Money has a knack for muddying up what should be straight forward. This time of year is particularly exemplary of that. In the wake of holiday get-togethers and gift-giving, those of us afflicted with the snowboard bug find ourselves in the midst of a wintry wondering: where should we ride, when are we going, and how can we pull it off without botching next month’s rent? No illness comes without the psychological nasties and, for us, the watermark symptom is an incessant (dare I say “uncontrollable”) urge to funnel our earnings directly into the source itself.
People talk about inflation. “In this economy?” is evermore on the jocular lips of conversation, my own included. But it comes from an absence; I joke because I know next to nothing about money. My financial strategy is “work hard to pay the bills.” I’m aware that there’s depth to money. I’ve been told I should save. I should invest. Turn my hobbies into hustles. “You should make more money; you’re worth more than that.” But those layers are not in practice. They deter my practice, and, more often than not, defy it. Because nestled in the routine is the sickness. Among the list of duties and responsibilities, riding is included in the necessary bills.
Despite helplessly romanticizing snowboarding, you get to a point where your life yearns for stability. You may find yourself on the fringe between civilian and boarder, teetering more on one side than the other. It’s only natural that they should conflict. But you have to strike a balance. And we all have our own way of achieving that. Which leads us to this very article.
The last correspondence we had was after the Issue EIGHT Release Party. I wrote to you at length about the time spent with dear friends and the folks that make up our precious world. Of all the catch-ups and discourse from those couple of days, there was a specific chat I had with Tommy Towns that I couldn’t help replaying as the train trucked me homeward. He told me about his work — the studio he and Cody had just secured to do tattoos out of — and how he’d been helping out Luke and Sierra with their respective businesses throughout the summer to make some extra cash.
“Wait,” I said. “What are Luke and Sierra doing?”
“Luke’s an arborist and Sierra’s got her own landscaping business.” I’m paraphrasing so this doesn’t turn into a novella, but that was the meat of it. And that was what garnered my attention. That was what warranted further discussion.
Fast-forward a week or two and I’m on the horn with Luke Lund, or Goop, as you may know him colloquially. To bring some sense of formality, Goop is a 24-year-old SLC transplant originally from Minnesota. You would recognize his footage in Salomon projects (notably Foyer) and all of Dylan Okurowski’s videos, including his newest edit I’m out for a soadie. In addition to that he’s had interviews in both Issue SIX and Garage. If you’re still in the dark, there’s a possibility that you ride a snowboard with his name on it. That’s right, the young man was given the opportunity to design his own model in Wolle Nyvelt’s Hillside Project with Salomon. That makes him an anomaly in the realm of professional snowboarding, being that he’s still technically an amateur. And he’s the first to admit the cultural oddity of his circumstance; he confessed that he doesn’t consider this board as a “pro board,” that he and his snowboarding have a little more work to do before he could confidently claim that.
“But nevertheless everybody seems stoked on the board so I think we did something cool.”
As cool as that milestone is, it was his life outside of snowboarding that intrigued me. I was drawn to the fact that he, a promising amateur in the industry, was operating in a trade I’d recently become privy to. For context, the day before we spoke I was helping out an arborist in Truckee, hauling branches and debris on the ground while my buddy was suspended some 60 feet up in a Jeffery Pine with a big ol’ chainsaw attached to his hip. I explicated that to Goop and he said “Well, I’m not in too many pines out here [Salt Lake City], but yeah: I’m the guy in the tree.”
He got into the trade by sheer coincidence. He had been building bike parks for Woodies (Woodward Park City) and stumbled upon an ad on the back of a coupon booklet.
“I was sitting at my house cutting out coupons for Smith’s (grocery story) ‘cause I was like that down-bad. I flip the magazine over and on the back was an ad for Diamond Tree Experts starting at $18 an hour.”
Coincidence and the need for better pay. He called the number, got hired, and hit the ground running. The man who hired him, Sean, would become a mentor to Luke, teaching him how to climb and allotting him the patience to learn from his mistakes. They worked together for two summers before coming to the conclusion that their current company was leaving money on the table, and if they had their own business, the money was theirs for the taking. They founded Sterling Tree Company towards the end of 2022 and began facilitating work for themselves and their expanding crew. Now, at the end of their second summer, the business is doing just fine.
