All Prospect Snowboards offer bamboo sidewalls and longer effective edges for better overall control. The Bamboo sidewalls offer multiple benefits. Specifically it is lighter, stronger, and adds stability to the overall ride. Without getting too technical, bamboo is 25% lighter and its tensile "burst" strength is 2 times as strong as regular core material meaning more pop. Being set at the sidewall, the stiffer bamboo offers torsional stiffness and natural vibration dampening, leading to a faster, more stable platform. Bamboo is being used more in snowboarding not only because it of its high strength to weight ratio but it also lasts because it is continuously strong even when temperature drops. Neil Henderson, the owner of Prospect snowboards says "My goal was to make the fastest, hardest carving true twin snowboard available".

To accompany the benefits of bamboo sidewalls, Prospect's geometry stretches out the effective edge, aka contact points as far as it can go. This adds to the ride stability andactually provides the performance of a longer board. According to Neil, "It's like adding 2 to 4 cm of length without having to ride a heavier, longer board." The longer effective edge puts the contact points closer to the tip of the board giving your edges more surface contact to grip in turns. This means less washing out of hard carves and smooth, stable turns for maximum control. Together, bamboo sidewalls and the longer effective edge Prospect's boards offer harder carves and a ride smoother than other freestyle decks. Neil believes this sidewall and effective edge combination are the most underrated manufacturing techniques that contribute to his goal of making the fastest and hardest carving true twin available.

Also underrated in the design of snowboards is rubber dampening, carbon fiber beams, and even more so their placement inside the construction of the board.

Prospect uses rubber in sandwich/sidewall snowboard design to reduce shock and vibration in turns and while landing big hits. According to Neil, rubber stripping is placed around the outside of the board and in the middle sections to act like a shock absorber. He says “Rubber placement is key to a boards ride because it turns the overbearing rigidity into smooth fluid movements.” His smooth ride philosophy on rubber dampening also contributes their boards lasting ride and overall durability. The way snowboards are ridden they are continuously flexed over and over again. Without sufficient rubber dampening the epoxy bonds break down leading to a lifeless board with no pop and it will eventually break. The rubber Prospect places inside the board allows small amounts of flex between the layers reducing wear on the epoxy bonds.

The Carbon laminates Neil puts in Prospect’s boards are common among most snowboards, but he believes his carbon “X-beams” also add to the boards ride. “Our X-beams are placed from the feet to the contact point at the edge. This allows Prospect to have lighter cores with added spring back. The carbon placement also contributes to their tensional stiffness, adding to the overall stability at high speed. Neil’s take on carbon fiber is: “We tried different carbon patterns, stringers, an “A” pattern on each end, Inverted “A’s”; the X pattern is the only thing that directly transfers power from your feet to the edge. There is a small sacrifice in low speed carving, but who rides slow?”

Also on the top of Prospect’s priority list is making bombproof boards. While no one should condone using a snowboard as a bomb shield, the fact is Prospect has developed 2 more ways to ensure Prospect is known as a brand that makes premium snowboards that perform and last. Neil’s philosophy is “I’m a product guy. I believe that the best products are better than the best marketing. Prospect isn’t a statement in style as much as it is a statement in quality.”

There is a few steps Prospect has taken to assure they achieve that quality. First, the Premier Special Edition Models have “Seamless edges”. Their edges are high carbon, hardened steel with no cut seam; a real 360 degree edge. This was developed to reduce edge failures from hard hits against rocks, trees, and rails. Second, the Two-part flexible epoxy serves as a dampening system, increases flexibility, and prevents delaminating. Neil’s take on Prospect’s epoxy system: “Our epoxy mixture adds a rubber like characteristic to the compound. It makes the boards tough as nails. “When we do Prospect Demos we always tell riders Hey, go break this board. We’re still waiting.”

Prospect Snowboards is on a mission to bring some killer decks to the table. They aren’t well known and they don’t dump their cash into marketing. Instead they stick to their mission. To drive home their point they gave all Prospect Snowboards a 2 year warranty and Neil Assures they stand by their warranty; if you break your board riding we’ll fix it free or you get a replacement if we can’t fix it. Good points, and Neil concludes by saying “Hey, ya know, we’re putting up a true effort here to bring out boards that pushes the accountability of a snowboard company. We listen to what each individual rider wants and we work to build that into our boards.”

