The Bowl Project
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As a skateboarding youngster pushing around the Phoenix, Arizona (USA) streets in the early days, we’d hear stories about big snowfall amounts in Flagstaff just two hours to the north. Mystical characters had even seen these wintery conditions in person and shared their chronicles of standing sideways, strapping in on oversized skateboard shaped planks, ascending through the clouds on chairlifts, and the thrill of the downhill shred…
These tales were fascinating but seemed so far away for us, until one of our crew went on family vacation, saw other snowboarders, and tried it himself. He showed back up to the mini ramp after the mission just beaming with excitement about the possibilities of ‘skateboarding on a mountain’. At that point we were believers, and somehow, someway, we managed to secure a couple snowboards and some winter attire and made the trek to The Arizona Snowbowl. The first couple of runs were messy; it felt so weird to be locked into this plank, have big gloves on and goggles strapped around our faces, but we loved it! The snow conditions were great, and flopping around on snow was way softer than falling on Masonite or concrete. All it took was our buddy saying, “it’s so fun” plus a few runs on Chair Three and the course of my life was changed forever. The rest is history.
Fast forward to fall of 2023 when Josh Heydorn from Arizona Snowbowl asked me to join The Bowl Project in on the slopes of my ‘home mountain’, I absolutely couldn’t pass up this opportunity to be a part of this Snowboy Productions build on the exact same spot (Sunset Boulevard) where I took my very first snowboarding runs. Suffice to say, the January 2024 event was a really special week documenting the action, witnessing the rad, seeing how far snowboarding has evolved, and ultimately sharing my photography. Among the thousands of photo shoots I’ve taken part in, not one of them has ever been at my home mountain. What a time for a first time!
When I arrived on site my initial reaction to seeing The Bowl Project was ‘wow, what a beautifully sculpted terrain park’, with the next thought being ‘I can’t wait to document the action!’ I pulled in and was greeted by friendly event staff, then made my way up Chair Three, feeling stoked for the day and grateful to be at my beloved Arizona Snowbowl and looking down at what Snowboy Productions had created.
The Snowboy crew has quite the reputation, deservedly so, for building creative freestyle terrain parks, and they didn’t disappoint with this one. Using a bevy of metal rails and tubes placed amongst and around numerous transitions, the set-up had perfect flow top to bottom, with two oversized Saguaro Cactus features, measuring 3 and 3.5 meters in height. They knew well that if you have a photo shoot in Arizona, you better have some life-size Saguaros in the mix!
The rider line-up brought snowboarders in from across the States, plus as far away as Spain and Norway, making for an international super crew ready to rip the Snowbowl slopes. There was hardly a moment when someone wasn’t throwing down on one of two-dozen features (or more if you count the multiple approaches to any given tube, rail, or transition), there was so much to watch, get excited about, and of course take pictures of.
I spent my time roaming around the park angling up photo compositions and enjoying the plentiful snowboarding action, and also got to work individually with riders looking to get a photo on a specific feature. It was so fun witnessing how each rider utilized their creativity, trick selection, and style across the zone, not giving up on a trick until they rode away clean. At the same time, I was filled with endless amounts of nostalgia, knowing this very same slope where my first turns happened, brought me all the way to this moment some thirty years later. - Blotto
