The Blank Canvas Journals: Tahoe History

Photos by Leslie Hittmeier

Snowboard history runs deep in the Tahoe basin. Whatever era of snowboarding you look at, there are connections to Tahoe. From riders like Kevin Jones, Travis Parker, Shaun Palmer, Tina and Mike Basich, Jeremy Jones, and Tom Burt; to countless others that have flocked to the area to join Mack Dawg and the Hatchets in their home zone to film for Mack Dawg Productions and Standard Films. Over the years the majority of the backcountry zones surrounding Tahoe have been explored, ridden, and named. If you thumb through any old snowboard film or magazine and you are bound to see some infamous zone with one of your all-time favorite riders stepping up the game on it.

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Due to a severe drought, climate change, and just growth of the snowboard industry towards other places, Tahoe has been largely on hold. There just hasn’t been enough consistent snow at a low enough elevation to make a lot of these well-known zones rideable in the past decade. That was until the 2019/20 season. In January it started snowing, in that old-fashioned Tahoe way, and never seemed to stop. We’re talking feet and feet of snow with every storm pulse, just like I remember from my childhood. Snow berms closing in on people’s doorways, power outages, and once again the snowboard industry flocked back to get their fair share.

For those of us who have held onto the Tahoe shred dream and never moved away despite low snow years, the froth was real. I got to team up with an all-time local crew of riders and media, many of whom have grown up in the area and spent years exploring these mountains. The vibes were at an all-time high and despite terrible weather most of the time, we always went out. We battled heavy winter storms to get back into these zones that had become distant memories for some, and for me were locked into my brain just from seeing them on films. We spent evenings watching the old films, feeling inspired by the riders pushing the envelope in our backyard. Then we would go check the same features later that week and relish in how lucky we were to be walking in the footsteps of the riders and filmers that truly paved the way. Attempting to make them proud and continue to progress the sport and simultaneously honor where it has come from.

There are a few specific zones that we got to ride that stood out. The one I really sought out was Grizzly Spine. It was actually a visit to our filmer Tim Manning’s office in Truckee that sparked the idea. The cover of the old shred flick Paradox was on his wall. This poster highlighted Jeremy Jones riding this impossibly steep spine that seems to defy gravity and stand alone on basically flat ground. I watched the movie that night. In it there are a collection of insane looking zones from the Tahoe area, but the Grizzly Spine stood out as something special.

Because of the low elevation location of Grizzly it rarely sees enough snow to fill it in. On top of that, because of the steep nature of it, it requires a ton of wet snow, combined with lots of wind to make the snow stick to the granite face. At the time we were in the middle of the biggest winter we had seen in a decade and still the face wasn’t rideable…

We put it on the hit list and moved on to other objectives. About a month later, just days before our crew had to break up and go separate ways we heard rumor that the last storm had really coated the area. With some advice from Jeremy, “just don’t backsplat off of it,” I prepared myself and the crew got psyched.

I will leave the rest of the Grizzly story to the film, but as I look back on our winter in Tahoe I can’t help but feel proud to be part of this wide community of snowboarders in Tahoe and beyond. Generation after generation the stoke is passed down. The knowledge of tricks and tips, beta on specific terrain and spots, and just pure joy and passion is passed along. Through films, magazines, chair lift rides and skin tracks, we are all lucky to have found a home in these mountains. Sliding sideways was first for enjoyment, but in the end led to us gaining so much more. I am beyond grateful for all those who have paved the way and hope that I can be a small part of continuing to inspire those to come. 

In the Beginning

Culture Shock