The world as a whole has changed drastically over the last year. We’ve had the Covid-19 pandemic, a president that had his base raid the capitol and cops that have killed innocent people. There is a ton of hate that needs to be changed. Fight To Free Alta & Allow Snowboarding! Follow us by subscribing on YouTube to get all our new videos & tips. Flowing Freeride will teach how to pick the right snowboard gear best for you and drills to improve your skills. You’ll have access to all our snowboard tutorials when you sign up that cover every step and feedback from your coach. We also have some free snowboard videos to prepare for snowboard safety on our YouTube Page. I recommend watching these snowboard videos; Building Rhythm, Advanced Snowboarding Getting Air, Snowboard Bumpy Terrain, Snake Course, Snowboard Dynamic Flex & Extend, Advance Snowboard Lesson: Dropping Cliffs, Snowboarding Off Piste, Snowboarding Chutes, Active Passive Absorption, Funnel Turns For Navigating Obstacles & Snowboarding Moguls.
The term Free Alta came from my mate Michael Johnstone. He along with his other 2 business partners George Media and Brandon Peterson had a snowboard shop called Experience in Angel Fire, New Mexico. I took a position down there. The determining factor was that they had a race team that I was on. I wanted to make sure that I could take time off to compete. Most of the competitions for that region were all at Angel Fire Resort. I quickly got sponsored and was spending a lot of time at the shop. I coached the race team. I was getting paid to compete and coach. The Experience team had come up with the saying Free Taos because they wanted Taos to allow snowboarding. They were successful and in 2009 Taos started allowing snowboarding! Johnstone saw on social media that I was hiking and snowboarding Alta a lot. Alta still doesn’t allow snowboarding and he would always post #FREEALTA!
I knew Johnstone had brain cancer and was in a constant battle. I made sure to follow his stories on social media. Johnstone and I started making plans to ride Alta and I started posting hashtag Free Alta whenever I was up there. Folks started to see that they could snowboard Alta when the resort closed. The resort leases the land from the Forest Service and anyone can come up and use the land. We never got to ride Alta because he passed away last year. George was his best friend and he rolled his cement truck and died. This was too much for Johnstone and a few days later he went to sleep and didn’t wake up.
Why do skiers think that snowboarders are bad people and shouldn’t be allowed on “their” slopes? When snowboarding first came out there weren’t schools teaching you how to ride. You learned on your own. They would just get down however they could. Slide slipping or skidding down scraped all the good snow off and made conditions worse. Folks were out of control and crashed sometimes into others. We snowboarders got a bad reputation. Resorts started making snowboarders take a safety test before they could ride. Really I think everybody should be tested because I’ve been hit by skiers that don’t know how to stay in control. Skiers have kept that hate for snowboarders for over 40 years. Snowboard schools have been teaching students how to ride for over 30 years. A lot of snowboarders are younger and older folks don’t like change. Well, times have changed and hating somebody for the color of their skin or the way they get down the mountain is segregation and discrimination. Skiers that hold this hate might realize that this behaviour is not acceptable anymore but closed minded folks can’t see the writing on the wall.
Resorts like Mad River Glen, Deer Valley and Alta pride themselves on not allowing snowboarding. I don’t think they will ever change. When Alta first opened in 1938 only men were allowed. No women and children permitted. I would like to think they could change since they did start allowing women and kids. People come to Utah to ski Alta because there are no snowboarders. I’ve traveled all over the world for snowboarding/video and I was told by a few folks in management that when Colorado resorts allowed snowboarding at all their resorts they saw that they lost clients that would rather go to Utah and have no snowboarders. I have given up hope on people to change. I will keep enjoying my time snowboarding Alta but will just have to hike up it or access it from Snowbird where snowboarders can ride the lifts and are welcome.
Snowboarders got a bad wrap and have been banned. Snowboarding is an Olympic sport that is recognized around the world. Resorts like Alta could give a shit less and will remain prejudice to anyone that snowboards. The mentality of skiers are better won’t change unless you are a skier and tell others that we are equals and that’s what FREE ALTA means! You can sign up for the full course to gain access to all of our snowboard lessons, study guides, textbooks, glossary, tests and direct feedback from your coach. Learn to snowboard online with flowingfreeride.com and take a look at our YouTube Page for more free content and learn to snowboard right! Online snowboard resources like videos on our YouTube Channel and articles like these can help you a ton. Professional snowboard lessons help even more. My name is Blake Tholen Clark Contact Me if you want to book a lesson or have any questions about Snowboarding.