Bit of a holiday hiatus there for a bit, so buckle up, we’ve got bukoo boarding to illuminate and/or eviscerate. Also happy 2026, we hear it’s gonna be the best year yet…
Torment Weather Report: Sorry to keep harping on the Northwest, but shit got wild out there over the past month or so. Currently sitting on the lowest early-season snowpack in 25 years, Washington’s resorts got pummeled by a series of historically large atmospheric rivers. Though the rain finally switched to snow (for a time), the damage from this weather event will be felt for months, if not years.
Baker had their opening day, which did look v fun, but they were only able to get going because of some Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) heroics on HWY 542.
Crystal Mt. had their debut, servicing minimal terrain. Skiers and riders coming from the west side on SR 410 had to deal with a stretch of one lane road. It’s a miracle WSDOT was able to pull that off, as a huge chunk of the highway literally fell into a river. We did hear though that if you bought one of Crystal’s $1500 line cutting passes you were allowed to go around the backup via a cutoff called “Lizard People Lane.”
Mission Ridge, near Wenatchee, WA, racked up rain-related problems AND got pummeled by hurricane force winds. Trees were down all over the resort. After a concerted cleanup effort they are open again.
Hit hardest by this event was Stevens Pass. US 2 was initially completely closed on either side of the resort, supposedly fully “washed out” at points on the west side of the pass, and literally fallen into the Wenatchee River on the east. Steven’s is finally open, and accessible from both directions, but restrictions, pilot cars, and potential traffic nightmares do remain. Despite this news, if you dive into the Insta comments you’ll still find a whole bunch of angry customers. You might say they are Stevens Pissed… (Thank god they opened, otherwise the rest of Washington was going to have to deal with these whingers all season long.)
Somehow The Summit at Snoqualmie dodged most of this. Coverage is thin, but they’re open, minimally.
Moving on from that darkness, the crushing weight of 2025’s (now 2026!) video onslaught continues to grow. When will it end? What will we write about when the torrent is over? We don’t know, but for now, it’s our duty to keep watching.
Jason Robinson blessed us with a glimpse into a snowless future with VEIL - A Scifi Snowboard Western. We don’t know if the generous use of AI was a clever meta-comment on the path we are currently headed, or maybe an attempt to get there quicker? Is J-Rob a nihilist?!
Other works we've like recently: HARMONIZE featuring Toshiki Nishimura. (Kinda SYRUP meets Sangwich-esque boadin’)
Pinned by midwest crew Holeshot. Heavy freaking maneuvers in this one.
And there’s so much more; Compressed Mess featuring one of the coolest front 7’s we’ve ever seen, The beautiful Arc’teryx film Between Days, Forest Bailey’s short but heavy Good Apple, A Vermont powder film called Blueroom, Pay the Rent’s Evicted, and K2’s backcountry odyssey TUMBLEWEED with a switch straight-line ender! There’s even more than that if you can believe it, but we must move on.
“ToRmENT PoSTeD a SKIinG MOovieEE!! WhAaAH” Actually, most people seem to be hyped, though there are some A-grade cutups on the Insta post if you’re looking for a chuckle. Speaking of comments, pretty sure this is the first post anyone has commented on the Torment site?! Sooo do y’all like skiing more than boarding, or what? Get in there, chop it up, it’s anonymous…
The Rockstar Open went off in Breckenridge Colorado, and we gotta say, they really swung for the fences with this one. Featuring a non-traditional slopestyle course, a bracket style competition, and a video qualifier series, the event was a fresh take on something that’s become increasingly stale. The highlight of the event had to be the impromptu hip contest in which various competitors and poachers went to the moon and back attempting to snag a 10k prize. Mons Røisland even he-manned the thing, just for kicks.
Now, we wouldn’t be your trusted unbiased news source if we didn’t throw just a touch of concern. The broadcast’s incessant pleas for us to “Smash that QR code and get a bean bag just like this” paired with advertisements for their movie, Carpe Diem, which, it seems no one has had the heart to tell them, is already a legendary Standard Films flick, made for some funny moments. All in all though, a good showing, and excited for the next iteration.
Last TTN we heralded the most “heart-warming” cover of the year, featuring Mickey the container-lid boarder. It just keeps getting heart warminger:
WE INTERRUPT THIS TTN TO highly, strongly, and emphatically recommend you tune into the recent Bomb Hole episode with Chad Otterstrom. It’s hilarious, illuminating, and inspiring. Quite frankly, we are living through amazing times in snowboard-land. In surfing and skating, the first generations of “modern day” riders (shout out 1000+ year old Polynesians ripping waves on wood in loin cloths), have or have begun to abandon this mortal coil. Chad was born 1 year before Jake Burton took his love of “snurfing” and decided to make something more out of it. Otterstrom is a lifer in every sense of the word, is STILL stacking clips, and should be venerated in our little corner of the world, to say the least.
Outside of the boarding world we’ve been binging this ART21 Youtube channel. Buncha the weirdest and most beautiful and maybe most confusing shit getting made right now. People are fascinating.
Oh and one more “snow”-“boarding” (or is it “ice”-“skating”?) edit for ya before we wrap it up. This is fucking dedication right here:
Hopefully winter starts finally turning on everywhere, and for everyone, or we might have to resort to drastic measures for high-elevation terrain access:
Instagram Clip/s of the Week: One on the steel, and one on wood.
Instagram Photo of the Week: Yosh is on one.