Snowboard Culture Is Thriving in Whitefish, Montana

Welcome to Stumptown

It was just a week before my trip to Whitefish, and it was a 65-degree February day in Raleigh, North Carolina. There was still more than a month of snowboard season left in western NC and Virginia, but you’d hardly know it by the NC State students tanning in their front yards as I walked my dog. It dawned on me that I had no idea what to expect out of my days on the mountain at Whitefish Mountain Resort or the surrounding town. So I did what any real snowboarder should do when they have questions: I called the local shop.

More specifically, I called Stumptown Snowboards. Troy Shaffer picked up the phone.

Stumptown is owned by husband-and-wife duo Joe and Kristin Tabor. It’s the oldest snowboard shop in Montana and was started when Joe started selling gear out of a closet behind a record store.

Since then, it has relocated twice, and eventually set up a second shop across the street from The Bierstube. It’s primary location, though, sits on Central Avenue in downtown Whitefish. Shaffer greeted me as I walked in the door. He wasn’t even able to finish welcoming me to the shop before he stopped himself.

"You must be Josh,” he said.

“How’d you know?” I asked, surprised.

“Not many people with that combo of boards,” he said as he nodded toward what I was carrying. I had a Dinosaurs Will Die MaeTier and a Burton Skeleton Key in my hand. He was right. That’s a pretty unique quiver for a mountain like Whitefish.

As I walked to the back of the shop, I moved past some locals hanging out by the shop-branded merch. They weren’t buying anything but had simply wandered in to say hello. The shop was doing what it did best— serve as a community center as much as a retail store.

Shaffer took down my information and attached the work order form to my board. Behind him was a snowboard signed by big mountain Jeremy Jones. “The journey is the reward,” it said.

Whitefish is a ski town, and Whitefish Mountain Resort is portrayed as a skier’s resort. Olympians Darian Stevens and Maggie Voisin call Whitefish home. Of course, The Ski Boss, Tanner Hall, famously started his skiing career as a 3-year-old, who progressed to rip on the Whitefish freestyle team, then known as Big Mountain, before moving to Utah. More than one local I talked to move to Whitefish (usually from Minnesota) because they were inspired by watching Hall growing up.

There are a lot of tags that follow this resort. Family-friendly. Budget-friendly. Independent. Cozy. Cute. Snowboarding hotbed hasn’t quite stuck yet. That might be intentional.

The Radio Tower

It’s just after lunch, and for some reason, I ate a pork ramen bowl and a side of curly fries. As the broth sloshed around in my belly, Shaffer approached my table.

“My coworkers are here, and they want to hike the radio tower. You down?”

How can you say no to that?

I ran it by Whitefish's public relations manager Chad Sokol and Benjamin Polley, who Shaffer and I had been riding with all morning. I expected Sokol, in his bright blue official Whitefish Resort jacket, to be hesitant to move beyond the boundaries of chairlifts while still on the clock. Instead, he looked at me.

“You know about tree wells, right? And how they’re dangerous?”

“Of course.”

“Alright,” he said as a huge smile crept across his face. “Let’s do it.”

The Radio Tower is as advertised: it's a giant radio tower about 300 yards away from the tallest lift-accessed point at the resort. It’s a 15-20 minute hike, depending on how out-of-shape you are, and it’s accessible by snowmobile or footpower. Locals drop in off the backside for some of the most fun tree runs imaginable.

It was on that hike that I met Carl Su, who works alongside Shaffer at Stumptown. She moved to Whitefish from Steamboat, Colorado, where she rode with the likes of professional rider Maddy Schaffrick. She once gave Billy Strings a shirt she made, she's a dedicated through-hiker in the summertime, and she was kicking our a*s as we tried to keep up with her during the hike.

“Snowboarding’s always been my compass,” she told me while I gasped for air at the summit.

The next day, I rode with Connor Shea, the content specialist for the Whitefish marketing team. Yet another transplant from Minnesota, Shea caught the snowboarding bug the way most Midwesterners do: by sliding rails and taking the tow rope back up.

When he graduated from college, he found himself in Wyoming’s Teton Mountains. Now, he freerides in-bounds at Whitefish, occasionally getting into the backcountry of Glacier National Park on his splitboard. He is a devoted reader of Method Mag, Torment, and Snowboarder, and casually mentioned that his friend was at Red Bull Heavy Metal. That friend was  Brett Stamper, who competed in Heavy Metal.

During night riding sessions, the local youngsters were a 60-40 skier to snowboarder split as they lapped the park.

Dozens of Tanner Hall-wannabees sessioned a kink rail, while their snowboarding counterparts spun 360s off of a nearby cheese wedge jump. Someone cooked hotdogs next to the chairlift. One kid was determined to fit an entire glizzy in his mouth at once. His friends cheered him on. No one puked. Skiers dominated the shuttle bus back to town just as they had dominated the terrain parks. Maybe I was wrong, I thought. Maybe this is a skier’s town.

Then came the movie premier.

Alaska Glacier Camp

Blackstar, a BrewPub downtown, hosted a watch party for the Inyo and Worm movie “Alaska Glacier Camp.” The film stars local pro Jason Robinson, who was present that night, mingling with the crowd, in real life, ripping helicopter lines on the screen.

The place was absolutely packed. All the TVs in the bar showed the movie, and the crowd was locked in. They cheered for big lines and gasped at clips of riders evading sluff. Representatives from Cardiff were there raffling off of gear to raise money for the Flathead Avalanche Center.

After the movie, Robinson, humble as can be, answered questions from the audience. He injured himself this season, so his recovery kept him in Whitefish for longer than usual. He worked at Stumptown early in the season every year before heading off to Alaska.

Because we weren’t invited with open arms during the early days of snowboarding, our world is hesitant to share its culture with just anyone. That’s why there are so many gatekeepers. It’s why two strangers wearing Grenade gloves can see each other in the lift line and become friends. It’s why stuff that feels gimmicky, like Clew bindings or Rurock helmets, get heckled relentlessly.

Just because a town has snowboarders, though, doesn’t make it a snowboard town. There’s a culture that must be self-policed. It doesn’t rely on the size of your park jumps or the feet of vertical drop, but rather, equal opportunity for skiers and riders, and a willingness to work together. You feel it at Appalachian Ski Mountain in North Carolina. You don’t feel it at Big Sky in Montana.

As a result, only a handful of places get to truly call themselves home to snowboarding and its culture, and usually, that is because somewhere along the line, it paid its dues. Go to southern Vermont, and you’ll feel the energy that still lingers around Stratton, even though the last Burton U.S. Open there was in 2013.

Go to Trollhaugen is Wisconsin, and you’ll see riders ripping until the early hours of the morning. Go to California, and you’ll see top-tier talent in the terrain park that makes it easy to see how Chloe Kim, Judd Henkes, and Maddie Mastro became elite level riders. And of course, go to Brighton with a single plank strapped to your feet, and know that you’re home, even if you’re away from home.

Whitefish has that it-factor. It’s James Beard award-finalist chef snowboards. Its shops have piles of Slush, The Magazine available for free. Riders sit in the lodge in Drink Water t-shirts, and it’s hard to walk a mile without seeing the Jones Snowboards logo somewhere.

Snowboarding culture has established itself in the mountain town, digging in its heels, and refusing to be moved. Thanks to the shops, the bartenders, the resort employees, and most importantly, the riders, it’s here to stay.