comes in, it is easy to lose your way.
6. A shovel to help rescue victims of an avalanche and also to build huge kickers in the backcountry.
7. A backcountry blanket. If you ever have to stay in the woods overnight this can save your life.
8. An extra layer of clothing in case the weather changes or you get your first layer wet.
10. A camera. This is optional, but it’s always in my backpack. I can never pass up a great group shot at the top of a mountain.
11. A probe to check for rocks on the landings and to help find someone buried in an avalanche.
12. If you are carrying a cell phone, turn it off until you are in a safe zone or need to make an emergency call. Cell phone signals can sometimes interfere with avalanche transceivers.
Make sure to find a backpack that has a hip strap. This helps take the weight off your shoulders and keeps the pack from swinging around when you ride.
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avalanche safety tips
1. Always wear an avalanche beacon when snowboarding in the backcountry, test it, and know how to use it before heading up to the mountain.
2. Check the avalanche report by calling the local hotline before making the decision to head into the backcountry.
3. Never hike right up the middle of an open bowl or snow, or underneath cornice ridges. And never walk out on a cornice to look below.
Waiting for the heli to pick us up, Alaska.
4. Determine your main islands of “safety” before you drop in. These are usually clusters of trees or rocky areas of the mountain that have less potential of sliding.
5. When snowboading with a group, ride one at a time and regroup at an island of safety.
6. Ski-cut a face to test the stability of the snow.
7. Avalanche dangers are usually high after a large snowstorm. And check the wind patterns—they can add to overloading of snow on a slope and make it unsafe.
8. When the weather warms up, it adds to the potential of slides.
9. Never hike or stop on a run underneath another group of riders.
10. Always listen to your surroundings and be alert.
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CHAPTER 15
MAINSTREAM
In the eighteen years that I’d been snowboarding, the sport had grown up and was turning into a worldwide business. No one ever imagined that it would catch on and grow this fast. I had no idea that I would still be snowboarding professionally this long. Because mainstream America was getting more involved in snowboarding, our sponsors had investors outside of the snowboarding industry and some snowboard manufacturers had even gone public.
Around the time of the first few X Games, snowboard companies had much bigger budgets than they were used to and we were rollin’ as their sponsored athletes and began to take it for granted that we had made it as snowboarders. We thought this would last forever. One of our team photo shoots for Sims cost $60,000, because we were ordering room service and wine and we were staying at a five-star resort. I went from traveling on road trips in motor homes stocked with Price Club food to staying at five-star hotels, even flying in a Beech jet.
One night, Sims was having an opening party for their new office in Los Angeles and invited me down. Since I was completely traveled out at the time from several competitions and photo shoots, I called to tell them that I just couldn’t get on another flight. John Textor, Sims’s former owner, had a Beech jet that he graciously flew the team around in every once in a while. He called and said, “You’ve got to come down here—you’re a big part of this team. I’ll send the jet up there to get you.” At the private airport in Sacramento I was sitting there among a crowd of all these rich guys in suits who were also waiting for their jets to come pick them up. I was in my Hurley hooded sweatshirt and my backpack. I walked up to the check-in counter, and they asked, “Which plane is yours?” I guess they were asking for the number of the jet or something, but I didn’t understand. I said, “It’s a jet with blue and gold stripes on the sides.” The man at the counter laughed and replied, “That’s not going to help us much, honey.” I admit I was a little out of my element. but maybe they just weren’t ready for us snowboarders yet.
The pilots were super nice and let me sit up front in the cockpit. I actually got to fly the jet for about fifteen minutes. I put the headphones on and did a 1,200-foot descent into L.A. Of course I didn’t land the plane, but it was pretty fun and I had a great story to tell when I got to the party.
It was the heyday of snowboarding, the late ’90s, and snowboarding industry trade shows had booths with DJs and models passing out stickers and it wasn’t unusual to see celebrities or musicians in the halls checking things out. Snowboard manufacturers would throw extravagant parties and hire bands like the Fugees and the Strokes. It was important for us to be at all of these trade shows because we were representing the image that was part of our obligation to our sponsors now. Our image was what was being used to sell products. It was also a blast to be there because it was one of the few times a year that we got to see all of the snowboarders and our friends in the industry without being at a competition, which meant we didn’t have to get up early, so we would party the night away. Someone was always the victim of the Permanent Marker Treatment. This might be something only snowboarders do, but whoever passed out first was doomed to get drawn on by their friends with a black Sharpie. It was always funny to see someone the next day at the trade show with “Shred head” written across their forehead.
