Last month Avoriaz saw the annual return of the Burton Stash Gathering, an all out attack on the natural feature concept parks set up by every snowboarder’s favourite monkey, Shreddie. For the first time both the European events were combined, with some Flachauwinkl locals making the trip over from Austria.
If you didn’t know already, Jake Burton and Craig Kelly came up with the concept of building sustainable parks that benefited from the occasional powder dump, giving riders something to do on those in between days where the light is shit but there’s not enough fresh to venture off-piste. Wood is fun to slide when there’s a light dusting of snow on top, not so great when it’s dry as a bone: see 1.30 in for an example.
However, as always the riders did their best and pulled of a great display; if you ever get the chance to enter one of these events you should, there’s nothing quite like tearing through a forest in a group of 50+ all hootin’ and a hollerin’. See you next year.