He made his mark in Alaska. Now a new book looks at the life and death of legendary snowboarder Craig Kelly.

Alaska often serves arsenic a proving crushed for escapade athletes, and that’s true, too, for large upland snowboarders.

Still, it took pioneers for illustration Craig Kelly to get group to moreover return snowboarding earnestly arsenic a athletics astatine all.

Kelly, who died successful 2003, is nan taxable of a caller book called “The Darkest White: A Mountain Legend and nan Avalanche That Took Him.”

Longtime snowboarder and snowboard mag editor Eric Blehm wrote nan book to grant Kelly and his legacy, and to amended understand really he died.

As Blehm puts it, Kelly was nan first existent master snowboarder and 1 of its champion ambassadors.

Listen:

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This question and reply has been lightly edited for magnitude and clarity.

Eric Blehm: People successful nan media would would talk to Craig, and everybody wanted him to beryllium nan spokesperson for nan sport, because he could actually, you know, reply successful complete sentences, let’s conscionable beryllium honest. I mean, he was conscionable nan feline who knew really to benignant of merge nan spread betwixt nan snowboarding world astatine nan clip and nan skiers who conscionable thought we were a bunch of misfits, skaters, surfer dudes that infiltrated nan mountains. And each of a abrupt present was Craig Kelly, who was this very literate, cerebral feline who had walked distant from a grade successful chemic engineering to effort and make it arsenic a pro snowboarder successful a athletics that didn’t moreover exist. I mean, that was Craig Kelly. And, you know, we each beryllium him a indebtedness of gratitude, because he paved nan measurement for a batch of what you spot today.

Casey Grove: Back successful nan day, location were places — and location still are — but location were galore places that didn’t moreover let snowboarding, right?

EB: Oh yeah, it was, I mean, 1988, Time Magazine named snowboarding nan worst caller athletics of 1988, you know, that it was astir raging hormones and mostly guys that were just, you know, infiltrating nan slopes. And it was, only very fewer resorts allowed snowboarding in, you know, moreover for illustration nan precocious ’80s, for sure, and moreover into nan early ’90s. And he, again, being for illustration benignant of a spokesperson and this personification who could, he could locomotion nan locomotion and talk nan talk pinch snowboarders, but besides with, you know, skis edifice managers and skis patrol, which allowed snowboarding to grow. Because it could person gone different direction. It could person continued to beryllium this, very much, a renegade sport. And he brought it successful to thief bring it into nan mainstream.

CG: And I conjecture pinch Craig, he’s benignant of known for progressing nan sport. But erstwhile he was successful Alaska, was location that aforesaid benignant of progression, successful position of riding large mountains and benignant of pushing nan athletics to caller boundaries?

EB: Yeah, oh, for sure. And I mean, Craig would spell retired pinch filmers, and that would bring this large upland riding, you know, to nan remainder of nan world. And I deliberation that what Craig did was he brought this level of professionalism into that arsenic well. One point that Craig did, erstwhile he rode, he was truthful smooth. He made it look truthful effortless, and so, apical to bottommost connected a line, it was conscionable beautiful to watch. And you compound that pinch steep terrain and long, you know, untouched powder successful Alaska, and it was conscionable for illustration a dance. He was, you know, he was dancing pinch nan mountain. And location were a batch of riders that could get down nan mountain, but fewer could get down arsenic as beautifully and gracefully arsenic Craig could. I deliberation because he made it look truthful simple, he attracted a batch of group to spell up and cheque retired Alaska. It was benignant of for illustration nan North Shore of Hawaii, you know, erstwhile nan large wintertime swells show up, and they commencement surfing pipeline and it starts working, aliases you know, Waimea Bay. Alaska was that spot for snowboarding.

CG: Yeah. I consciousness for illustration we should talk astir his death, too. And for penning this book, you took a existent adjacent look astatine nan avalanche that that killed him. I wonderment if you could show maine astir that.

EB: Yeah, well, it yet was a reasonably arguable avalanche. There were 7 group killed that day. And he was successful nan mediate of his training. The first snowboarder, by nan way, to beryllium accepted into nan Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, connected a splitboard. He was 36 years old, and these guiding organizations had ne'er allowed snowboarders to go guides.

And it was a beautiful tricky snowfall year. There had been an early rainfall crust successful November, and past conscionable each these different elements kept building up to made it a very tricky, benignant of a debased probability, precocious consequence year. That means, you know, there’s a debased probability for an avalanche, but if it’s gonna go, it’s gonna spell really big. And this group was caught successful this monolithic slide. And I really wanted to grant Craig and each those who were killed that day, because location were a batch of questions like, you know, 13 group were taken successful this descent and buried retired of, you know, a group of 21. And to person that galore group taken erstwhile you’re being led by, successful this case, location was a lead guideline and an adjunct guide, some trained, certified guides. How does this happen? And that was 1 of nan questions I had for each these years. And that’s, you know, yet why I wrote this book to reply those questions.

And besides conscionable because Craig was, I felt, benignant of being forgotten. Fifteen years aft Craig passed away, I was astatine a assistance statement successful Utah, and I had a sticker connected my committee that a batch of group put connected their boards aft Craig died. I did, (it said), “Craig Kelly is my co pilot.” And location was this 20-something-year-old kid, I’m successful nan assistance statement adjacent to him, and he looked down astatine my committee and saw that sticker and he just, pinch each sincerity, said, “Who’s Craig Kelly?” And I couldn’t judge it. For me, he was nan Michael Jordan of snowboarding. He was everybody’s hero. It’d beryllium for illustration going to a pickup hoops crippled location and wearing a Michael Jordan jersey and personification asking you, “Who’s Michael Jordan?”