Skydiving for a TV show. “Look, Michael, I did it!”
At first, the core group of professional snowboarders and people in the industry didn’t agree with the new path snowboarding was taking. Like them, I was worried that people would forget that snowboarding had its own history, soul, and culture. Some businesspeople were now obviously in it for the cool image and the money. New snowboard brands were popping up by companies that didn’t have any clue what our culture was all about. It seemed like everyone wanted a piece of it. People who didn’t even know how to ride were starting snowboard companies. Even ski companies started making snowboards. There were “extreme” pizza joints popping up, and fashion spreads in Vogue with models carrying boards, and ridiculous window treatments at the Gap that misrepresented our culture with signs that read “Shred sale.” They might as well have had the models wear Day-Glo, or a one-piece ski suit.
If it snowed, everyone showed up at my house in Utah.
I wondered if mainstream America even knew that at one time it was our parents who helped run those first contests, or if they remembered snowboarders like Terry Kidwell and Damian Sanders who helped push the path of snowboarding toward freestyle. These were my heroes, but who were theirs? And did they have any or even care?
Opportunities for male and female snowboarders were moving in many different directions, everyone was turning pro, and we were all making money. As pros, we had top-of-the-line snowmobiles, new cars, and tons of snowboarding gear. High-end equipment, apparel, and accessories were now so available to us that when kids at snowboard contests would approach us, we would generously give our gear away knowing that we could get more. So we couldn’t complain too much. I now owned my own house in Utah that was big enough to fit all of my snowboarding friends. When it snowed, people would just show up. People knew where my Hide-A-Key was and I welcomed friend
s anytime.
I also started receiving more fan letters. One was from a girl from southern California who had written a letter and sent it to Airwalk for me. She’d seen me ride in a contest on TV and wanted to share her snowboarding experiences with me and complimented my riding. It was the coolest feeling getting that letter and I wrote her back. We stayed in touch for a few years. Over the years I’ve made lots of new pen pals with kids who have written me letters. I was honored that they’d want to write and share their stories. It was nice to see so many young people loving snowboarding the way I did.
I wanted to take every opportunity that came my way as a new experience because I loved snowboarding so much, but learned the hard way to be cautious about the side effects that the mainstream views would have on my career. I once agreed to be on an MTV Sports event called the “Icey Cool Plunge.” I was supposed to skim on my snowboard across a 50-foot pond of water that was surrounded by crowds of people. I had never skimmed across water before on my snowboard and ended up going way too fast because I was worried that I might sink if I went too slow like the guy who went before me, and skidded out on the water and went crashing into the crowd, knocking over at least fifteen people. It felt like I had broken both of my legs at the time. I thought, I cannot believe this is what would take me out of snowboarding. I ended up being OK with only bruised shins and a bruised ego from hitting people. It was all caught on camera and showed on TV. It was a mainstream opportunity I should have passed up.
From then on I realized that if I was to be the new spokesperson for “Extreme Pizza” or something cheesy, it could have damaged my reputation because it was so obviously uncool. Although, when I was asked to be animated in four different video games with Infogrammes and Konami out of Japan, this was one of those cool new opportunities. I wasn’t much of a video game player, but the whole process of helping to create myself as a video game character was unique. The video game producers would watch videotapes of me snowboarding, then had me critique all of the steps involved in making tricks in a game. I even did voice-overs for the sound effects. So when my character crashes in the game, it’s really my voice saying “Ouch” or “Watch out!” However, shooting one of the commercials for the video game promotion was an odd experience because it involved going to a vacant cheese factory in New Jersey and pretending to snowboard on Astro Turf that was rotating on a big conveyor belt. I was with pro snowboarders Todd Richards and Peter Line and we were laughing the whole time because this couldn’t have been further from what snowboarding was really about. But since it supported our new games, we wanted to be a part of it. Concessions of a professional athlete.
Shooting the video game commercial with Peter Line and Todd Richards at a vacant cheese factory somewhere in New Jersey.
Other riders were branching out and getting mainstream sponsors like Nike, Ralph Lauren, Subaru, and Mountain Dew. I never got any big-time offers for sponsorship with any mainstream company, but my friends and I were hired to snowboard in mainstream commercials. I turned down the Tampax snowboarding commercial, but did “Do the Dew” on my snowboard for a one-time gig for a Mountain Dew commercial filmed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I had never had my hair and makeup done before heading out to go ride, but this was a Hollywood shoot, complete with people assigned just to get you a cup of coffee. I barely snowboarded and waited around all day for the shoot.
Wearing a wig for the Mountain Dew commercial.
