Seen from a chairlift, the halfpipe looks like a colony of ants apart from the slopes, A tribe dedicated to the pursuit of aerobatic hang time. Riders fly down a ditch carved into the snow, soaring up the sides and into the air, attempting amazing tricks. The stereotype: out of control riders populated by goateed and pierced Mountain Dew drinkers who sleep in dope-smoky vans in 7-eleven parking lots. The truth: Some of the best riders on the mountain can be found in the pipe. Pierced maybe, but majority are clean and lucid. Shredder lingo: Don’t say "bitchin, dude" – Nor army surplus pants with duct tape accents are long gone. Ross Powers, 20+ year-old Olympic bronze medallists at Nagano, had Polo Sport among his sponsors. Pretty cool. The perception is of a hard-core clique, but you’ll find a a real diverse group of snowboarders at the half-pipe these days. Mastering the halfpipe is part of being a good all-round rider, as important as carving groomed runs and floating in powder. Probably the biggest lure of the halfpipe is the feeling of weightlessness as you go vertical. But the experience is also about camaraderie, about helping other riders through the long and sometimes painful process of learning a new move. Rookie riders are almost universally welcomed, If you’re ready to give it a try, or just want to get dialed to the scene. Here’s a short guide to halfpipe culture.

   Halfpipe History: Legend has it that the first snowboard halfpipe was actually a natural gully discovered by a group of riders in the early Eighties near California’s Tahoe City dump. Tom Sims, a snowboard pioneer and skateboard pro, constructed the first groomed halfpipe in 1983 at Soda Springs, California for a world championship event. From that point on, downhill, alpine-style snowboard racing was considered boring compared to the freestyle tricks and maneuvers being performed in the pipe. The subculture grew. Early halfpipes were roughed out with backhoes and Sno-Cats and hand-packed by crews with shovels. Today, they’re created with special groomers such as the Pipe Dragon and the Bombardiers Half-Pipe Grinder, with are mounted on Sno-Cats and produce a pipe uniform in shape, top to bottom. While every pipe is a little different, specifications have been created for competitions.

   An Olympic-caliber halfpipe has an inclination of about 18.5 degrees, is 110 meters (361 feet) long, 15 meters (49 feet) wide and five meters (16 feet) high, with the last food of the wall a near-vertical 85 degrees. In perspective, picture a football field with a trough carved down the middle that’s as deep as a single-story building. Tricks: Radical maneuvers, big air and hang time is what draws the crowds. Most halfpipe tricks and their names come form skateboarding moves. Front side describes a maneuver that begins on the toe edge of the board, while backside is one that starts on the heel edge. A grab involves reaching down and grasping the board. Two basic airborne moves are the method grab and the indy. To perform the former, riders bring the board up behind them while bending their knees, arching their back and grabbing the heel edge of the board. An indy is a grab of the toe-side edge with your trailing hand on your backside wall. Spins are described by the number of degrees of rotations, from 360 to 720 and beyond. Fakie is simply riding backward, or tail first.

   Most pipe riders are between the ages of 16 and 23. There are about 200 resorts in the U.S. with at least one halfpipe. Pros can squeeze six to nine hits (runs to the lip of a pipe) into a single pass. High-flying pro Terje Hakkonsen from Norway lofts 14 to 15 feet above the lip of the pipe. Guillaume Chastagnol of France is the acknowledges pro spin-master, having landed a 1440-that’s four times around. There are more than 100 halfpipe competitions held each year. Upwards of 10,000 people have attended the halfpipe competitions at the U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships, the nation’s oldest boarding competition, held annually at Stratton Mountain in Vermont. More than 2.3 million people tuned in to ESPN and ESPN2 to watch the X Games halfpipe competition. More than 165 million fans in 178 countries watched the rebroadcast. Injuries: The most common injury (20 percent) is a fractured or sprained wrist, usually caused by reaching to break a backward fall. Other injuries include ankle sprains and fractures (14 percent) from catching a toe edge, knee ligament damage (12 percent) from jumping, and closed (i.e., bloodless) head injuries (2.6 percent). Not for Novice Riders: You should have some intermediate-level riding skills before entering a halfpipe. Etiquette: Riders wait their turn and shout " dropping in" before they enter the pipe. They give the guy/gal in front of them a two-or three hit head start. And when they wipe out, they haul ass out the of the way. Best Rides: Snowboarders are usually loyal to their local pipe, but the following resorts rate high with pro riders: Whistler and Blackcomb, British Columbia: These neighboring mountains offer expertly maintained pipes and interesting terrain gardens that attract pro riders each season. Snow Summit, California: Pipes designed by top pros are well maintained at this resort, which often has more snowboarders on the mountain than skiers. Stratton Mountain, Vermont: The home for Burton Snowboards, Stratton Mountain School and top riders in the East opened for snowboarding in 1983. Vail, Colorado: Offers smaller pipes for beginners and two pipes for the many pros who reside and practice here.

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