Photo: Alex Nawrocky
Photo: Alex Nawrocky

Way up in the Northern Rockies they make ‘em a little different. Arguably one of the more awesome characters in professional snowboarding, Andrew Hardingham is a one-of-a-kind Canadian. With a flair for the shocking, he may appear to be reckless, perhaps unstable, but his calculated big mountain descents and faculty for taking down mega-booters proves that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

In an industry littered with egos, Hardingham refuses to take himself too seriously. Often saying the right thing at the wrong time or just blurting out the wrong thing period, his propensity for black comedy and self-deprecation is enlightening, to say the least. Add it all up, and you get something like a distraught, goofy-footed mongoose with a keen eye for investment banking.

Whether it’s dropping some of the most intense lines ever put down on a snowboard or producing some of the funniest snowboard skits you’ve ever seen, Andrew has touched snowboarding in a way few others have. With this guy, you just never know what to expect, and if that’s not the spirit of snowboarding, what is?

“Awesome character. The snowboard industry needs more Hardinghams!”
– Jake Blauvelt

“Maybe I don’t take snowboarding as seriously as most of the industry and other riders. The industry is like the mainframe of the matrix; it has destroyed everything awesome while somehow keeping it alive at the same time. There are a small group of companies and people who do a great job fighting it, but without that Neo rider standing up for a free world it will always be repressed. I was lucky enough to see it in its heyday, and I feel quite fortunate for that. So I feel a certain responsibility to pass the values from that time on to the new generation of riders, so that they can choose their path a bit more freely.”
– Andrew Hardingham