"THE INEXPLICABLE BOND"

          You know what I’m talking about. That “certain something” that mysteriously and permanently connects you to anyone you’ve ever ridden with. People you’ve met on chair lifts. People you’ve been heliskiing or catskiing with. People you’ve taken holidays with. People you’ve shared backcountry adventures and epic powder days with. In “Real Life” if you met someone for a few hours and then saw them again years later you wouldn’t even give them the time of day. In “Real life” we rarely speak to strangers, yet we’ll quite happily speak to anyone as long as they’re wearing a “Powder to the People” T-shirt.

          I’m talking about the people you only met for one day, yet you remember everything about them, even though you can’t remember the name of your Boss’s wife or the new bloke at work (unless he’s “one of us” of course). I feel it with my boarding mates naturally (also a product of “the bond”), but I suppose I’m really talking about the thing that makes them more important to me than the people that I consider to be my “normal” friends. You know….the people who don’t understand the joy of riding through shoulder deep powder on a bluebird day. The same people who go to the beach to “relax” for their holidays.

          The inexplicable bond knows no boundaries, forever linking us to people that live at different ends of the country, even at opposite sides of the world without any consideration for the consequences. People who you met years ago, yet you still email them to discuss where you’re going on holiday and how much snow fell over the Alps last weekend. People you’ve met on the internet, but never in real life. Yet if you ever met, you know you’d get on like a house on fire. It’s like having a secret subculture of friends who only surface in winter, yet you rely on them daily to look over your shoulder and save your life if Mother Nature decides to bite back.

          The true nature of “the bond” is difficult to quantify, especially for people who’ve never experienced it. Mind you, it’s hard to experience anything meaningful lying on your back getting sunburn. Somebody once said to me “Like attracts like”. Ain’t that the truth? Above all, we are snowboarders. It defines who and what we are, whether we’re unemployed, lawyers, doctors, teachers or whatever. But the bond is not meant to be understood, nor should it be. I know all I need to know. I spend my time with people I know very little about. I don’t know what they do for a living. I don’t know how old they are, I don’t know their surnames. But that doesn’t matter. I know all I need to know. I know who and what they are. I know that deep down we are the same. We are Snowboarders.