Although the most fun anyone can have... ever... snowboarding is also one of the most potentially painful activities known to man. On a more technical note, there are three types of snowboarding:
Freeriding: This is your basic stand on a board and go down the hill type boarding. Doesn't take much
talent... i'd say after 2-3 years you should have it down pat.
Freestyle: This is the most blissful activity on the face of the
earth. It can also be divided into a bunch of subcategories...
-Park- Kickers and
cheese wedges, park riding consists of taking
air while maintaining a downhillwards (SO not a word) motion. While in the
air, it is expected that you
spin and / or grab.
-Pipe- Or half-pipe... this is arguably the most commercialised form of freestyle. It envolves going back and forth taking
air on two walls of what is literally a massive half of a pipe made out of
snow (but usually frozen as
hell, making for some painful fuck-ups). Once again with the spinning and grabbing.
-Jibbing- This is what little
kids who don't know how to ride properly spend all
day doing. It'
s rails and boxes, mostly, but can be adapted to anything. Park benches, cars, roofs of barns (Jason
Brown - Transworld's Technical Difficulties) Which is why it's so fun i suppose... still, those little fucks couldn't do shit in the next section.
Backcountry: Off trail riding, usually using a snowmobile, snowcat, or (if you're a rich sponsored son of a bitch) a helicopter to get up to the top of an unsupervised, unmaintained mountain, then riding down, a feat that usually takes about half the morning. The most dangerous type of riding, simply because of the avalance hazard.
RIP, Craig
Kelly.