After a successful inaugural year, the Ascend Split Snowboard Festival is coming back to Jasper.
March 13-15, enthusiasts, beginners and even the plain curious will get a chance to try out a unique winter sport.
A splitboard is a snowboard that can be separated into two skis, allowing riders to trek high into the backcountry before clipping back together to ride down through the untouched powder on a board.
Splitboarding began in the 90s, but has picked up steam in the last decade. Events like the Ascend festival aim to promote the sport and grow the community.
According to Lukas Matejovsky, one of the festival’s organizers, last year’s festival was such a success that this year they will invite even more people to sign up.
For the first go-around in 2014, organizers capped registration at 30, but this year they are bumping that number up to 40, and bringing in even more guides and guest speakers to handle the extra people.
The festival will happen over the whole weekend, and includes meals, parties, guest speakers, live music and, of course, two full days of riding in Jasper’s backcountry.
“I want to welcome everyone to come down. If people just want to get the feel of splitboarding or they just want to test it out, it’s the perfect event to go to. If you’re kind of in-between, you’ve been doing it for a while, you can kind of expand on your education, and also you can meet people that you can ride with,” Matejovsky said.
“And if you have been doing it for many years and maybe you want to go on a glacier and have a guide and do everything right and safe, then that’s also an event for you.
“It’s the perfect environment with an ACMG guide.”
Matejovsky explained that festival organizers work closely with the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, whose representatives will not only prep participants with courses on avalanche and backcountry safety, but choose the slopes and routes just before riding days.
All the money raised from festival entrance fees and the Saturday-night silent auction will also go to support the ACMG.
Safety is a priority for Matejovsky, and with the unpredictability that the backcountry can present, the accredited mountain guides have the knowledge to keep everyone safe.
“We’re in the mountains and you never know what will happen, so that’s why we make decisions shortly before or during the event,” he said.
Aside from a safe guided experience, Matejovsky also said that the festival is one of the best opportunities to meet other splitboard enthusiasts, and grow the community.
“I noticed that people who came last year have been in touch. And I personally went out with some of the people who were with us that I hadn’t met before. And I know that other people have been in touch as well,” he said.
“We’re not doing it for us, we’re doing it for the community, you know. We want to bring people and have them interested in the sport.”
For more information about the Ascend festival or to register, visit www.ascendsplitfest.com.
Trevor Nichols
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