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Day 1
I was pretty nervous when I left home and took a flight to Vancouver BC. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to snowboard as good as the others, but when I went, you're organized into groups depending on your level. It was silly of me to worry, but when i did go, the campers were pretty chill so it didn't even matter anyways. Well anyways, when I landed in Vancouver, I met so many people at the airport going to Whistler Summer Snowboard Camp. When we all boarded the camp bus/shuttle I met even MORE people. During the evening, we were to meet at the mountain room (a huge room with a big screen tv). There we were introduced to all the coaches and info about the camp, like camp rules, schedual, and activites. When i got to my room, there I met my 2 roomates! They were the same level as me at snowboarding and same age too! They were also in my group which was cool. I made friends really quick.

Day 2-6

The park is siiiiiiiick. They have their own terrain on Blackcomb Mountain, with jumps, rails, boxes, and a tent that you can just chill at if you're tired or hungry. The weather felt like it was 20 degrees, it was so hot! I think that's really cool, the weather being really warm and being able to snowboard. I know what you're thinking, but no! The snow isn't all slush! There's plenty of snow and the groomers of their camp groom it everyday so it's all good. I got a pretty sick goggle tan.

Activites

Out of all the activites, I've got to say that bungee jumping was my favourite! You're there with all your friends going bungee jumping! There's other activities like wakeboarding, paintball, mountain biking, driving range/miniputt, skateboarding, indoor rockclimbing, games room/movie lounge, pool/hot tub at the hotel, tennis/volleyball/dodgeball, or just chilling at Whistler Village!

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Effective April 1 - 30, 2003 the Forest Service will be implementing and enforcing a Supervisor's Closure on Vail Mountain, which will prohibit unauthorized access to the Minnie's Deck area where the end-of-season BB&B event has occurred. The Forest Service issued a directive to Vail Resorts under the terms of their special use permit to shut down the BB&B event on Vail Mountain. Historically the BB&B event has taken place at Minnie's Deck and the event had evolved into a gathering of as many as 2,000 people. The behavior of participants posed serious risks to public health and safety as well as caused resource damage. The Supervisor's Closure will be in effect to ensure protection of public health and safety.

So, with a stroke of the pen, the US Forest Service ended the infamous end-of-season party on Vail Mountain, ending a 22 year tradition.  Know by many variations, Boobs, Boomers and Beers; Buns, Boobs, and Beers; Boobs, Booze and Brews, etc, (BB&B) was held on the second Tuesday in April as a way for Vail valley residents and employees to blow off some steam at the end of the season.  The event started in 1980 as a small end-of-season birthday party on Minnie's deck. BB&B devolved into an orgy of drinking, snowball fights and raucous behavior. During the last several years, partiers spent days before BB&B building large snow forts, stashing large quantities of alcoholic beverages, and, too often, hauling up more illicit substances.

Historically, the end of season party probably started much earlier with the Great Race.  This season-ender was usually held in Lionshead and People would dress up in all kinds of wild costumes. A photo of Vail local hooligan Packy Walker standing on the winner’s podium wearing nothing but a fig leaf and his gold medal made the front page of the Vail Trail newspaper. After Vail executives and lawyers killed that event people continued to get costumed up and party at Minnie's Deck.  In those days it was called the mountain formal.  Costumes included top hats and suits as well as high school prom dresses, horrible powder-blue tuxedoes and ballerina tutus.  The event grew and was combined with Warren Miller’s Mad Mountain Marathon and the Rubber Legs Slalom.  The race involved 150 or more slalom gates at the bottom of Vail Mountain and the event raised money for local charities.

When I was there in the spring of 2002, my brother Travis, his wife Michelle, Mayela and I went to the BB&B.  We all carried backpacks loaded with beers, booze and buds.  When we arrived at Minnie's deck the atmosphere was relaxed and people were lounging on the deck in the sun enjoying the event.  We set up camp on the deck and in one of the nearby snow forts crafted by a group of Beaver Creek's happyshack community.  We took some runs and explored the other various snow forts in the woods.  It was amazing the elaborate complex of forts and the adornments within.  Some had full Ice sculpture bars complete with barstools carved from compacted snow.  Others were complete igloos with only a small portal in the roof for ventilation.  Another was an elaborate maze to thwart cops and security spies.

