Snowboarding

SNOWBASIN -- The stage is set for some of the world's best pipe skiers and snowboarders, as the Winter Dew Tour superpipe competitions wrap up today with seasoned veterans in position to snag the cup.

Mason Aguirre won the men's snowboard pipe semifinals Friday evening at the Toyota Championships and will join the other top-10 finishers in challenging the two Dew Tour overall season leaders -- Iouri Podladtchikov and defending Dew Cup champion Louie Vito -- in today's Final.

PARK CITY -- As a World Cup snowboardcross racer, Jonathan Cheever has taken his share of spills over the years.

SALT LAKE CITY — A 24-year-old snowboarder died Saturday after becoming trapped in an avalanche in a steep Utah backcountry area that the public was warned to avoid after potent snowstorms.

ASPEN, Colo. -- Shaun White is capable of doing things nobody else can come close to doing on a snowboard. He looks flashy when he does it, and he's humorous when he talks about it.

Corporations have no reason not to throw their support behind the "Flying Tomato," and even though a stable of sponsorships have made White a millionaire, he maintains there's potential for other athletes on Buttermilk Mountain to profit off Winter X Games fame.

OGDEN -- The community is invited to a free avalanche awareness class at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 30, at Slackwater Pub and Pizzeria, 1895 Washington Blvd.

The class is an effort by the National Ski Patrol and the Avalanche Forecast Center of Utah.

OGDEN -- By water, by land, and now by snow, a local company is evolving from its California surfing roots and foraging into the realm of snowboarding with a new product that embraces Ogden's snow culture while paying homage to other board sports.

Ogden-based Kahuna Creations, which broke into the market several years ago with its sleek longboard skateboards and patented land paddle known as the Big Stick, has adapted the stick for use on the slopes. Kahuna has taken the basic design of the Big Stick, which is built from everything from bamboo to reinforced carbon composite materials, and added a new attachment designed specifically for use on the snow.

"We've sold over 10,000 Big Sticks all over the world," said Steve McBride, founder and owner of the company. "We've done well with the stand-up paddle trend, so the last couple of years, we've been thinking of ways to adapt it to snowboarding."

OGDEN — A video in which a Snowbasin ski patroller is seen reprimanding a snowboarder before directing an obscenity toward another guest has gone viral, sparking an online discussion as to whether snowboarders are singled out at ski resorts.

In the video, which was captured and posted Tuesday on vimeo.com, a Snowbasin ski instructor and a ski patroller stop snowboarder Austen Knudson, of Layton, on Bear Hollow, a run that is often crowded because it begins at the bottom of the Middle Bowl area where several runs converge.