The Howly Bowly Park City
Rider: Jeff Keenen, Photo: Tim Zimmerman
W O R D S / S E A N G E N O V E S E
Why is Lib Tech’s Holy Bowly good for Snowboarding? Because it’s
complex, it has layers, it’s a bit confusing, and it’s chaotic. That’s why.
Nothing that is normal is rad. Things that are straightforward are only
captivating until you conquer them, and then they’re boring. When you
live life in a straight line and don’t deviate from the regular path, you will
never experience the surprise and excitement of the unknown. The Holy
Bowly is about the differences—the lines, the paths, and the flow that it
forces on you. Let your guard down and break any barriers you might
have built that dictate how you think you’re supposed to ride down a
mountain
Wes makepeace & Jamie Lynn aka Titty Fish, Photo: Tim Zimmerman
The event lures generations of riders from across the globe, whom all
bring their own styles with them… Older, younger, classic, and obscure.
Style is the way in which each snowboarder rides their snowboard and
that style is their signature. It’s why and how you can tell who most
riders are even as a silhouette—from the way that they grab, how they
roll into a turn, or how they lay back a slash. How each rider decides to
interpret the banks and bumps that create the Bowly further defines
that signature. If you weren’t sure what type of rider someone was, a
true test would be to see how they ride the Holy Bowly.
Rider: Ian Keay, Photo: Tim Zimmerman
Snowboard contests are scripted events that force a rider to fall in
line and ride a certain way in order to win. Contests are to snowboarding
what American Idol is to music. The Holy Bowly makes a point to
oppose that. The Holy Bowly is a casual conversation, where a rider lets
loose and you get a feel for who someone truly is. It fights the fakers
and celebrates the unique. This opposition has become a thorn in the
side of contests that might rather have personal style eradicated in
order to sharpen the lines between points and scores that should be
posted for each trick. In the bowl, there are no tricks to be judged. It’s
about continuity, like a single impressively smart word versus an entire
beautifully constructing sentence.
Rider: Sean Genovese, Photo: Alex Mertz
The Bowly pushes no expectations.
Nothing is shunned and there are no rules. Go as big or as small as you’d
like, or don’t let your board leave the snow at all. Don’t be afraid to go
fast. The faster you go, the quicker you can get back to the top and pick
another line. If the person next to you doesn’t drop in quick enough,
drop in on them. They deserve it.
Combining and melding to create new things and new ways of thinking
go beyond just the riding at Holy Bowly. Although a dedicated crew
of people create the initial structure of the bowls, once the first day
of the Holy Bowly kicks off, riders that rip, slash, and gap the corners,
banks and hips, will in turn slip, rake, and replace divots in the middle of
the bowls at the end of each day alongside the hardworking build crew.
This is all a reminder that nothing is for free—in snowboarding or in life.
Ian Keay and Sean Genovese, Photo: Alex Mertz
If you want something amazing, don’t be afraid to work hard for it, and
if you don’t feel like working hard for it, consider yourself never invited.
All in all, this attitude, thumbs-up to style, and bringing people together
is not new to snowboarding, but the way that it’s being done at the Holy
Bowly is. Lib Tech and Krush Kulesza have taken pieces already existing
in snowboarding and combined them in a way that has sparked a blaze.
To some degree, this will change the way that snowboards will be ridden
at all mountains in the near future. Bowls, banks, and creating this type
of flow on mountains across the world will become the norm, and riding
these bowls for the next generation will become secondhand. This is all
contributing to advancing the feeling that EVERYBODY experiences on
his or her snowboard—that thing that you can’t quite put your finger on.
That is why Lib Tech’s Holy Bowly is good for snowboarding.