ESPN Snowboarding

Nate Deschenes

Jules Reymond asked if he looked "sexy" after this one, to which I replied, "Only to the trained eye."

Chances are you have not heard of the village called Bosco Gurin that straddles the Italian boarder in the region of Ticino, Switzerland. In fact, most people native to the country will only raise their eyebrows in mild interest if you bring up the name, as if it is somewhat of a fairytale.

For the snowboard world, this is all about to change.

(Editor's note: At this point, a moral wrestling match would usually ensue, exposing such a place; however, in this case it was asked of the author by its residents to please, expose us. And even if the author did the most unsatisfactory job in reporting his experience in Bosco with the Absinthe Film crew, you wouldn't believe it to be real anyway. So we're good, right?)

And so our story begins ...

Walking through the streets of Bosco, which, due to record amounts of snow were not really streets ... wait, scratch that. Trudging through the alleys ... No ... Swimming through the buried walkways that twist like a maze through the old village, we happened upon a local, and I'm not talking "local," like the cocky kid from Turdsville who looks like a transient gypsy and maddogs you because you are riding his park — but a real loc.

This local, with his yellow eyes and Yoda teeth told me that, in a village of 35 permanent residents, his closest friends don't live next door — they come 20 to a pack and are 40-proof. With a wild eye fixed on our snowboards, and in the best broken English he could summon beneath his ancient dialect, he somewhat eerily put it all in perspective, "It does snow diz much before ..."

I looked at Swiss native Jules Reymond, conflicted. A storm of this magnitude? Unheard of.

Evidently, the decades of grappa-use had not only fermented the old man's blood but his logic as well. He continued, through a piercing stare and creepshow grin, "In de year 1951! AH, HAHA!"

"Well in that case," Gigi Ruf replied, "can I snowboard on your roof?" The old man could only smile. Whether it was at the absurdity of the request or the fact he had no idea what we were talking about, we'll never know.

Because of Bosco's remote location and lack of any kind of promotional or advertising agenda, the few lifts that access the ski hill on the edge of town run on a very sporadic basis. And by sporadic I mean there is no way of knowing if you will get on the mountain unless you make the one-hour drive through the forested canyon and switchbacks (many of which you'd be hard pressed to squeeze a couple of Mopeds through) from the town of Locarno in the valley below.

Chances increase on holiday periods and weekends, but still there are no promises. What I gathered is they need a certain number of customers in order to justify spinning the wheels; otherwise they would lose money. With all the mega-resorts in Switzerland (Laax, St. Moritz, Verbier), it is refreshing to be able to ride outside the norm, escape glitz and glamour and get medieval with your shredding.

The history of Bosco Gurin is a novel in itself, but the short/long version is the village was formed by a small band of nomads who migrated over the mountains from the Saas Fee region a mere 1,000 years ago.

Their way of life remained unchanged for centuries, living as a self-sustaining farming community. It took 80 years before there was even a road down the valley to a neighboring village. In short, it's a town and a people unlike any in Switzerland. They speak an ancient German dialect and remain, in essence, a family. For more on the story of Bosco Gurin and the ski resort click here.

So how did we get here? A local guy named Marc Maspoli spearheaded an effort to get Bosco Gurin on the map with a self-funded terrain park called Intol Snowpark. More than the epic snow that hits the area each winter, Maspoli explains, "When you say Bosco Gurin to anyone who knows shredding in this area, you are really saying Intol Snowpark."

With outside help, these fellas have created a small but dedicated army of riders in this special corner of the world. "This is a very special place we have here, and with that comes special people. At first they may look at you funny, but if you show them respect, they will take you in and make you feel comfortable," says Maspoli.

Say, for instance, riding on the roof of a centuries-old dwelling?

"Precisely," he explains, "At first he did not understand what was going on, then you explained you were making a movie and now you have other people coming up to you saying, 'You can jump onto my roof if you like!' It's a very special place and it will always be like that."

Without people like Maspoli and his efforts to get Absinthe, Burton and The Pirates Crew over to Bosco Gurin this place could shut down all together.

Spreading the word about the newest hotspot in snowboarding will leave fewer tracks for me, but enough with being greedy. It is a pleasure to share a place that has character, isn't funded by a super-corporation and reminds us all of why we started riding in the first place.

(Stay tuned for part 2 of Absinthe's legendary week at Bosco Gurin.)

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