Vinceland

Crapped out a crappy essay with the same title back in the late 1990’s attempting to explain why I was beginning to dislike riding a snowboard after working at Burton for a few years. I was confessing publically to Glebelands, letting them all know why I didn’t care to ride as much as we used to. I was making excuses and they all called me out on it.

The truth was that snowboarding hurt too much. It fucking KILLED my feet and I was totally out of shape and unable to keep up any more. When I was younger, riding at Magic or Bromely on the weekends, I’d unstrap after each run in complete, utter pain from cranking my feet into flat, plastic baseplates with plastic straps and buckles. I’d let my feet “breathe” on the ride back up the chair, keeping a wry smile aboard and trying to stay up with conversation through the pain. By the time we reached the top, my feet were either numb or back to a normal state, ready to be bashed again, pushed on as hard as possible to hold an edge. I was able to keep up and even feel good about riding.

The end of the end came when Burton stopped making boots and bindings that fit me, and I turned to customization every year to keep up. One season, desperate to keep up and keep riding with my brethren, I strapped into some new step-in boots and bindings. I wondered if this were going to be the answer to all my pain. I kept my boot liners from 3 years past, all broken in and shaved down in all the right places, stuffed them into the stiff-as-hell Ruler SI boots. I adjusted my bindings to click-in easily every time, in the living room.

My first day on step ins was at the TWSnow Industry Conference in Whistler. I had to keep up. Whistler was SICK, right? Deep snow, legendary terrain, every industry big wig already out on the hill, shredding.

I tied up the boots and walked out to the lift. Within 50 yards of the chair, I knew this was going to suck, my feet were in pain already. Rode the lift into the fog, light rain and eventually into new snow. At the top were writers, reps, shop owners all the industry dregs. I snuck over to the side and stepped in, expecting to hear the tell-tale click and feel confident I could snowboard down the hill. Something was not right, the bindings had fallen out of adjustment and did not work out on the hill as they had in the living room. Rookie mistake, veteran anger.

Eventually, I got a click and with very little confidence in my setup, I started down the hill, already in pain. By the end of the run, down by the hotel, I had decided I did not care to snowboard ever again. I decided the pain was not worth the experience, as it had been before. I also decided that rather than ruin my best memories of snowboarding with shittier new ones, I ought to do something else that didn’t hurt as much… like fishing.

Glebelands is a bond, an understanding and a level of respect between best friends who are more like brothers and brothers who are more like best friends. This bond revolves around a history of snowboarding, laughter, music, art and stupidity mostly taking place around southern Vermont at the three resorts near Manchester: Magic, Bromely and Stratton. Yea, we made shirts and stickers and license plates and had parties and so-on. But at it’s heart, Glebelands is about inspiration, respect and support. It almost didn’t matter what sport we landed in, could have been horseshoes…

Every person who shares this bond cares about and respects the traits that make us each so different, so weird. We all have separate relationships that build on one another. I can’t believe we’re all so close, that we all still relate to each other, share similar experiences. The collective courage, talent and creativity of this group of friends has helped us all succeed. It’s a support network that always seems to come through when it needs to. How would we live without it? Even just a simple email response from someone brings all of the memories of why we are friends flooding back.

The bonds and friendships that snowboarding brought to me are the most important I’ll ever have. It’s a good thing we ran into you guys over the years, otherwise we’d still be riding hard boots all euro-style. I would venture to guess that a bunch of us wouldn’t be where we are today or have accomplished what we have so far had it not been for Glebelands. Even the bad experiences always have a tinge of humor, especially when Glebelands calls you out for doing something stupid.

I was inspired to snowboard by Glebelands. Now-a-days, I am inspired to work harder and be more courageous.

Shem shot a photo of me diving off a cliff, claims it was one of his best. A lot of people have mentioned it to me as a great photo. I would have never have climbed up there had I not been encouraged to. I am too much of a wuss.