Making the most of a work trip with Grassroots Powdersurfing
Jeremy Jensen had a special delivery to make. He is the owner of Grassroots Powdersurfing, and he makes the boards himself. And if you live in a rad zone surrounded by great powdersurfing terrain, he might even be your delivery man.
The snow came down around us like a Christmas movie, as we drove deep into the rolling Gros Ventre mountains. We were looking for a side road with an arched sign over the gate reading “Let ‘Er Buck Ranch.” The name of the place set the tone for the day. We pulled up to a cozy cabin, and a bearded mountain of a man came out to greet us. Shawn Roberts is a friend of Jeremy’s and a powsurfing aficionado. We were on a mission to deliver him the new model of the Grassroots Splitsurfer—a bindingless powsurf board that can come apart for skinning out into the backcountry.
Delivery concluded, we turned to our more important task for the day: powsurfing. The air was soon filled with the beautiful smell of gas exhaust and the purr of snowmobile engines. Our crew consisted of me–a young bachelor–and three rad dads: Jeremy, Shawn, and Dave Bender. All of them were experienced snowpony jockeys, lifelong snowboarders, and prophets of powsurfing. In contrast, I could barely ride a sled and had only a few days of powsurfing under my belt.
Would this be the beginning of my ‘cool dad’ transformation?
Shawn was our guide. He’d already been tending to the terrain here all winter: setting bootpacks, cutting branches, and building jumps. We brapped out to one of his zones and immediately started letting ‘er buck. Jeremy acid-dropped out of a tree, and we party shredded lines. Boards went flying, cliffs were dropped, and a small avalanche even shook loose. The rad dads were unfazed.
We continued further back and stumbled on an area different from the others. It looked like a miniature version of the forests of British Columbia, with squat six-foot evergreen trees poking out the snow in every direction. The dads weaved around trees and split gaps with surgical precision on their powsurfers, while I took photos at the bottom. It looked like easily the best riding of the day. Maybe next year I’ll be rad enough.
We finished up the day warming up in Shawn’s cabin, sipping beers and looking back down the Gros Ventre as the sun set behind the Grand Teton. I was struck by how powsurfing reinvigorates my inner child. It feels good to be a novice, trying to master new tricks and moves. Powsurfing also transforms the terrain, or at least my perspective of the terrain. We had been ripping low-angle slopes that a splitboarder would ignore. It’s also just fun. I went out with a bunch of dads and we spent the whole day acting like kids on the neighborhood sledding hill. That simple freedom and joyful expression makes me fall in love with riding sideways all over again.
– JS
@jsack_foto is a proud kook on a powsurf. It reminds him of riding sledding hills growing up in Chicago. He likes how photography helps him chase his curiosity.