Page 20 - Flathead Beacon // 1.27.16

A LONG ROAD HOME
Pro snowboarder Jason Robinson, pictured in front of his small house built on a trailer. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
brother has always pushed him.
“I went to school and was working a day job at Mount Shasta [California] and every once in a while Aaron would pass through on his way to some snow- boarding event,” Jason said. “His spir- its and ambition were so high. That gave me the jumpstart to get back into snow- boarding on a more committed level. He was living the life he wanted whereas I was living the life I felt like I should be
living.”
Perhaps it’s not surprising that Rob-
inson bootstrapped his professional snowboarding career out of hum- ble origins. Born of a foundation that has endured cracks and ssures and unimaginable tragedy, its dazzling tra- jectory has also healed stronger over time, like a broken bone.
And Robinson has nally tapped its marrow.
On a recent powder day on Big Mountain at White sh Mountain Resort, Robinson’s hometown ski hill that doubled as a daycare center for him and his brothers growing up, he e ort- lessly threw back ips o dump truck- sized cli s, navigated tight tree lines with aplomb and spun inverted circles o side-hit features that nobody else could see – literally. The terrain was obscured by an impenetrable fogbank,
the contours blotted out by ice-en- crusted goggles and a barrage of chalky face-shots.
But Robinson’s intimate, intuitive knowledge of Big Mountain allowed him to peer through the
miasma and envision
the winter wonder- land that sculpted his snowboarding talents and de ned his forma- tive years, scanning the slopes as though with X-ray vision, riding on instinct.
It’s all about
instinct. At times Rob-
inson has ignored it,
and at other times it’s
probably helped him
avoid injury or even
death – like when he’s
backed o a question-
able line with a lm
crew on hand. But one
instinct is a big part of what’s led Rob- inson out of, and into, the box.
Robinson started snowboard- ing when he was 9 years old, and he and Aaron were quickly swept up in the sport’s momentum, pushing one another while looking toward Big Mountain’s old guard of talented
snowboarders for guidance.
It wasn’t long before the Robinson
brothers were entering a league of their own, earning sponsorships from estab- lished and emerging companies and
honing their freestyle skills at their local hill. But as Aaron began to pursue big moun- tain riding and gain attention while com- peting at a higher level, Jason wasn’t seeing the same results. He fell into the worka- day grind and started planning for a future that wasn’t dominated
by snowboarding.
“I started think- ing that maybe the moment had passed,” he said. “But then I saw how much fun my brother was having pursuing his dream and it really pulled me out of my own
head.”
By 2010, Jason was riding for Lib
Tech and Dakine, among other top names in the industry, being paid in the currency of free snowboarding prod- uct and admission to freestyle com- petitions. He had fallen in with lm
companies like Think Thank and Peo- ple Films, specializing in urban mis- sions, backcountry lines and everything in between.
Meanwhile, Aaron had just won the North Face Masters of Snowboard- ing, which he would go on to win the following year. As a team rider for K2 Snowboarding, Volcom and Airblaster, Aaron was also spending time riding big mountain lines in Chile, lming and shooting with K2.
On July 19, 2011, while on an expe- dition in Chile, Aaron died tragically in a snowboarding accident at a popular backcountry area known as Santa Ter- esita, adjacent to the El Colorado ski area. He was 24.
The shock of Aaron’s death rocked Jason, who couldn’t comprehend the loss. To deal with the grief, Jason com- mitted himself to snowboarding more than ever before.
“The grief of losing Aaron de nitely drove me deeper into snowboarding. It was so sudden and gnarly, and I didn’t know how to channel those emotions. Snowboarding became like a drug. It was all I did,” he said.
Jason threw himself further into snowboarding, pushing himself to ride harder than ever.
In 2013, he placed third at the
Robinson was recently featured on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine.
thing is clear –
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JANUARY 27, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM