Why LINE Skis Actually Created Its First Snowboard

"I'm not that good at snowboarding, so I have to think about other things, like how not to crash," he laughed, recalling his experiences at a LINE team shoot held last spring in Eldora, Colorado, where the crew got their hands on the Lateral.

Last week, LINE dropped a video that documented these shenanigans as it rolled out the new product, confirming what was once a rumor spurred by occasional LINE snowboard sightings and good old-fashioned ski industry scuttlebutt: after decades of leading the charge as a freeskiing culture powerhouse, LINE was officially selling a snowboard.

It's a surprising sight, to be sure—not as surprising as, say, Burton, putting out skis—but surprising nonetheless. The move comes amidst what Steven Hartl, LINE's global brand director, calls a "reset." In 2022, he, alongside some internal players, convened with LINE's riders at Mt. Hood, Oregon, to discuss a renewal of the brand's image. The Lateral ended up being a part of that renewal and stemmed from what the athletes were already doing: snowboarding.

Hartl explained that numerous team members drew inspiration from snowboarding media, and during down days, often hopped on a snowboard or pow surfer. "We saw that. We witnessed it. We heard them talk about it, and we wanted to build them a board that they could ride on," he said. "So, I mean, that's the ultimate source, and it kind of goes along with this new attitude of, like, why are we putting limitations on what we can do in the snow space?"

The Lateral was developed internally by LINE's lead ski engineer, Sean Fearon. LINE, K2 Snowboarding, and Ride all exist under the umbrella of Elevate Outdoor Collective, which allowed Fearon to rub elbows with those more versed in snowboard design. He took notes, received some guidance, and, ultimately, kept it simple with the Lateral, which is a board aimed at beginner and intermediate riders.

Hartl mostly refrained from talking about LINE's future involvement with snowboarding but hinted that the Lateral isn't just a brief fling. Connor Clayton, the global marketing manager at LINE—who joined Hartl and me on a call—clarified that this doesn't mean LINE suddenly plans to leave skiing behind, though.

"At the end of the day, we're obviously still 99% a ski company and heavily involved in creating damn good skiing products," Clayton said. "But if we can also have some fun on the snowboarding side and find new ways to slide down the hill and, just again, keep making our team stoked, then I think that's what we're chasing."

LINE's team is still stacked with ski athletes, new and old. The Traveling Circus—skiing’s longest running webisode series—forges ahead, and last year, LINE presented Daycare, one of 2023's best street skiing videos. Clayton also said that “exciting things” are in the pipeline on the ski side.

The Lateral does and doesn't mark a departure from LINE's roots. Snowboarding played a vital role in inspiring the creation of the brand. Jason Levinthal, who founded LINE but left the brand to start J Skis over a decade ago, explained that in the 1990s, skiing was stuffy, primarily focused on racing. Snowboarding, in contrast, had momentum and that ever-illusive cool factor.

Levinthal wanted to recreate this energy and prove that skiing was fun, too, while developing products that innovated beyond the stiff and straight sticks of days past, like the trailblazing twin-tip Ostness Dragon. "I personally have an extremely deep respect for snowboarding," said Levinthal, but during his tenure at LINE, the brand remained solely focused on skiing by design. Through clever marketing taglines and forward-thinking products, LINE, over the years, tied itself closely to the growing, youthful freeskiing movement.

Hartl expressed respect for Levinthal’s brand direction and contributions to freeskiing but said, "We're at a spot with LINE where we're coming up on 30 years. It's a new team, lots of new athletes, new internal employees, new visions." Newness, though, sometimes invites controversy, especially when it involves the still-touchy fault line that once rigidly divided skiing and snowboarding.

The Lateral crossed that fault line, and the internet reacted with a mix of excitement, praise, skepticism, and, in some cases, vitriol. "I think we kind of got everything which, of course, you're gonna have people that are stoked on it and stoked on the brand, and you're gonna have people that are going, like, 'What the hell is happening here?'" said Clayton. "We've enjoyed reading all the comments," he added with a laugh.

At Eldora, the new snowboards didn't immediately take off during the team shoot. Wesson and a few other members of LINE's team had experience snowboarding, so they agreed to hop on the Lateral. But as it became apparent that they were having fun, the rest of the crew wanted to get in on the action, too. One day, when the mountain was closed, they dug out a slushy park set up in the backyard of one of the AirBnbs they'd rented and sent snowboard flips over the hot tub.

Wesson first got on a snowboard sometime in the mid-2000s. After he tried surfing, he took to snowboarding more earnestly, finding that the breaks from skiing offered a different, laid-back way to experience the mountain. "When you've skied, you've already challenged yourself for 1000s of ski days, and kind of sometimes it's a little scary to learn something, or you have to wait for the right day," he said, adding that, on a snowboard, "You do a new grab that you've never tried because you don't board that much, and it's the same feeling as learning a new switch dub cork whatever."

For professional and amateur skiers, that may be snowboarding's most notable allure—it makes the mountain big again and removes years or decades of established expectations.

Less offers more, and Sean Pettit, the former teenage star of Matchstick Productions films, felt this gravitational pull as he drifted away from skiing towards snowboarding. "I can simply ride a cat track with some side hits; it can be foggy or whatever, and I'll just have so much fun. In a sense, you're a kid again," he told Snowboarder in a 2018 interview. He also pointed to a fact that could, in part, also explain skiing’s continued fascination with snowboarding—the boots hurt less.

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