In Vermont, junkboarders stake their ground

By Matt Boxler

It was a stellar junkboarding season in Vermont this year, highlighted by those epic days in mid-October. Not too many people keep track of this sort of thing as “J-boarding” is a sport that lives on the fringe of a fringe of a fringe, according to one of its pioneers, Justin Woods.

Jumpin’ Jimmy Clapp makes junkboard turns in ideal mid-October Vermont J-boarding conditions.Fringe or not, J-boarding has been turning heads in backcountry circles, especially in Vermont’s Mad River Valley, home to classic New England resorts like Stowe, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen and Bolton Valley. Some resorts accommodate these off-season renegade hikers/snow sliders while others aggressively ban them, but there’s no denying the fun that can be had by sawing an old snowboard in half.

The idea isn’t a new one. “My friend Vince and I made a goofy movie a couple of years back that got a lot of play at a couple of festivals and locally -- next thing I know, it’s all over the place,” says Woods, a Vermonter who works as a school teacher by day. Woods is currently a featured pioneer at Columbia Sportswear (www.columbia.com), where the company has posted J-boarding video on its Explore Columbia page.

You won’t find J-boards in any shop. You’ve got to fashion your own. Any old snowboard will do, but Woods recommends boards with a wood core that, when spliced in half with a table saw or band saw, are fat, floppy and light. “That’s the idea, at least that’s what seems to work for me,” he says. “I’ve only ‘ridden’ Burton Boards – that’s just what I’ve found.  It makes sense that more of them are floating around since the company is based in Vermont.”

Of course, it’s more authentic if the board is found in the junkyard. For some time, they were known as “snowboard skis” but the official “junkboard” phrase was coined by a friend of Woods, Jumpin’ Jimmy (James) Clapp, who found his at the Colchester Transfer Station Re-use Zone.

Once sawn in two, the halves are flipped so the inside edge is the ‘ski’ or turning edge. “Some of us even shape and tune the outside edge, though many of us consider our boards disposable and dispense with the formality of outside edges,” Woods says. “Grass, over time, will smooth them out.”

Woods prefers mounting his boards with Voile 3-pin bindings, with the steel cable option. “I use the cable when I’m more likely to be making tele turns, though the best turn for the junkboard seems to be the p-turn noodle ...  probably  because the ‘skis’ are so short and because most swap the edges to the inside (after splitting the board).”

Woods will tell you right off that junkboarding wasn’t his idea. “The famous John Brownlee (of Mad River Glen) and others had been doing it for several years before I tried,” he says. “I watched Pete from Barre absolutely shred a grassy run on junkboards that I’d tumbled down only moments before. I found a snowboard to cut in half the next day.”

When you watch these J-boarders making their turns, you quickly realize that this isn’t a sport for the novice, or the feint-of-heart. “It’s hairball stuff sometimes,” Woods says. “When you ski on a half-inch of snow, it’s going to hurt when you biff.  As such, it’s just better not to fall. Basically, falling is not an option.”

When most skiers and snowboarders are still out riding their bikes, J-boarders are out earning their turns to prepare for the new season.You don’t really want to ski on anything firmer than cold oatmeal with junkboards, Woods advises. “At least I don’t. Still, in Vermont, the conditions change from minute to minute, hour to hour. We love what we’ve started referring to as the ‘micro-base’ – it’s an inch or two that sets up or freezes to the ground -- then, ideally, you get another inch or two on top. That’s what happened in mid-October this year -- really, absolutely ideal J-board conditions, if you ask me.”

Where’s the best junkboarding grass? You can ask, but don’t expect any die-hard J-boarders to give up their favorite one-inch dusting stashes.

Woods and others have been known to make turns in much more “marginal” conditions, like rime and frost, or wet leaf in the rain. “But to me, that ain’t really skiing,” he says. It’s all bonus anyway, as these J-boarders are extending the traditional ski and snowboard seasons by about a month, tacking on sliding days in May or October and November.

“In 10 years, maybe you’ll see it in L.L. Bean, who knows?” Woods says. “I don’t see it dominating ESPN anytime soon.”

You never know, look for it on ESPN “the Ocho,” right after dodgeball.