By E Wright

October 1, 1998

For so long, the knock on snowboarding was its inability to ever match the prowess of skateboarding-represented by a bunch of neon-clad warriors with stupid haircuts, hopping around in a little snow ditch, trying tricks named after some type of food. You don't hear too much of that talk anymore. Not because snowboarding is cool and made it to the Olympics, or that now everyone's peg-legged granny has at least tried it, but because halfpipe riding has stood the test of time, earning the respect due. Staring down the sculpted icy walls of a ten-foot arc and seeing your average Joe floating five-foot method airs makes it easy to forget about the past. Not to knock the past-if it weren't for those days, people would still be calling a frontside air an Indy. -E Wright

Tomi Toiminen

Age: 26

Current Job: Hood lurker

Career Highlight: First place in 1998 Vegetate at Mt. Hood Meadows, Oregon.

"The halfpipes have gotten better. When I started riding contests in 1989 in Finland, there was always one good side of the halfpipe, and we were lucky to even have another side. It was more like a ditch. I saw a change when Terje started riding contests-he pushed it to another level and the tricks were getting way more technical, way more spinning tricks. They had to make better pipes to handle the progression.

"Now everybody is doing spinning tricks and going big. It's all about frontside rodeos, which when I started were called J-Tears. Same trick today, except you don't plant your hands on the lip, you grab Indy. It has come such a long way since rocket airs, and now people are even starting to pull backside rodeos-and that is totally a new way of spinning."

Mike Estes

Age: Thirty-something

Current Job: Freestyle coach

Career Highlights: Traveling to Japan and Europe, having five pro models, and founding summer

camps on Mt. Hood.

"When I started my quest for perfect transition, it was more like pushed-up quarterpipes with no platforms, staggered down the fall line like jump ramps, that were supposed to be a halfpipe. In 1987, Mt. Baker had a freestyle event down the Shuskan gully. There were huge transitions with hips and powder landings-that was my first introduction to the progression of pipes. Now every day I get to ride machine-made Dragon or Scorpion pipes, drilled perfectly in minutes. A pipe on Mt. Hood in the summer of 1988 took sixteen men twelve hours to build; that lasted about four days. If you ask me, just makin' halfpipes easier to build is the real change-now they're everywhere."

Rob Kingwill

Age: 23

Job: Digger at Windell's

Career highlight: Winning the 1998 U.S. Open.

"Back in 1988 a good halfpipe run consisted of a bunch of boned-out food airs, a log slide, and if you were sick, a J-Tear or Crippler. A few guys could go big, but mainly off the highway hit at the top. Fast forward to 1998, and our sport has progressed exponentially. Where there used to be one or two guys ruling, there are now 30 per contest. Pipe Dragons have made halfpipes more consistent, and riders can go seven feet out on every hit. Back in the day, one good flip or spin won the gold, and now you have to nail three or four in a row just to make the finals. Tons of stuff has changed, but it has always been about fun and will remain that way as long as riders keep pushing the level."

Lance Pitman

Age: 20

Job: Pro snowboarding

Career highlight:

Making stickers.

"When I was twelve, GQ magazine sponsored a contest in Jackson Hole, and Rob Kingwill won-or at least should have. But Rob was only fifteen, so the judges gave him second and gave first to this older man-more of a gentleman who fit the GQ slot. That is how I see halfpipe riding even to this day. Halfpipe riding has progressed multiple times, but not much has changed."

Jeff Fulton

Age: 38

Job: Coach at Windell's

Career highlight: Any day at Baker.

"The pipes have gotten better, with bigger transitions, thus leading to bigger airs. As far as tricks go, the names have changed but the tricks remain the same-same flips, maybe a new spin. But mainly just renamed old tricks, except for the fact that guys today don't plant their hands below the lip."