The neat thing about living near the ocean is that sometimes the mountains feel like the beach, and Gore-tex spacesuits become more like wetsuits. Forrest Burki gets soul turns to butter spins in Baker’s natural halfpipe.

On the chair he said something along the lines of, “I realized if I wanted to do the snowboard thing….I would have to surf less.” Well, I could not see how the last few months of paddling had detracted from his mountain fluidity. I followed Forrest on a jib-carve course in and around the natural halfpipe – the snow soft and playful, yet still fast.

There were lots of little poppers everywhere. Forrest lent me a Mervin banana board for the day, and it was the best thing that happened to my bindings all year.

Here is Señor Burki getting over the fact that it hadn’t snowed for a couple of weeks. But it’s coming soon, as in now!