First chair
Story by EYTHAN FROST
Photos by BRAD ANDREW
Booted from resorts around the world, snowboarders find a home at Mt. Baker
Skiers and snowboarders clinking beer glasses in the lodge after a long day on the slopes is a typical sight at almost any ski resort nowadays, but the relationship hasn’t always been so amicable. Not so long ago, skiers were hurling beers cans off the chairlift — aimed at the rebellious snowboarders that were invading their pristine ski resorts.
When snowboarders first tried to make their way onto the slopes in the 1970s, they were met with harsh opposition. Skiing was then known as an elitist activity, expensive and targeted at people wealthy enough to afford gear and transportation. The newly-invented sport of snowboarding, inspired by skateboarding and surfing, attracted a much younger crowd. In an effort to keep the larger and wealthier customer base of skiers happy, snowboarding was banned from almost every resort around the globe.
But not at Mt. Baker Ski Area. They never prohibited snowboarding and were among the first resorts to encourage snowboarding on their slopes.
Baker’s 1985 season is arguably the most important in its history: management accepted snowboarding and enabled the birth of the diehard snowboard culture that Baker is now known for. Duncan Howat, who is still general manager of the ski area, had been on the job for 17 years after taking over in 1968 at only 24. Bob Barci, a Lynnwood bike shop owner working with up-and-coming snowboarder Tom Sims, approached Duncan in 1985 about hosting a snowboarding event at Mount Baker. Duncan agreed and the two organized what would become The Legendary Banked Slalom.
Amy (Howat) Trowbridge, marketing director at Mt. Baker Ski Area and Duncan’s daughter, has watched the Banked Slalom go from the small event of dedicated riders in 1985 to one of the most renowned events in the snowboarding world.
Amy recalls that after the first Banked Slalom in 1985, Sims gifted her dad two of his freshly designed snowboards. “I took one and he took the other one and we spent the whole season in ’86 snowboarding together. He got super into it, and of course we had so much fun,” Amy says.
Even though they already allowed snowboarders on the mountain, Amy says Duncan saw the potential in the sport during that 1986 season; she remembers her dad saying, “This is it, this is the future.”
The Northwest is ideal for snowboarding. The limited technology in skis meant it was difficult to ride the heavy snow typical of the area, but the wider base of snowboards made it possible to float on top of the saturated powder with ease.
“I don’t know where ski gear would be today if it weren’t for snowboarding,” Amy says. “I think snowboarding has had a huge influence on the design and the evolution of fat skis that have made it so much easier to ski the conditions we have here in the Northwest. So in many ways I think snowboarding really saved skiing.” She describes days in the 1990s when 70 percent of the customers were snowboarders, and says management has always noticed.
“There was this attitude at Mount Baker, when the management is doing it (snowboarding) and the management is open and accepting and saying how cool it is themselves, it’s encouraging. It’s as simple as that,” Amy recalls.
The management’s support for snowboarding allowed a unique scene to emerge and thrive around the mountain. Brad Andrew, a local photographer who contracts with the ski area to curate content for marketing purposes, has been riding at Baker since 1993 and has seen the snowboard culture develop in the area.
Even since the early days, Baker’s challenging terrain and excessive amounts of snow have attracted some of the best riders in the world, he says. When he first started riding at the ski area there was an unsupervised, free access policy for the backcountry and on a weekday there would be “maybe 50 cars in the parking lot” with fresh runs easily found from open to close.
“Obviously the crowds have grown because the secret is out about our little slice of heaven,” Brad says, “I’ve seen a lot of people sour toward the foreign faces and wannabe locals, but if you’re there to snowboard and have fun it still provides just as always.”
Brad claims the mountain’s attitude towards snowboarding throughout the 1980s was an integral part of shaping the snowboard culture at the ski area. “It’s that rooted history that keeps our culture so refreshingly simple and grassroots,” Brad says.
The snowboard culture that was forming attracted standout 1990s snowboard stars like Craig Kelly and Jamie Lynn to call Baker home. Influential riders like these affected the way snowboarding in the Northwest grew.
