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Eric Pollard is an American snow freeskier and film editor from Welches, Oregon, who lives in the Hood River region of Oregon. He was a professional skier for Line Skis for over 22 years and now designs skis and snowboards for Season. He has always challenged the status quo by innovating outerwear, accessories, and hard goods for FW Apparel, Anon Optics, Dakine, K2, Causwell, and Hest.
Pollard began skiing professionally at the age of fifteen. He learned on Mount Hood, where snowboarders far outnumber skiers, and as a result, developed a unique style more closely resembling snowboarders. Because of this, he developed the first fully symmetrical ski — equal height tip and tail, with a symmetrical flex. [1] Pollard mostly works with filming and skiing backcountry rather than competitions.
With snowboarder Austin Smith, Pollard founded the ski and snowboard company Season EQPT. They design sustainable carving, all-mountain, powder, and touring products. The timeless black products — Kin, Aero, Nexus, Forma, and Pass — question annual consumer culture, support product longevity, and create unity for everyone in the mountains. The skis are made at Amer Sports, and snowboards are made at SWS-Boards. It is the first ski and snowboard brand to be Climate Neutral Certified.
In 2007, Pollard created Nimbus Independent with Pep Fujas, Andy Mahre, and Chris Benchetler. [2] Their goal was to show all the ups and downs of skiing as it is. Nimbus was an early producer of webisodes. The company produced short films showing highlights of its creators' seasons. Named Powder Magazine's "Movie of the Year," Drawn From Here is a film by Pollard that opens with an exploration of his processes as a skier, as a ski/product designer, and as an artist. It follows the influences he draws from — like basing the shape of a ski tip off of a surfboard or finding patterns observed in nature to integrate into the graphics he hand draws for a ski — and illuminates a thread that runs through and binds all his different disciplines and hobbies.
Pollard initially planned to attend art school to become a graphic designer but loved skiing with his family and never looked back. He is married to Erin Valverde Pollard and has two children.
Snowboards are boards where the user places both feet, usually secured, to the same board. The board itself is wider than most skis, with the ability to glide on snow. Snowboards widths are between 6 and 12 inches or 15 to 30 centimeters. Snowboards are differentiated from monoskis by the stance of the user. In monoskiing, the user stands with feet inline with direction of travel, whereas in snowboarding, users stand with feet transverse to the longitude of the board. Users of such equipment may be referred to as snowboarders. Commercial snowboards generally require extra equipment, such as bindings and special boots which help secure both feet of a snowboarder, who generally ride in an upright position. These types of boards are commonly used by people at ski hills, mountains, backcountry, or resorts for leisure, entertainment, and competitive purposes in the activity called snowboarding.
Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area is a large ski resort in the western United States, located in eastern California along the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the Inyo National Forest.
A terrain park or snow park is an outdoor recreation area containing terrain that allows skiers, snowboarders and snowbikers to perform tricks. Terrain parks have their roots in skateparks and many of the features are common to both.
Alta is a ski area in the western United States, located in the town of Alta in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, in Salt Lake County. With a skiable area of 2,614 acres (10.58 km2), Alta's base elevation is 8,530 ft (2,600 m) and rises to 11,068 ft (3,374 m) for a vertical gain of 2,538 ft (774 m). One of the oldest ski resorts in the country, it opened its first lift in early 1939. Alta is known for receiving more snow than most Utah resorts, with an average annual snowfall of 545 inches (13.8 m). It is also regularly ranked as having the best snow in North America. Alta is one of three remaining ski resorts in the U.S. that prohibits snowboarders, along with nearby competitor Deer Valley and Vermont's Mad River Glen.
Terje Håkonsen is a Norwegian professional snowboarder. He is considered one of the most influential snowboarders in the history of the sport. In the book The way of the snowboarder, Rob Reed wrote that "Haakonsen took the young sport of snowboarding and revolutionized nearly every aspect of it".
Freeriding is a style of snowboarding or skiing performed on natural, un-groomed terrain, without a set course, goals or rules. It evolved throughout the sport's formative years as a contrary response to the highly regimented style of ski competition prevalent at the time. Snowboarders primarily refer to freeriding as backcountry, sidecountry, or off-piste snowboarding, and sometimes big mountain or extreme riding.
Big White Ski Resort, simply known as Big White, is a ski resort located 56 km (35 mi) southeast of Kelowna in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. It is located on Big White Mountain, the highest summit in the Okanagan Highland, an upland area between the Monashee Mountains and the Okanagan Valley. Big White is the fourth largest resort in British Columbia, after Whistler-Blackcomb, Sun Peaks, and Silver Star. In 2019, Big White was nominated as the third-best ski resort in Canada by Snowpak.