When Playboy magazine called (they’d seen the Dew) and asked me to pose for their “Extreme” issue, my first reaction was “Hell, no!” Then my curiosity led me to call them back. I asked my parents how they would feel about it, explaining to them that it would be the highest quality photography and I would be represented as an athlete with an action snowboarding shot, and an interview alongside of my poseur shot, and maybe I could talk about Boarding for Breast Cancer. They both said it should be my decision. But after I hung up, my dad called back about twenty seconds later to confirm that I would be in my bathing suit. Two weeks later I received five issues of Playboy in the mail to “review.” The first picture I opened up to was a female jockey with her pants around her ankles getting weighed in on a scale. I quickly realized that wearing a bathing suit was probably not an option and there was no way I belonged in Playboy.
First place at the MTV Snowed In big-air contest, Snow Summit, California, 1999.
Copyright © Mark Gallup
Snowboarding was gaining exposure fast on other levels, too. New events were popping up like the MTV Sports and Music Festival and Halfpipe Contest with a $100,000 first-place prize. Top snowboarders were getting enticed to participate because of the exposure and prize money. We were asked to be a part of things like MTV road trips, or present at award ceremonies like the ESPN Sports and Music Awards. When I presented the Snowboarder of the Year award in 2001 with Daryl Hannah and Paul Walker, I didn’t know what to expect. ESPN sent a limo to pick me and my friends up and take us to the venue. When they dropped us off at the red carpet, there were TV cameras everywhere and paparazzi taking photos. It’s pretty cool when the red carpet is filled with skateboarders, snowboarders, and surfers. Quite a colorful bunch of people. I wondered what the world thought of us now.
With Daryl Hannah and Astrid at ESPN’s Action Sports and Music Awards show.
After the show, I met the musicians in Metallica, who were there to accept an award for being Snowboarders’ Favorite Band. They were part of my culture and I often listened to their music before a contest to get psyched up. I don’t think they knew that snowboarders listened to them so much and they were surprised that we were such fans. It was by far one of the best perks for being a celebrity snowboarder.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if all of this attention meant we were really respected or if now we were considered just the flavor of the month, the new rockstars of sports. It did have a ripple effect, however. Snowboarding, along with other action sports like surfing and skateboarding, was becoming the future for youth culture. It’s changed traditional sports. More kids today skateboard than play baseball. I’m now a part of a bigger group of athletes other than just snowboarders. My sponsors branched out, and now my teammates include surfers, skateboarders, and motocross riders. We’re friends and can all relate to the pressures of competing, traveling, and sponsorships. We all share stories like one big family and often influence each other with our own experiences in our specific sports. Freestyle motocross riders are pulling backflips like snowboarders, and snowboarders often name new tricks after skateboarding moves. Surfers are now grabbing their boards in tricks that are influenced by snowboarders—who grab their boards doing moves similar to skateboarders’.
Hanging out with James Hetfield of Metallica at the ESPN awards show.
Like the dotcom bust or any new industry that grows too fast, we could also crash. Just a few years after the peak of our heyday, things changed. In 2000 and 2001 Japan got flooded with too much product—now gear was not moving and was just sitting on the shelves in snowboard shops. This had a big effect on us because a third of our business was in Japan. Outside investors who didn’t have their hearts in snowboarding would easily pull the plug and shut down companies after one bad selling season. I had friends who hopped onboard as team riders with brand-new companies that claimed to have deep pockets, only to get cut along with their entire team. I was lucky that I always made the cuts on the team because my sponsors supported women’s product, which isn’t necessarily the case with other sports. My sponsors saw the importance of this. It also helped that I had a positive attitude. I’d seen so many up-and-coming kids complaining about doing things for their sponsors like expense reports or bitching about how much other snowboarders were making compared with them. Sponsors get turned off by that quickly. So they’d get the boot. Attitude is everything.
Our sport is also very dependent on the weather. A bad snow season could result in product not moving and immediately impact teams taking pay cuts and downsizing. Even thoug
h one year I only sold 1,500 snowboards because it was a bad snow season and the shops had leftover product from the year before, I had momentum from being in the sport so long and my sponsors saw the value in the exposure I was getting as a female athlete for their brand. It’s weird when the business side of your career depends not only on the economy, but so heavily on the weather and those snowflakes that miraculously fall out of the sky. When it’s a snowy day, goggle sales go up. If it snows early in the season, boards start selling, and if there’s no snow over the Christmas holiday, ski resorts lose money. Lots of money. In my world, snowflakes make the world go ’round. That’s just the wave of snowboarding.