“It really gave us our roots. They both embraced the snowboard lifestyle and paved their own paths,” Brad points out. “That same ideology is why Baker stays so true to snowboarding. No one at Baker looks outside for influence, they look inside themselves and do what they love.”
While Baker was a safe haven for snowboarders in the ’80s and ’90s, the aspects that drew riders to the mountain then are still apparent today. Brad notes that many professional snowboarders will start their season at Baker before going on to film at bigger and steeper mountains all around the world. “It’s the perfect place to warm up your legs and get ready to step up to the big lines come filming season. There is enough challenging terrain that allows you to really get your feet dialed in beneath you on the steeps and ready for game time,” Brad says.
The atmosphere and the management also set Mt. Baker Ski Area apart for Brad. It is typical for resorts to charge triple-digit prices for daily lift tickets but a midweek lift ticket at Baker costs only $58. “It’s a mountain that is not run by suits and ties, rather by people like you and I who live for the snow and the life in the mountains,” Brad says.
Many locals agree that the way the mountain is owned and operated is their favorite aspect of riding there. The ski area is owned by 250 stockholders, but the majority of shares are owned by six old-time Bellingham families.
Johnny Lupo, owner of Boardworks Tech Shop in Bellingham, says the hands-off management style is one of the things he loves most about his home mountain. Johnny compares the ski area to more developed resorts like those owned by Vail and says he is grateful to be able to ride at a mountain that is still locally owned and less strictly regulated.
Johnny planned and structured his business to serve the uncommon snowboard community that surrounds Baker. Boardworks Tech Shop focuses on the tune and repair aspect of the business and places much less emphasis on their retail section.
“I love the hardcore factor of Baker, where everyone is there to ride. You go up there and everyone rips,” Johnny says. “People aren’t showboating their new gear, really: it’s more about riding. The downside of that, as a business owner, is that nobody really wants to spend money here. You know we are trying to capture dollars to stay alive but we’re in an area where people are rippers and get hooked up on gear, or they don’t have money.”
He says community involvement helps him stay in business. Boardworks Tech Shop hosts numerous events throughout the year. “That diehard group of people that come out to those events, and they might not be spending money regularly but they want to support and that’s what keeps us going,” Johnny adds.
A regular attendee of Boardworks’ events, Nicholas Fields, a Western student and sponsor liaison for the WWU Ski/Snowboard Club, has been riding at Baker since 2014. Nicholas says other mountains he has ridden don’t even compare to Mount Baker in terms of accessible terrain, ski patrol service and the service to customers. But he really fell in love with riding at Mt. Baker Ski Area because of the people and the culture that is so apparent on the hill.
“The snowboard community surrounding Baker is the realest snowboard community I have ever been around. So many skilled riders who couldn’t care less about gondolas or resort comforts,” Nicholas says.
He says coming to Baker changed who he was as a snowboarder, as it likely does to anyone lucky enough to find themselves in the parking lot on a powder day. “Baker turned a hobby of mine into a lifestyle,” Nicholas says, “I loved snowboarding years before I moved to Bellingham, but Baker — the terrain, the people — all taught me endless lessons about the respect and appreciation we must have for the environment, topography, and people around us.”
The deep roots of snowboard history that are entangled in Mount Baker’s past paved the way for the development of one of the most respected snowboard communities in the world over past three decades.
“I think that we really lucked out here in the Northwest, having the ski area be open and accepting of snowboarding was a huge part of it, but also the guys and women who were here in those early days and were starting out with the sport; it’s such a symbiotic relationship,” Amy says. “Their attitudes, their enthusiasm, the culture they created were such a huge part of us going, ‘Oh yeah, this is awesome, we need to encourage this and accept it and we want to be part of this.’”
The mountain continues to provide a bountiful reward for anyone willing to face the switchbacks of the Mt. Baker Highway in the dead of winter; but the people — the people are what truly make Baker a place like nowhere else.
