VT Barnstorm - The Place Below Quebec

In mid-February, on the day that dudes around the country run out at lunch and buy a last minute Valentine’s Day gift for their girls, an epic storm descended on the state of Vermont—the kind of snowfall that leaves Tahoe-sized snow banks and draws shred-heads from as far south as NYC to call in sick at work and motor up to VT for fresh tracks at Killington. Within 24 hours of hearing rumors of the Blizzard-of-’78-on-steroids, a grip of Rome riders—from Montreal to Norway—descended upon The Green Mountain State with, well, a dire urge to shred, tarred in deep skepticism about East Coast snowboarding. Vermont for filming? After all, for a lot of the riders, Vermont—regardless of the epic snowfall—was just that sliver of gray, icy land below Quebec.

Quebes MFR, Max Legend, Will Lavigne, along with Rutland-based deathrider Jake Sullivan and Scanner Marius Otterstad, piled into the van and hit the roads of rural Vermont in search of ready-made features, barn rides and other unique lines made possible by the 4-feet of snow and over-head wind drifts.

The first leg of the trip took the crew from a snowmobile tow-in session at a junkyard near Mt. Mansfield to jumping large farm machinery and barn roof dropping at a hillside farm dotted with bare maple trees that swayed violently with every gust of Arctic air. Despite the bitter cold and everyone’s extremities turning into ice blocks, the sessions were progressive. The night session, on the other hand, was regressive—Marius got mad twisted, barged a solo on the band’s drum kit, and tried to fight fifty Canadian frat dudes in the musty basement of Grampa Grumps, a dodgy scum-hole in Montgomery Center.

As the crew navigated south for the second stint of the trip, gray skies turned, eh, grayer, and trees were replaced by the peace-flag-flying buildings of Burlington. In spite of more inhospitable weather, the Any Means mentality took hold the moment the riders arrived at a set of ledges on the UVM campus—which were subsequently slayed by the Quebes. After that, MFR killed the infamous “Burlington High Rail” with back-to-back gap to frontside 270s. After the B-town shred, the trip’s trajectory continued south (as did the ability to stand upright as the crew consumed vast quantities of strong water in Rut-Vegas following 24 hours of knee-deep, wooden-plank gnarlitude).

Day Whatever zinged off with headaches and head-turning tow-in stunts nailed by Marius and the Quebes (awesome band name by the way) at an abandoned ski resort by name of Timber Ridge. Regard for life and limb was void: these dudes were wall riding the front of a condemned A-frame ski lodge at totally unsafe speeds and riding away—alive. All the while, a savage band of locals hooted, hollered, and took turns running the riders on the sleds.

At some point the narrator of this article fell asleep, only to wake up in the parking lot of the Rome SDS World Shredquarters (maybe the next day) in Waterbury, Vermont. Pretty much everyone at Rome got their asses out of their chairs to head out back and watch MFR, Max, Will and Jake tow into a Jersey barrier.

After using his sweet Honda whip as the Jersey barrier tow-in vehicle, one of the Rome guys jumped in a rented Bobcat front loader and built a quarterpipe against one of the walls of the SDS World Shredquarters. With a 12-pack as payment to the plow guy for depositing some snow in the parking lot, and the sun long-since set, the final session in the VT Barnstorming trip was ready. In the dark of that last night, the Quebes threw down a night-time wall-riding stint on the side of the Rome building with the assistance of a 0-to-60-in-five seconds tow-in across the icy flats of the parking lot. Like the day before, little thought went into the respect of human life.

Ironically the only thing that got killed, besides Grampa Grumps and all the spots that the crew hit, was the notion that Vermont was just that gray, icy place below Quebec.