“The first year was kinda tough but fast-forward to this year, I think we moved like 1.2 million worth of work.” Now, $1.2 million is not going straight into Luke’s pocket. The tree business has a large overhead; trucks, trailers, Bobcats, wood-chippers, storage—there is a lot of heavy machinery that goes into it. With that being said, $1.2 million is a clear indicator that their endeavor is not only paying off, but paying well. And there’s no shortage of work.
“There’s always more trees to cut,” as he says.
Hearing that struck a chord. Because, to me, that’s the stabilizer; that’s the mind’s drive towards responsibility; “covering your bases.” Where does snowboarding fit it? With a glaringly reliable, albeit physically and mentally demanding (not to mention dangerous) source of income, does snowboarding take the back burner? Not in Goop’s case.
He tells me deadpan, without a moment’s hesitation, that snowboarding is top priority. “I’m running the snowboard until the wheels fall off. That’s been my thing since I was like seven years old. There’s no turning away from that. Some of my favorite memories are being in cool places with people I love. And even just traveling in general. Snowboarding gave me that. I couldn’t trade that.”
These are the words we love to hear, “we” being the snowboard-afflicted. His dedication to the craft is admirable to say the least. But there is a caveat in his line of work, being that it’s seasonal. Once it’s cold enough to snow, the work tends to taper off. Not entirely—Sterling Tree Company operates year round— but it does for him, given that he’s juggling two careers, one of which is entirely contingent on snowfall. And considering his position, he has the ability to. But not every amateur boarder is in the same position.
In comes Ms. Forchheimer. Sierra and Luke share a few similarities; teammates on Salomon, business owners, SLC transplants. But the differences are stark. For example, when I called Luke, he was roadtripping home to surprise his mom for Thanksgiving and get his legs warmed up riding the ropes. Sierra, on the other hand, was on her way to pick up Skoot [Jack Sczutak] and Sully [Sullivan Platt] for a day on the job.
She runs Weed Warriors, a small landscaping outfit in Salt Lake, as a “crazy, psychotic, independent contractor.” I relate to the frazzled nature of her response; working on the ground has somewhat of a less-than-serious intonation. But for the sake of this article (excuse the recurring meta-theme) I pressed her for a professional title. “I guess it would be a landscape designer.”
“Slash, professional snowboarder?” I prodded gingerly.
This muddled the water. Like Luke, her snowboard career exists in somewhat of a stipulation. Despite recently being announced on L1 (indicative of being “pro”) she is still technically “am” for her board sponsor. “I do get funding to snowboard,” she explains “and obviously I’m thankful. But at the same time it’s like, what does that even mean anymore? It’s sick I’m finally ‘on the team’ but I just don’t want the world to be skewed on what they think people are making.”
To the untrained eye or, rather: the unstrapped boot, a professional snowboarder might be someone who makes a living off of it. Someone who supports themselves and perhaps even a family from their sponsors. Sierra made it clear that her situation is defined much differently. “I’m still paycheck-to-paycheck and kind of freaking out all the time. But it works; I’m making it work.”
The 29-year-old found snowboarding later than usual; not unusual, however, considering her Floridian upbringing. She strapped in during her Sophomore year at Appalachian State University [North Carolina] and was hooked immediately. She wasted no time either, as her video appearances have already surpassed the cultural average. Between her cameos in notable “underground” videos (read: The Impaler, Moron, Pink Dollar Possy, to name a few) and her footage in “above-ground” projects (read: SLUSH’s Bittersweet, the Sensesse series, Bryden Bowley’s Dorothy), her body of work has been astounding, especially considering the short timeframe.
But this feat didn’t come without sacrifice. Sierra is a worker, and striking the balance between snowboarding and paying rent has been no small task. She finds that the two mentally interfere with each other. “During the summer I’m panicking, thinking ‘I need to save more money for the winter,’ and then all winter I’m thinking ‘I need to stop snowboarding and go back to work and make some money’.” Lest you need the reminder, this on-going anxiety is not conducive to optimal performance. “Sustained” performance, I should say. Because her part in reptile, the newest dustbox video, is easily among her best to date. But throughout the filming of it she was sidetracked with financial stress.
“You can ask any of the Dustbox guys, the whole winter I was applying for jobs instead of looking for spots.” Granted, she was on trips—in the van, traveling, stacking footage. But in the midst of traveling, her focus was not the next clip or the next locale, but rather on lining-up work for when the trip ended.
