GRASSROOTS Powsurf Co.

GThe Future of Surfing Snow

Snowboarding is progression. It’s the hunt for the next. Whether it’s adding another rotation, or figuring out that next gap, the shred is part art form, and part ratcheting up the difficulty, or consequences.

PBut sometimes progression moves in a different direction. Something with less rotations, smaller gaps, and much more soul. Enter Grassroots Powsurf, the company that started the movement around surfing waves of snow on shaped boards, without bindings.Founded by snowboarder Jeremy Jensen, and his friends came up with the concept of surfing snow in 2007, and in doing so created their own industry.

Words by Josh Ruggles

“I guess the first riding we did without bindings was just kind of standing between the bindings on our snowboards, while hiking around in the backcountry. This was before splitboards came out, so we were just standing between the bindings and then on the tail, and surfing mellow slopes, basically to get through flats and the backcountry,” Jeremy says.

But Jeremy and crew knew they stumbled on something special. This wasn’t just a way to scoot around in the backcountry between snowboard laps. This could be the reason to go to the backcountry—a new progression of the shred.

“I had crafted the first few boards and knew I was on the path to creating something amazing. I was very excited to share this with the world but a little worried about the production side of things as the boards were very time consuming to build,” he says. “Demand was pretty low those first couple of years since the world didn’t know what powsurfing was yet. But we educated them through film, and photo content I created, and it caught fire on social media.”

The building process was essentially a self taught endeavor that started and remains in the garage, where Jeremy, and his small crew presses and shapes each board. There is no mass-production happening with Grassroots. Jeremy has laid hands on literally every board that ships.

“I took what I knew from the snowboards and I knew what didn't work about them and then the parts of them that did work. And so I just put two and two together and started shaping some pretty primitive wood boards for the first few months,” he explains. “Once we started making them out, we kept creating different shapes and sizes, and figured out what really worked well because they immediately worked so much better than a snowboard deck.”

One key difference between snowboarding and powder surfing is the nowobvious fact that there are no bindings, skyhooks, or anything connecting feet to the deck. But back then, the idea was so new, there was plenty of skepticism about whether they were faking their free-footed slashes. But the skepticism was short-lived.

“From the beginning we wanted to embrace the binding-lessness of it all, and make that apparent, because shots from far away weren’t always obvious,” Jeremy notes. “Once we realized we could ride them forward and backward, we started exploring what’s possible. Could we do bomb drops, do shove-its, and do flip tricks? Within the first year, I'd landed a kickflip on my second or third try, and it sort of changed things.”

Even as a small niche within an already somewhat niche industry, the stoke started spreading globally. The growing attention and interest, even led to a small debut in Travis Rice’s “The Art of Flight”, as well as other pro snowboard films. There was a shift happening in the mentality of snowboarding, in which some wanted bigger jumps, longer rails—more street, and more park. Others wanted the old soul of snowboarding back, and the latter started gravitating to powsurfing. But the momentum is hard-fought every step of the way.

“Creating and sustaining Grassroots powsurf has been a massive amount of work,” he says. “I had to teach myself how to do everything—how to start, and run a business, all of the design work, production—you can list everything involved in a business and that was all my job.”

Now that Grassroots has paved the way for the category, other companies want in, and some contenders are bringing much deeper pockets. And while many of the competition’s offerings deliver a lower quality product with a fraction of the experience, and little to no soul—they’re still threats. But while Jeremy is aware of the main competition, he’s staying focused on what they’ve always done: build, ride, repeat. It’s the model that created the category, and why Grassroots is still going toe-to-toe with all the late-comers.

“We have been doing this so much longer than anyone else. Experience matters. It matters in shaping, design and progression. We see a lot of gimmicks that surface from other companies that never get the research and development needed to really make them into something real,” He explains. “We ride and test our powsurfers constantly, over a hundred days a season in a huge variety of conditions and terrain. We live and breathe powsurfing and our passion for it is unmatched.”

While Jeremy has always believed in his product, and powsurfing, it wasn’t until recently that other categories and brands started to prove his point.

“It was cool when powsurfing became big enough to get accepted by the snowboard boot companies. Deluxe snowboard boot company worked with us to create the Footloose boot, maybe six or seven years ago now. Then Vans eventually came out with one about a couple years ago, which was pretty cool,” Jeremy recalls.

After 16 years of shaping, Jeremy has kept Grassroots churning out handmade heat for those who want to progress in a different way than adding that next flip to their meat hucking repertoire. And he’s only getting started.

“We plan to keep on doing what we do best. Build the best powsurfers possible and share that with the world. We have so much incredible footage that has yet to be seen, from giant lines to progressive freestyle, and plenty of powder porn that is relatable to everyone,” he says. “The world will see some incredible stuff and they will be shown the full potential that our product and powsurfing itself offers.”