Freeskiing, or new school skiing, is a specific type of alpine skiing, which involves tricks, jumps, and terrain park features, such as rails, boxes, jibs, or other obstacles. This form of skiing resulted from the growth of snowboarding combined with the progression of freestyle skiing. "Newschoolers", or those who specifically ski in this style, as opposed to traditional freestylers, freeriders, big mountain skiers, and racers, are often found in terrain parks, which are designed specifically for tricks.
Ski geometry is the shape of the ski. Described in the direction of travel, the front of the ski, typically pointed or rounded, is the tip, the middle is the waist and the rear is the tail. Skis have four aspects that define their basic performance: length, width, sidecut and camber. Skis also differ in more minor ways to address certain niche roles. For instance, skis for moguls are much softer to absorb shocks from the quick and sharp turns of the moguls and skis for powder are much wider to provide more "float" in deeper, softer snow.
Travis Rice is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on Snowboarder magazine's list of the 20 most influential snowboarders of the last 20 years. The 41-year-old has featured in more than twenty snowboarding films. Rice's biggest claim to fame was when he arrived at Snowboarder magazine's Superpark contest at Mammoth Mountain and launched a 'mammoth' of a backside rodeo across a 117-foot gap jump. He has been considered "the Paul Revere" of the big mountain freestyle movement. In 2013, Rice was named the best contemporary snowboarder in the world by Red Bull; Rice was also hailed as one of the greatest snowboarders of all time by numerous writers and publications.
Timberline Lodge ski area is the ski and snowboarding area of Timberline Lodge, a National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is one of a few ski areas in the United States with most of the skiable terrain below the main lodge. It is located on the south face of Mount Hood, about 60 miles (95 km) east of Portland, accessible via the Mount Hood Scenic Byway.
Teton Gravity Research (TGR) is an extreme sports media company based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The company was founded in 1996 by brothers Steve and Todd Jones, as well as friends Dirk Collins, Rick Armstrong, and Corey Gavitt. The group launched the company to create products that came from the perspective of athletes, showcased youth culture, and fostered the growth of high-risk action sports.
A ski film is a motion picture with sequences of expedition, recreation, competition, or acrobatic exhibition on snow skis. These non-fiction action sport films capture the experience of an athletic outdoor snow sporting culture. Ski films typically present one or more techniques, locations, or skiers. Categories include the feature, documentary of competition or other event coverage, instruction or technique demonstration, retrospective history, travel guide showcasing a region, or a short subject. More than 200 such videos debuted in 2006. Notable examples are listed at the Ski and Snowboard Film Institute, or have received awards from the International Ski Film Festival, X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival, IF3 International Freeski Film Festival, Cold Smoke Winter Film, Powder magazine, or similar.
Backcountry snowboarding is snowboarding in a sparsely inhabited rural region over ungroomed and unmarked slopes or pistes in the backcountry, frequently amongst trees, usually in pursuit of fresh fallen snow, known as powder. Often, the land and the snow pack are not monitored, patrolled, or maintained. Fixed mechanical means of ascent such as ski lifts are typically not present, but alternative means such as splitboarding, hiking, snowshoeing and helicopters ("heliskiing") are sometimes used to reach the mountain's peak.
Keir Dillon is a professional snowboarder specializing in Halfpipe.
Peter Line is an American professional snowboarder, snowboard industry entrepreneur, writer, photographer and designer. Line is regarded as one of the greatest influences in the history of snowboarding based on his broad contributions as a professional rider, industry entrepreneur, designer, and media contributor. Line is a six-time X Game medalist, one of few to gold medal in the Summer and Winter X Games, as well as a two-time US Open medalist and a World Snowboarding Championships gold medalist.
Line Skis, commonly shortened to Line or stylized as LINE, is a new school skis company owned by K2 Sports. Line Skis was founded by Jason Levinthal in 1995 to produce short, twin-tipped skis for freestyle skiers, and has since moved to produce full-length free skis.
Grenade Gloves Inc is a manufacturer of snowboard gloves/mittens. Founded by professional snowboarders Matt and Danny Kass in 2001, the company specializes in a product line aimed at snowboarders and motocross riders: gloves, outerwear, apparel, footwear, and accessories. The company's headquarters are located in Portland, Oregon.
This glossary of skiing and snowboarding terms is a list of definitions of terms and jargon used in skiing, snowboarding, and related winter sports.
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