So on-screen and in-print, we see a woman spearheading a promising snowboard career, but it’s important to remember that there’s a life behind the lens. A life that is far more relatable to the everyday viewer than we’re led to believe. But what differs with folks like Sierra is the line of settling. It would seem irresponsible to the masses to even consider going on a trip when you had bills to pay and a business to run. But the signs are overwhelmingly symptomatic of someone afflicted with the snowboard-bug, which is to say this: she’s committed.
I postulated what her life might look like if Weed Warriors was more financially stable; if she scored some bigger contracts on recurring projects. “Then I would snowboard and film all I want.” A distant echo of Goop’s response to a similar hypothetical.
“But it’s hard,” she continued, “because the workers I have right now are all snowboarders. I only employ snowboarders and skaters, and their availability is also what’s going to make or break a job like that happening.” So on top of covering her own ass, she takes the responsibility of providing work for her peers, namely the rising stars of Team Elevin. To me, that behavior is angelic and reminiscent of a few ex-pro boarders I know. When asked why she would add more to her plate in doing so, she answered that she wished she had an opportunity like this when she was in their shoes. “I just can’t help but see little-me in their little faces. And I can’t help but feel like I want to help them.” And she does.
Our phone call ended as she pulled up to Skoot and Sully; they had to get to work. But due to the candidness of our conversation we had both gotten slightly overzealous in snowboard-symptom sympathizing, and she made sure to reiterate that she’s doing whatever she can to stay in snowboarding. Her mind may wander but her heart is undoubtedly in it. She’s just learning how to balance it in lieu of operating a business.
Judging by the fact that a few weeks later I saw she (and some of her employees) had made the preseason pilgrimage to the Minnesota rope tows—the very same place Goop was headed when we spoke—we can assume that her balancing strategies are working.
If you’re anticipating a conclusory element of this article I regret to inform you that now is not the place for it. For me, this has been an exercise in stone-flipping. I found the activity difficult to stop, considering how the stones thus far had captivated me. I needed one more, and knew that I had to broaden my search to the outskirts of the industry hub.
My sources lead me to Casey Savage. You would recognize the name from this year’s Rome project Swarm, tucked nicely there in the middle with my favorite part. Hate to pick favorites in a video such as theirs—one with the likes of the Coville brothers, the absurd onslaught of Lemke, LoLo, Maggie, et. al.—but Casey’s part spoke to me. Vermont native, Boreal park staff alumni, half cab 5-0er, bush toucher, boardslide fence hopper, obscure obstacle finder… He’s just the type of boarder I enjoy watching. And it’s among those very attributes that brought us together for this.
In his ender, a lengthy challenge 5050, he’s seen propping up a broken section of the rail with a car jack. That was his own jack, sitting in the back of his ‘86 Suburban. The same Burb he’s rebuilt himself, furthermore, the same damn Burb he’s enlisted for filming purposes with the Rome squad for the last three winters.
Casey, an auto body repairman, started Black Cat Custom Fabrication last June, and therein lies the cross-over: another amateur boarder running his own business. His path, however, differentiates twice, the first being that he doesn’t live in Salt Lake; snowboarding took him westward for a spell but he ultimately landed back in Vermont.
The second is that he doesn’t make a dime from snowboarding. I asked him about that and a snort snuck out, followed by an audible chuckle.
“To me, it’s just fuckin’ silly—gettin paid to have fun on my snowboard, ya know?”
I’m sure his response may translate as being silly to a fair portion of you readers; if you had the opportunity to financially capitalize on your hobby (a hobby you were fluent and by-large proficient in, no less) you might think ‘why not?’ For Casey, the answer came naturally but in opposition.
“The money makes it serious, and I like snowboarding to be fun.” To a viewer, a friend, a fan, the drive he has is palpable. Even through the phone, conversing with him revealed the root of my inclination to his footage. The tone of his voice is directly correlated to his style on board. He’s honest to the point of simplicity, and concrete—direct. And his direction is clear, or as clear as the notion of working for tomorrow can be. This attitude has behooved him. After all, that was how Black Cat came about in the first place.
Casey got surprised with a lay-off from building parks at Okemo towards the end of the season, discovering himself unemployed. But he was no stranger to “fixin’ rust off people’s cars,” and thanks to that and the local automotive community he was already privy to, he was urged to open up his own shop. He didn’t have to think about it too much. Even the name, an ode to his black kitty, Frankenstein, was proverbially sitting in his lap. Shortly thereafter, he was wrenching (welding, painting, restoring, and hammering) on cars in a garage the next town over.
