Episode #18
In this Episode AJ and I chat with one of the men behind the lawsuit filed against Alta ski resort, Forrest Gladding.
Forrest and his family live just a couple of miles from Alta and have been an instrumental part of the fight to end discrimination at Alta.
In addition to talking about Wasatch Equality we touch on surfing, how Brighton is like mini-golf, One Wasatch , shit Alta skiers say, Burton’s poaching contest and much more.
Peep the videos below:
Some of my favorite quotes:
“When the high pressure is here in Utah, it’s blowing offshore… it’s perfect offshore conditions… I kinda figured out that when it’s not good here (for snowboarding), book a trip to SoCal, it’s gonna be good (for surfing)!”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time in the water (surfing) and it’s funny because I live in Utah.”
“You know how some people are into the NFL, I’m sorta that way with the WSL (World Surf League).”
“We brought a (federal) lawsuit agains Alta and the National Forest Service for their ban on snowboarding….You can’t operate on public land and have policies based on animus.”
“Alta pays $495,000 per year for access to public land… The tax payer is subsidising a private resort to have a policy against snowboarding.”
“The judge ruled that the Forest Services has the right to let Alta ban snowboarding because snowboarding is unsafe… the start show otherwise – skiers are three times more likely to be in a collision than snowboarders…. In his ruling he sighted blind spots.”
“Alta wants to expand another 1000 to 2000 acres – so technically even more of the Wasatch is going to be closed to snowboarding than 20 years ago.”
“Your lift ticket is only good at 5/7ths of the Ski Utah resorts.”
“There is not a conflict of use… they still sell a ticket to a little girl that can’t handle all of the terrain.”
“They’re yelling f-bombs at my 14 year old son…. and snowboarders are the problem!?!”
“It’s shameful that Sage Kotsenburg and Josh Christensen both won gold medals in the same exact event – went to highschool together and they can’t even go to all the resorts in their hometown together.”
“Ski Utah won’t talk about the elephant in the room.”
“Everything that is slightly cool in skiing came from snowboarding.” AJ
“I’m telling skiing, don’t forget what we’ve given you.”
“Park City didn’t allow snowboarding until they got the Olympics.”
“When I first started snowboarding it was a bunch of teenage boys being assholes – no wonder nobody wanted us, but now some of us are grandparents!”
“I think the the term “smells like skiing” comes from probably Alta.”
“If Alta expands into Grizzly Gulch – Chad’s Gap, Pyramid Gap and my splitboarding zones will be gone.”
“Once your bindings turn a certain degree you’re not allowed – it’s weird!”
“I gave everything up to become a snowboarder.”
“I can still get barreled at forty and I do that snowboarding a lot!”
Find Forrest on Instagram here: https://instagram.com/forrestgladding/
Read the following articles and read the comments too:
http://www.adventure-journal.com/2014/01/the-daily-pow-in-defense-of-alta-utah/
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28680644
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28598310
http://www.powder.com/stories/great-alta-debate/
Want to help? Goto: http://wasatchequality.org/
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It’s really dumb, the thing I find funny is all the jerks in the video are carrying skis that wouldn’t exist without snowboarding. Obviously Alta is an awesome place for a split board and some slackcountry, so that’s clear nonsense. I’m all for allowing private resorts on private land to do as they please but as this is not private land they shouldn’t be able to exclude snowboards as they really are safer than skis and frankly in the slack country up in VT in the backyard of MRG I’ve seen some guys do frankly unbelievable things on snowboards in the tight woods, so I don’t know what the argument is there either. Public land means equal access and the fact that some judge ruled in favor of these jerks reflects poorly on our legal system, there is nothing these clowns can show besides increased revenue from allowing boarding.