How to find snowboard friends who ride your way

To find snowboard friends, post a specific day in your home mountain's group, or join a regular park session or group lesson, and describe your riding in terms another snowboarder can picture, such as "linked turns on blues and a few laps on small boxes." Before you pay for someone else's trip, check that the mountain allows snowboards: Alta and Deer Valley in Utah and Mad River Glen in Vermont don't. Before a day with skiers, find the flats on the trail map, because cat tracks and long traverses are where mixed crews come apart.

Three mountains still ban snowboards, so check before you pay

Nearly every resort welcomes snowboarders, which is why the exceptions catch people out. Alta's mountain policy says "Snowboarding is not allowed" and lists splitboards among prohibited equipment, and Alta's own site calls it "one of three ski areas in North America that does not permit snowboards on its lifts." Deer Valley calls itself "a ski-only resort."

Mad River Glen's equipment policy is the one worth reading in full, because it shows how a ban starts. The mountain allowed snowboards from 1986, but its Single chair has a flat unloading area. Snowboarders struggled to get off it, riders pushing off the chair made it derail from its sheave wheels, and snowboards were barred from that lift. Because the Single reaches most of the expert terrain, the restriction caused friction, and after a confrontation with some local riders, the owner at the time, Betsy Pratt, banned snowboards from the whole mountain starting with the 1991-92 season. When the co-op took over in 1995, more than 75% of shareholders voted to keep the ban. The page is one mountain's history and passes no verdict on snowboarders. The trouble began at a patch of flat ground, and a vote kept it going.

The check matters most when someone else picks the destination. Deer Valley's address is Park City, so a club week "in Park City" can include a ski-only day without anyone thinking to mention it. Ask for the list of mountains before you pay a deposit, and read the resort guides for Alta and Deer Valley if either is on it.

On every other mountain, find riders where they repeat

With the mountain cleared, start with the one you ride most, because the people worth finding ride your terrain on your days, often enough to recognize. Search its name with "snowboard" or "ski and ride," and look for a group that has posted this month. Club names won't settle much. The National Ski Council Federation's Bay Area Snow Sports Council listing names 19 member clubs, and two of them, Inskiers Ski and Snowboard Club and Snowchasers Ski & Snowboard Club, put snowboarding in the name. The other 17 names tell you nothing either way, so ask the organizer (how to join a ski club covers what else to ask). Splitboarders heading past the boundary need a different search, and how to find a backcountry ski partner starts with avalanche training.

On the mountain itself, the terrain park does what a group does online, and does it in person. The same riders tend to lap the same features on the same mornings, so show up to the small park every Saturday and you'll start recognizing faces, and they'll start recognizing yours. "How are you setting up for that box?" is an easy question on the chair back up. Group lessons work for a similar reason: if you're learning to carve or taking your first park laps, a lesson puts you beside people at your level working on the same thing.

SkiBuds is being rebuilt for iOS and Android with public channels for each mountain, split into green, blue and black, plus private messages; finding snowboard buddies explains the plan. The new app is coming soon (launch status), so for now a group, the park and a lesson are the routes that work.

Describe your riding so another snowboarder can picture it

Sooner or later someone on the chair back up, or under a group post, asks how you ride, and "intermediate" is the easy answer. It covers someone who linked their first turns last month and someone carving every blue on the map. Describe what you ride comfortably today, not what you hope to ride by March. A few phrases that say more than a level:

• Groomers: "linked turns on blues, starting to carve," or "comfortable on most blacks."
• Park: "small boxes and jumps," or "working on 50-50s on the medium rails." Add whether you want company, a spotter or someone to film.
• Trees and powder: "glades on blues, slow in tight trees."
• Switch: "can ride switch on greens."
• Learning: "first season, need easy runs and time to strap in."

If what you want is instruction, book a lesson and ride with people afterward.

Put the description in a session post

Those phrases are most of a post. Add a time, a public place and an easy way to reply:

Snowboarding [resort] on [date], roughly 10 to 2. Linked turns on blues, and I'd like a few laps in the small park on boxes. I'll be at [public base-area landmark] at 9:45. Skiers welcome if you don't mind a regroup after the flats. Anyone riding a similar day?

Keep transport separate: "I'll meet you at the mountain," or a second post for a carpool. The meetup checklist covers the rest of a first day, including an easy way for either person to call it early.

When skiers answer, plan the flats before first chair

The post's last line is there because skiers will answer it, and the usual objection to riding with them is the flats. A skier poles along a cat track while a snowboarder slows, unstraps and walks, and plenty of snowboarders would rather ride only with other snowboarders for that reason. The complaint is fair, and it's narrow. Skiers and snowboarders can share almost any run; they come apart on cat tracks, long traverses and runouts. A crew that hasn't talked about it ends up with the snowboarders hiking while the skiers wait somewhere awkward. A crew that has can route around most of it, and a snowboard-only search turns away every skier on the mountain to avoid a two-minute conversation.

The conversation is three rules:

1. Snowboarders lead on the flats. A boarder in front can keep speed. One stuck behind a cautious skier loses it and walks.
2. Regroup below the flat, at the next lift. The middle of a traverse is the worst place to stop, so make the lift base the meeting point.
3. Skiers wait a few turns down. At the top of each lift, snowboarders strap in off to the side while the skiers stop just below, out of the unloading area.

The rules only work if everyone knows where the flats are, so do that part the night before. Open the trail map for the lifts you plan to ride, trace the way from each lift to the next, and mark every cat track and long traverse in between. Send the marked map to the group with one line: "I'll lead these."