As the day continued, there were jam sessions on the numerous rails that had been created in the woods.  One was a 50 foot long triple wave that dumped out into the main area opening.  Eventually the traditional snowball fight erupted with the main focus from the snow forts surrounding the opening at Minnie's deck.  Some forts were equipped with water balloon launchers.  A couple of times I snuck out through the woods with my snowboard to take runs down born free.  After riding the gondola back up to the top, I'd come rolling into the woods with my pants down and flipping the crowd off in my black afro.  The trick was to ride fast and get to the fort as quickly as possible.  Poor unfortunate souls that tried to follow in the wake turbulence of my entry would get blasted into oblivion.  I would stand on the wall and yell out obscenities to the enemy forts.  The response was a furious barage of snowballs.  People were getting pissed because we were getting bombed with snow.  One time, standing on the wall, I took a water balloon launcher shot to the chest that blasted me flat on my back.  Heffe came right up like a  medic with the Jaegermeister bottle to nurse me back to insanity.

In the evening when security starts to herd everybody out of there is a Chinese downhill of sorts.  This race to the pub progresses down the mountain. There is one particularly steep pitch where people who are so f*cked up that they just take their skis off and hurl themselves bodily down the face, laughing their drunken asses off.  I came up to the edge and launched the hand bag I was carrying as high in the air as I could--only to find out Mayela had her camera in it.  We all ended up at the bars in Vail village till the weee hours of the morning.  It was amazing.  I'm glad I got to experience the greatest party on earth before it was over.  Good times

As kind of a sick footnote to all of this, the event has been commercialized in a couple of different forms. Never shy about making a buck off the sweat and toil of the locals Vail Resorts promptly christened Siebert's Mad Mountain Marathon and Beaver creek Blues, Brews, and Bar-B-Que. There is no limit to the depth of slime with Vail Management.

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THE MESSAGE  - OCTOBER 2008

Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails

THE BLOCK BOOTCAMP 2008

Knock on Wood

Upcoming Events

Big Bear

Lake Tahoe

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From 6^th to 13^th of April 2008 Kühtai hosted the BAGJUMP SpringBreak08 Snowboard&Freeski Camp. The Film&Foto Award presented by TVB-Kühtai was an additional feature to the Camp where filmer and photographers had the chance to get the best shots from the whole resort and be rewarded with 2000Euro prize-money. Good riders had the chance to get some international coverage and present their skills. This event was a unique experience for snowboarder, freeskier, filmer- and photographer!

A perfect shaped park, the BAGJUMP MegaBag for training and 4 IOU-Special obstacles prepared for shootings throughout the backcountry. The Völkl Pro Team was here to coach and film for the Völkl-Movie the whole week and many other international Pros to get some last shots from the 2007/08 Season with over 40 international photographers and filmers around. Some lucky campers got a Völkl Sponsorship because of their amazing riding skills. The weather was like it is in April: unpredictable! As we had Snowstorms and waist deep powder for the first 3 days and fine spring slush with mostly blue sky for the rest of the SpringBreak08. Camp-Hotel Marlstein was located close by and the food was excellent with breakfast buffets in the morning and 4 course dinners in the evenings.

Campers and daily visitors had the chance to win Zimtstern, Völkl, Gravis and X-Double prizes in the everyday mini-competitions like Poker-Tournaments, Best Trick-MegaBag, Night-Sessions on the special spots and the XBOX360 Guitar Hero Madness. Due to the bad weather Saturdays SpringOFF Slopestyle Contest took place on the rails whit over 60 motivated riders giving their best to win money and prizes.

Everyone could get 2009 Boards and Skis at the Völkl Test in the chill area and test their new Board or Ski of Choice. Listening to fine tunes coming from the RedBull Event Car mixed by Dj Seren and eating at the BAGJUMP BBQ/Grill was a good chance to regain energy for riding. While watching international Pros practicing contest winning tricks into the MegaBag not only media but also the crowd and people passing by took out the camera to capture the action.

Read a more details from BAGJUMP SpringBreak08 in Playboard, Pleasure, Onboard, Methodmag and Shralp.com!

Results BAGJUMP SpringBreak08 Film&Foto Award presented by TVB-Kühtai:

2000.- Euro prizemoney!

Springbreak08 Video-Award:

Judging by: Helge Zirkl (Playboard Magazine), Mee-z (www.shralp.com), Richard Prendergast (Method.tv) and viewing-points on blip.tv.

1^st Place with 95 points: Niki Kranebitter AUT (To watch this clip: Aufmschlauch@SpringBreak08: http://blip.tv/file/834426/)

2^nd Place with 94 points: Chris Garside NZL (To watch this clip: Völkl-Team@SpringBreak08: http://blip.tv/file/843655/)

2^nd Place with 94 points: James Vooght NL (To watch this clip: Flash Horton&Niki Korpela@SpringBreak08: http://blip.tv/file/834929)

The winner clip will be shown on www.shralp.com, www.method.tv, www.playboard.de and www.BAGJUMP.com.

SpringBreak08 Foto-Award:

Judging by: Markus Fischer (Pleasure Magazine), Sami Touriniemi (Onboard Magazine) and Richard Walch (Pro-Photographer).

3 categories: Best Single Picture Snowboard or Ski, Best Sequence Snowboard, Best Ski Picture.

Best Single Shot Springbreak 08:

1^st Place with 122 points: Thomas Holleis AUT (Rider: Daniel Mösl, Trick: OneFoot)

The winner picture will be published in Pleasure Magazine this Fall! The rider on the picture wins a subscription to Pleasure Magazine for one Year!

Best Sequence SpringBreak08:

1^st Place with 75 points: Jason Horton ENG (Rider: Niki Korpela, Trick: Fs360drop)

The winning sequence will be published in Onboard Magazine! The rider on the sequence wins a subscription to Onboard Magazine for one Year!

Best Ski Picture SpringBreak08:

1^st Place with 111 points: Michael Obex AUT (Rider: Niko Rauch, Trick: WallrideSlide)

The winner will be published in Skiing Magazine! The rider on the picture wins a subscription to Skiing Magazine for one Year!

Congratulations to all winners!

Last but not least we would like to thank all participants, Sponsors, Media for making this event such a huge success.

Sponsors: TVB-Kühtai, Bergbahnen Kühtai, Völkl, RedBull, Zimtstern, Gravis, X-Double, Tobis Travel Solutions, Himaya.

Media Partners: Playboard Magazine, Pleasure Magazine, Onboard Magazine, Methodmag, shralp.com.

Watch out for the BAGJUMP SpringBreak09 with even more features than this year!

For more BAGJUMP action visit us at the Camp of Champions COC in Whistler B.C. Canada from June 21 to July 19 2008.

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Glacier Snowboard Camp is setting up to have its best year ever.

There is so much snow still left in Whistler it’s crazy. The temperatures have been so low and it just hasn’t let the snow melt. There is still over 230 cm or 91 inches of snow at mid mountain and way more on the glacier.

So that means more snow to make jumps this summer.

We are taking fewer campers than ever and expanding our terrain to include a park on the T-bar lap. So you can take multiple jumps and/or rails in a row without ever having to hike (unless you want to).  We are so excited about having such a bigger park than we have had in the past.

We take fewer campers than anyone and that directly translates to more coaching and personal attention. You are not just a number with us. You are a friend who has entrusted us to coach you to snowboard better and to show you a great time. We take that responsibility very serious.

If you want to snowboard better or just want to have the best time ever then Glacier Snowboard Camp is where you want to be.

Seriously.

Check out the website for all the information or give us a call at 604-935-7776.

www.glaciersnowboardcamp.com

Summer 2008 dates:

Session 1 June 27-July 4

Session 2 July 4-July 11

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HERE IS TO MAGGIE VALLEY AND CATALOOCHEE SKI FOR HIRING ME FOR THE BEST JOB EVER. I GOT TO TEACH YOUNG AND OLD PEOPLE HOW TO SNOWBOARD AND THEN RIDE FOR FREE.THE SNOW WASNT LIKE OUT WEST BUT THE GOOD COMPANY OF THE OTHER INSTURCTERS MADE UP FOR IT.  WE WOULD JUST SHRED FOR HOURS JUDGING AND ADVISING ON HOW TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE AND THEN  VIDEO RECORD EACH OTHER HITTEN THE JUMPS AND RAILS. WOW WHAT I LEARNED IN 3 MONTHS FROM OTHER PEOPLE COMPARED TO ME BEIN A FLORIDA BOY GOIN ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR  IT'S LIKE NIGHT AND DAY. HAPPY DAYS AT THE RANCH AND IF YOULL READ THIS YOU SHOULD GO NEXT YEAR CAUSE I WLL BE THERE!

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