Just before the snow started flying StokeLab contributor Austin Gibney penned a piece about making the best of a 'challenging' winter:

While climbing up Ruby Chute outside of Crested Butte, Colo. I thought about a lot of things. Some of the things that crossed my mind were: "It looks like November not January out here, this looks like shit to ride down, last time I rode this chute there was 25 more feet of snow in it..."

"Snowboarding is much more than just banger after banger; It's a journey, it's euphoria, it's pain, it's excitement, it's fear, it's meeting new people, it's sending it, it's SNOWBOARDING."-Aaron Robinson

I was lucky enough to meet Aaron Robinson last spring at Mt. Baker. We were in town for a K2 Snowboarding press trip so they could show off the new Panoramic splitboard and some other fresh hardgoods. It stormed like mad that weekend and the avalanche danger was rated HIGH so we kept it pretty mellow. We took a one-day avalanche safety course in the backcountry just outside the ski area and just got hammered on by snow—everyone was soggy—yet A-Rob kept us laughing throughout, whether stomping enthusiastically on a rutschblock(snowpack stability test) or joking from the sidelines. My last memory of A-Rob...on our way back to the trailhead that day he was skiing downhill on his splitboard (it was setup in touring mode) and hauling ass down a powder field, laughing like hell while fellow K2 rider Shaun McKay tried the same approach and exploded in a cloud of snow, poles and split-skis. A-Rob's laughter and enthusiasm for life was infectious, which you'll find in this full-length film, "Manifest."—Mike Horn