I asked him if he had always been a car-guy and he said “Yeah. Ever since I can remember, really. My dad just fueled me with classic shit; sick American muscle. My first rig was a ‘69 Chevy pickup—the short bed.” Being that the car was nearly twice as old as he is now, he had to learn how to work on it. And working on cars was something he kept up with all the while. “I just spent a lot of time doing it. And researching it and dreaming about it, getting deep into it. Learning the hard way.” Considering his location (ed. New Englander’s will know that the roads are salted during the winter months to combat ice, and the salt makes quick work of deteriorating your vehicle) there’s no shortage of work in sight, which leads me to believe that all that experience will continue to pay off.
Though his work changes throughout the seasons, it’s still a year-round gig. I postulated what he’s expecting this winter to look like, as far as work goes. “I’m hoping I can get something I can work on all winter and have ready for them in the spring—a restoration style project. Not one of the projects where I’m fighting tooth and nail for a month straight.”
”So you can go film?”
“So I can go film and come back and work and then go film again and then come back and work.”
“And you like the work.”
“It’s really entertaining. There’s other shop owners I talk to who are like ‘You’re really doing that stuff?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah.’ They’re like ‘I hate doing that stuff, why are you doing it?’ And I’m like ‘I like doing it!’ The outcome is satisfying. And I mean, it’s work, dude. It makes me money so I can do shit. I gotta feed my cat.”
Good news is there’s a gentleman who’s looking to have Casey restore his ‘73 Vista Cruiser. Even better news is that Rome’s set on making a follow-up to Swarm. As far as Casey’s concerned—the same man who’s managed to fit in quality boarding amidst a full-time job for the last decade—“I’m just gonna make (filming) fit wherever it fits, ya know? Should be about same-same, if not better.”
So where does this leave us? Under what judgement might I find you surreptitiously sitting on? Undoubtedly you have a job of your own, one that either prohibits or enables you to make time to snowboard, depending on your perspective. There was a time when a faction of our community would accuse people who griped about having to work as being spoiled brats. I suppose that faction still exists, but I’ve grown deaf to it; trudging along on my own path, complete with its own questionable rewards and sacrifices, has granted me earmuffs to that sort of chatter. That’s a roundabout way of saying that perhaps I’m too busy working and trying to snowboard to pay attention to it. Or maybe I’m just focused on attempting to alleviate the acute pain my own line of work has inflicted on my neck, shoulders, and back.
Perhaps that’s my conclusive catalyst: it should be said that these blue collar boarders are all physically beat.
I asked Casey how working in a garage all day treats his body. Not well, I gathered through his laughter.
“No,” he said. “Nope. Just all-around no.”
“Sierra, how’s your body feeling?”
“Nobody (I snowboard with) knows how bad my back feels year round. I actually got a steroid shot this summer because (it’s) just so bad.”
Goop?
The short answer was “absolutely fucked. My body is destroyed.” We laughed the same familiar laugh that riddled all three of these conversations. “I feel strong, for sure. But I don’t feel good. It’s not like I’ve been going to the gym and doing yoga.”
So next time you bump into one of these folks, be it in the base lodge or parking lot—or at the watering hole nearest any trailhead or snow-fallen city—buy ‘em a beer. Or a shot. Gatorade, Yerba, water; whatever they want. Take this opportunity to ask them how work’s going. Shoot, maybe you’ve got a garden that needs redoing, or your dad needs a couple dead trees felled in the backyard. Maybe your mom needs some new floor pans. You could enlist one of these fine boarders for their practiced services.
And let’s say you don’t need any of that work done, you could just talk about snowboarding. The lengths you go through to make it on-hill. The sacrifices you make chasing this ride. Some of those things become comical when you say them out loud, but I’ve found that the laughter is tied closely to the gratitude we have for it. That gratitude was resoundingly expressed by each of these individuals. They cherish snowboarding for the same reasons we do. The experiences, the friendships, the purpose it gives us. Those things are worth working for.
That’s what connects us; those are the symptoms we share.
As for the muddy nature of money, Casey cleared it up with a sentiment as old as capitalistic-time:
“The money doesn’t mean anything. It’s just this thing we have to do. But we spend it on what we wanna do. That’s what it’s all about.”
Balance is an active expression, a dance. And when it comes to the swing of making money and snowboarding, I’ve learned that it’s in your best interest to keep on dancing. May not always look pretty but that shouldn't concern you, because the second you stop moving things’ll turn murky quick. Lord knows it ain't fun riding when you can't see shit.