TRIUMPH OF HATED SNOWBOARDERS

By Steve Wulf

SKIERS KNOW THE SOUND. IT'S LIKE AN ice scraper cutting through the glaze on a windshield, only it gets louder and louder, and it is accompanied by the whoops and wails of the truly possessed. Upon hearing it, the smart skier moves off to the side of the trail. He or she knows that an avalanche of snowboarders is coming.

Once, not so long ago, schussers and shredders were the Hatfields and McCoys, the sheepherders and cattle ranchers, of the slopes. Separated by age, fashion, etiquette, lingo and per capita income, the skier and the snowboarder rode up the mountain together in chilly silence.

But that was then, and this is now. American snowboarding participants have quadrupled in the past four years from 500,000 to two million, and they currently account for 12.7% of all lift tickets. Because the number of skiers has declined in recent years, the snowball effect of boarders has come as welcome news to both ski resorts and manufacturers.

Robert Shaw, the public relations director at Blackcomb, near Vancouver, Canada, estimates that snowboarders provide 40% of the business there. French ski giant Rossignol-Dynaster has seen its snowboard production increase 100% in the past three years, and according to product manager Jean-Karl Carpano of Rossignol, "We could see every other person on a snowboard by 2005." There are some isolated ski areas that prohibit snowboarding, but the vast majority caters to the ever increasing numbers of boarders who want to tweak the halfpipes and bonk some fat air (ride the parabolic-shaped chutes and hit a really good jump). As Bill Adams, director of the Mount Mansfield Ski School in Stowe, Vermont, says, "They have saved the industry's butt."

Snowboard fashion, both male and female, is hot, and so, believe it or not, is snowboard literature. Surfing the Himalayas, a vapid, new-age novella written by Frederick Lenz (a discredited guru once known as Rama), is surfing the best-seller lists. The book tells of how a snowboarder and a monk known as Master Fwap come to a mutual understanding after the rider knocks the monk down. In that regard, the book mirrors the new age on the slopes. "The war is over," says Bob Gillen, the marketing director for Stowe. "There is peace in our time."

That comes as a great relief to Paul Graves, a snowboarding pioneer from Redding, Vermont, who has been fighting an uphill fight for 32 years. "In the early days," says Graves, "back when we were riding these primitive things called snurfers, skiers looked on us as lepers. I remember being escorted off Mammoth Mountain in California by the ski patrol and told never to come back." This week Mammoth is host to a special snowboard competition for women. At the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, snowboarding will be introduced as a medal sport. (Park City, Utah, the site of Alpine events in the 2002 Winter Games, still bans boarders.)

Snowboarding, both freestyle and Alpine, is clearly not just a fad. It's easier to learn than skiing. It's more adaptable to changing snow conditions. And to the chagrin of its grunge contingent, Mom and Dad are buying boards. Brian Delaney, who runs adult snowboarding camps in Colorado, says the average age of his student is 40 and business is up 200% over last year.

Who knows? Maybe someday a child on a snowboard will watch in awe as someone speeds by him on the slopes. "What was that?" he'll ask an older person. "They used to be called skiers."

--Reported by Sam Allis/Stowe and Richard Woodbury/Breckenridge

With reporting by SAM ALLIS/STOWE AND RICHARD WOODBURY/BRECKENRIDGE