The New York Times headline about snowboarders in Rhode Island said the state was “powder poor.” Not this weekend! Rhode Island is snowed in.
Everything else about the article is probably true since the Times is known for pretty good fact checking.
Matt Ruby reports, “Five miles from the beaches of Narragansett, somewhere between Vail and Zermatt, there are 28 skiable acres. They don’t cover a mountain, just a modest hill that gets about 34 inches of snow a year. That slope is the unlikely canvas for a collection of snowboarders whose wild imaginations have earned them more cachet than many of the sport’s most accomplished athletes.
“The place is the Yawgoo Valley ski area, and the snowboarders call themselves the Yawgoons. They’re the equivalent of a world-beating beach volleyball team based in Saskatoon.
“In a sport where bigger, higher, longer, and more spinning and flipping define the boundaries, the Yawgoons get creative. They use the natural terrain (rocks, trees, grass) as well as the unnatural (buildings, snowcats, pipes) to construct landscapes with one I’ve-never-seen-that-before feature after another. Then they shoot video of their runs and let the snowboarding world watch in awe. …
“Everyone has seen video of snowboarders roaring down the steepest, snowiest descents in Alaska and Switzerland. Somehow, watching a Yawgoon land a backside 180 to switch 50/50 while gliding down six corrugated tubes is even more impressive. …
“I had seen their videos and wanted to see the terrain for myself and meet the Yawgoons — Brendan Gouin, Marcus Rand, Dylan Gamache and Brian Skorupski. … The ski area — the only one in the state — had been open for only a few days this season, but the group was eager to produce its next video. …
“ ‘We are just mad lucky to have that little place there,’ Rand [said]. ‘It’s so random, this far south in Rhode Island.’ Rand, a 29-year-old from Narragansett, has been coming here since he was 2. He works as a mason.”
Read more about him and the other Yawgoons at the New York Times, where you can also see some nice action videos.
Photo: Snowboarding
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Lots of fun to read about this. Did you know there is a tiny town called Stockholm in Maine in New Sweden? Always interesting to learn about places in America you never knew about.
We will have to check out New Sweden. We’re very partial to all things Swedish