Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
first time Rob Needham saw a photograph of a snowboarder ''iIႀ䊉 c"."" 13 years ago in the pages of Thrasher magazine, it compelled to rip the trucks off his skateboard and careen down the near hill. He recognized an activity with the potential to be even exhilarating than skateboarding; it didn't seem to matter that hill in question was behind his house in the London suburb of Or that there was no snow to board. are no British seasons, only British weather: unpredictable and uncharitable at the best of times. Despite meteorological limita tions, the country has a burgeoning snowboard culture-with a twist. Britain's boarding "elite" cuts its teeth on dry slopes-the man-made mountains mold ed from nylon-fiber mats that have been part of the British landscape for more than 30 years. . Traditionally dry slopes were used by skiers to brush up on their si(dts before going out to European resorts for the winter season. Today the popularity 0 SAO boarding has inspired the use of dry slopes by a new '-------breed, yElIJAg street �iEfS:ႀ䊉 h0se only experience of rugged and raw land scapes is inner-city blight. At a skateboard competition in 1986, Needham's friend, Ian Cocking, suggested they equip themselves with real snowboards and visit the French Alps for their first taste of snow. They tackled this unfamiliar, natural environment in the same way they approached street-level, urban structures. "We just thought, 'big, white skate park: and off we went like suici dal idiots," laughs Needham. "For the first three years we rode around [with out] reading the back of the trail map. We saw all these rules we didn't know anything about. We would see a black-and-yellow flag-an avalanche warn ing-and go and board there. Black-and-yellow barrier-you can ollie those, but there're rocks on the other side." "A couple of times I was chased in a big way:' he goes on. "One of them was a big slab slide, in a place called Colle de Palais in Tignes, which has killed people before. A friend of mine stitched me up. I thought he knew about avalanche warnings so I went up with him thinking that if he's bottle enough to go up there, I'll go too-the usual kahuna job. We've got this video of the camera lying on the ground and him going, 'Oh, shit, oh, shit: while this slab slide the size of a pool table is chasing me down the hilL" Needham admits, "We had no knowledge of snow conditions, and had probably only seen a powder avalanche ·on video-not even a snowboard video, but a James Bond film or something. We had no conception of these things, because we weren't from a mountain background. We ere skaters, city creatures." Now Needham heads up the Snowboard Elite Club, which takes over the Hillingdon dry slope every Sunday night. Situated on the edge of the city where the industrial sector meets the 'burbs, just beyond the circular motorway that surrounds London, the Hillingdon dry slope could easily be mistaken for a mountain of salt. It's con structed from a molded stainless steel frame covered in white nylon-fiber bristles, commonly known as Dendix. At night, in the glare of spotlights, boarders chase their shad ows down the slopes, attacking the waves of jumps that