“Nick Russell painting a nice track on one of the best days of the season, in the best season of our lives, in California’s Sierra Nevada.” Photo: Ming Poon Introduction Nick Russell W e begin each season with an ideal scenario in mind: Stay healthy, ride new ter-rain, and maybe even doc-ument some snowboarding. For most, this scenario revolves around one simple, crucial, and uncontrollable ingredient: a good winter at home. For those of us liv-ing in California, a state cursed by drought over the past decade, it had been a while since nature provided an ideal scenario. haven’t been in for years, if ever, became fair game. It was that ideal scenario we’d all been waiting for. Reminiscing on the past winter, a season full of memories can be broken down into a handful of standout shared experiences— a collection of literal ups and downs that vary from mundane to transformative which will forever hold a place in our hearts and minds. They range from low stress sessions to critical situations demanding absolute focus. From vision quests on a bucket list ob-jective to sharing these wild spaces with friends and loved ones, the key element here is the landscape. But what makes this range so special is the fact that we have the privilege to recreate and im-merse ourselves in such a vast land largely untouched by humans. Open to interpretation, these mountains provide us with an out-let and opportunity for varied forms of alpine wilderness experi-ences. The following are three moments from three perspectives from a winter where it all lined up. The Sierra Nevada—more specifically the High Sierra—is a gem of North American mountain ranges. In my biased opinion, this is one of the greatest places in the world for human-pow-ered snowboarding. The high concentration of rideable terrain throughout this rugged 400-mile stretch of ridgelines topping out above 14,000 feet is a freerider’s fantasy. Combined with frequent high pressure systems allowing passage into the alpine, it’s a place of endless potential–so long as there is snow on the ground. Big snow years, particularly in the Southern Sierra, have become less and less reliable recently due to climate change. In the heart of the range, it is feast or famine. We’ve learned to be patient throughout times of hunger and even more appreciative when served a full plate. The historic winter of ‘22/23 was favorable to much of the lower 48 and the Sierra was no exception. Monumental storm af-ter storm blanketed the range from north to south and lines that SIERRA NEVADA 055
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 21.3: Page 55
