Hello snowboard enthusiasts the world over! I'm sure you are all as excited as I am about the plummeting temperatures in hopes of plentiful frosty precipitation to come. But let us skip the pleasantries and get down to business here...using this tribe in ways heretofore unpossible before the invention of the internet.

First a little background for those of you that don't know me... I live on the East Coast (Jersey City in the house say yeah!). There is no such thing as "champagne powder" here, and if you were to tell a local about snow w/ 10% moisture content they would wrap you up in a straight jacket and drive you to the nearest padded room. You won't see snowflakes lookin all pretty and unique and crystallized, they fall in a mushy pile of wet heavy amorphous blobules.... and don't even get me started on our shorty hills that pass for mountain resorts here...i have to drive 4.5 hours each way every weekend to get to a summit that peaks 1000 feet below where most west coast resorts put their base lodges. Oh, the frustration...

As a result, I've recently started an annual tradition with a couple of friends, each year to book a winter trip to a destination that offers the type of riding we see in our favorite snowboard porn videos and our most exhilarating dreams. Last year's trip was to Summit county in Colorado, and while they didn't exactly have the knee deep stuff we were hoping for at the time, losing our breath at 14,000ft and dropping into the bowls of Breckenridge (followed by night riding at keystone) put a smile on our faces that stayed there for weeks! and of course memories of a lifetime.

So what's the damn point of this long winded story? I ever so digress...

While in Colorado, we couch surfed w/ friends in Denver and Boulder for a week, and we found the experience of local shredders invaluable on the hill and around town. We can fend for ourselves of course, but it's so much nicer to have somebody to point you in the right direction, or even better, come ride with you and make sure you have enough speed to clear that long traverse, or avoid that pain in the ass 2 mile mogul run, or pull you out of that chest deep treewell you just fell backwards into, not to mention saving hundreds of $$$ a night that of course translate into love and gifts showered upon said hosts in heaps.

So with that spirit in mind, I wonder if we can create something positive on this thread where people who happen to be so lucky as to live near a major powder destination and have couch or some floor space to give up for a week, step forward and offer it up to people on a snowboard holiday. Or if you're a local and know of some mom and pop type place trying to rent out a room for cheap, or offer up tips on lodging that would be otherwise difficult to find online. In return you will have some new buddies to ride with for a week, lots of free beer, food, gifts both material and spiritual, human gratitude, sexual favors if you're lucky and the knowledge that you too now have a couch w/ your name on it somewhere else in the world.

Let the steppin forward begin (especially if you live in Utah, Colorado, BC, Washington, Oregon, Alberta, Tahoe, Japan, France, Switzerland, Austria, Chile, Norway, Argentina, so on and so forth - you know who you are)

I'd be happy to go first - I live in Jersey City, NJ, not exactly a snowboarder's dream but a hip and lovely destination literally a 4 minute subway ride from downtown Manhattan. If you ever find yourself heading to NYC, look me up, and i will host and/or find you and your friends a place to stay...just mention the Rider Hosting Program to get your coupon!