I WASN’T A POPULAR KID—FOOTBALL WAS BIG IN SCHOOL, AND SOCCER AND BASKETBALL. I WAS SO IN LOVE WITH SNOWBOARDING AND SKATEBOARDING THAT I DIDN’T REALLY CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THOUGHT. Shattered glass and icy floors. Vizz on the ledge at an old gas factory in Finland. Photo: Keke Leppala The Snowboarder’s Journal: We just boarded for a week at Mt. Baker, WA, for the Brain Bowl and Sesh Up event. How was that? Austin Visintainer: Brain Bowl was all-time. I was feeling, I don’t want to say burnt-out before then, but ready to be on the summer-chill wave. Then we went up to Brain Bowl and it relit the fire to keep going. It was so fun hanging out with everybody. A week in the Baker parking lot will do that to you. Last year I blew my radiator out at the top of the mountain. I wasn’t planning on camping but ended up having to camp for six days. So, this year I was more dialed for sure. Tell me about where you grew up. What was your life like as a kid? I was born in Astoria, OR, and shortly moved to Spokane, WA, where I grew up. I’ve pretty much been on the board my whole life. Skateboarding came first. The neighbors had a mini ramp in their backyard and were also always skating in the driveway. I was super interested in what they were doing. My dad got me a skateboard when I was five. Then I started snowboarding, because obviously in the Pacific Northwest you can’t skateboard in the winter. We started snowboarding, and I just fell in love. What was Spokane like as a snowboarder? It’s more known for team sports. Spokane’s not really known for snowboarding or skateboard-ing. I had five really close friends, and we would all snowboard and skateboard together. There were times that I got picked on in school, I wasn’t a popular kid—football was big in school, and soccer and basketball. I was so in love with snowboarding and skateboarding that I didn’t really care what other people thought. If they want to make fun of me, whatever. It almost gave me motivation to be like, “I can do this.” I always had this dream of becoming a pro snowboarder. And I had so many people telling me that I wouldn’t be able to do it, definitely not out of Spokane. Hearing all that all the time gave me so much motivation to prove all these people wrong. Can you tell me about your parents? Did they ski or snowboard? Both of my parents skied. Not a whole lot, but when I became interested in going to the mountain, they always took me up on weekends. My dad [Mark] was a golf pro and then he got into sales work, so he had a lot of free time and drove me around a lot. My mom [Laura] was a nurse assistant when I was grow-ing up. My parents got divorced when I was five, but they had a healthy relationship about me. I would take turns hanging out with my dad and my mom and whoever I was with for the week-end would take me to the mountain, to the events, to the skate park in the summer. They were both super supportive. Were you riding at Mount Spokane at the beginning? Yeah, I spent most of my time at Mount Spokane. There’s an-other mountain north of town called 49 Degrees North. That’s where I first went snowboarding. Then I’d go to Schweitzer, ID, when I got a little older. Growing up doing USASA, I was doing rail jams and boardercross, giant slalom—if I was on a snow-board, whether ripping turns or jumping and hitting rails, I was into it. There was a whole group of kids who would get together every couple weeks for those USASA events and we had friendly rivalries. There were these two brothers, and the older brother, Dash [Kamp], was really doing it. He was a few years older than me. That’s what inspired his younger brother, Kix, and I to really get into it. There are a couple other dudes—Jaeger [Bailey] is from 49 Degrees North, so I always really looked up to him. Rest in peace, he was a huge inspiration as well. 076 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 22.1: Page 76
