Jacob Krugmire has got a biting sense of humor, an uncanny ability to excel in any on-the-road situation, and a hell of a backlip. Raised in the steeps of Washington, Jacob’s at home in deep snow but it’s in the streets, where his raw, powerful, and incredibly smooth style shines on consequential spots, that’s he’s been steadily furthering his notoriety. Krugs has been a devout member of the snowboard community since he was in grade school, riding alongside his older brother, Austin Hironaka, and honing an innate ease on his snowboard. He’s long been a source of both style and sarcasm, and finally, snowboarding is catching up with him. In the past few seasons Jacob has had stand-out segments in Snowboarder Magazine’s Beta, Videograss‘ Gutterball, and most recently DC Snowboarding’s Dead Center. Now, as the newest member of the Ride Snowboards team, Jacob has even more fuel heading into this season, which is just as good for him as it is for all of us, because more Krugs is, well, just better for snowboarding, overall.

Were you living in NYC for the summer? How’d the city treat you?
I lived in NYC for all of May and June, then came back for pretty much all of August. I had so much fun and met a ton of new people–and also experienced some of my worst hangovers, but it was definitely worth it. Everything felt like it was sort of back to normal, but going to parties again felt kinda crazy. I just tried to get COVID tests regularly to make sure I was being somewhat responsible, ha.

East Coast city life verses West Coast city life, what is your take?
The East Coast is so much more fast-paced, as opposed to on the West Coast where everything moves a bit slower and is more relaxed.

Where are you now? Are you going to be in Washington for winter?
Currently I am back in New York, ha. I decided to come for Halloween. I’ll be based out of Washington this winter, but I don’t think I will actually be there too much. Like last winter, I would go home for a week, maybe, and then leave again for the next trip and just be gone for weeks at a time. My roommate probably loves it because they pretty much just have the apartment to themselves most of the year, ha.

How has your fall been? You’ve been traveling a bit right? You were out during the Game of SNOW (kind of late summer, I guess), indoor surfing out there, down in CA…what have you been up to?
Fall has been pretty wild so far. That week for the Slush event was insane. I didn’t snowboard too well but definitely had a great time hanging with everyone out here in NYC. Major shouts to Dave Sypniewski and Iikka Backstrom for that trip. After that, I flew to California for a little bit to do some DC things and then headed home. While home, my car was stolen and then my storage unit got broken into and all of my snowboard gear got taken. And then after that I got doored pretty bad on my bike and  shattered this ladies window, but I got super lucky and didn’t hit my head or get too hurt. Then I followed all of that up with going to Hawaii. Parker Szumowski called me one morning and told me I should probably meet them in Hawaii. It didn’t take much convincing because I was on a plane that next morning, ha. I met up with him, Nik Baden, Tommy Gesme, Jared Elston, Benny Milam, and Reid Smith, along with his girlfriend Emily, because Reid was able to book Volcom’s Pipeline house. That was a crazy week, to say the least. I also went to the Torment Mag release party in Salt Lake City, which was incredibly fun.

What’s going on with your car? It was stolen twice?? Do you have it back now?
There’s a lot of tweakers around where I live in Seattle and my car is easy to steal. It seems like they take it for a little joyride and do their thing in it, and then it gets recovered by the police, sometimes that day or a few days later. This most recent time was number three and they did the most damage out of all of them. They busted my ignition, stole my license plates, and cut out my catalytic converter. They also left behind a giant garbage bag full of glazed donuts…

Back to winter, you went and filmed in NYC with DC on a trip. Rare spot to get to hit spots. How was filming in the city?
That trip was pretty funny–made the decision within like twelve hours of flying out and had no plan or filmer, but it all worked out. I flew there with Ben Bilodeau and met up with DC photographer Mike Heikilla and my homie, Kei Tsuruta, who became our filmer for the week. There was so much snow, but it is so annoying trying to film anything here just because how bad it is to try and drive around and find parking or whatever. Also, there were so many crews there at the same time. You would find a spot and it would look like someone might’ve set it up already and you’d have to start asking everyone if they hit it or what got done, lol. But we ended up with some cool clips and I actually filmed my favorite clip of the year on that trip, so it was worth it, for sure.

You were on one in the streets this winter it seemed like, started riding for DC, now officially on the Ride program. How was your winter, overall?
Overall, I think it went pretty well. It was my first year on DC and everything so far has been really cool. They take good care of us and I’ve never been this closely involved with a brand, so it feels good. I kinda feel like I didn’t really film an ender, but that’s just me being critical of myself. I had a lot of fun this winter and starting it out at Baker with Iikka, Sam Sosnowski, and Sarge (Pat McCarthy) was really fun. I’ve wanted to hit that cat track gap since I was a kid, so I’m glad to check that off the list. Next is the road gap, ha.  

How was spending part of the season filming with Meyer? That must have been a good time.
This winter I only ended up on one trip with Meyer, but it was two weeks of driving around middle America, which was pretty fun. Filming with Meyer is the best, though. He always has some crazy-ass story or some funny shit to say, so he’s a good person to have on a trip. Videograss was my favorite shit growing up, so being able to have filmed for a VG project, and also just filming with him in general, is like some childhood dream, ha.

What was Nebraska like? Coolest thing about Nebraska?
The one thing I noticed in Nebraska is that everyone’s car is fucked up in some way, haha. I don’t know why but it was something that I couldn’t stop noticing. To be honest, we just kicked it at our Airbnb every night, so I didn’t really experience much there, but I would go back. On the last day it snowed and people were getting insanely sketchy driving. We saw so many accidents/sketchy moves go down on our way to the airport. Also, we barely made it up the hill to get out of our neighborhood. We had to slowly zigzag our way up this hill while the tires were just spinning out on all the wet snow.

And now, of course, Ride just officially announced that you joining the team. What makes you stoked to be on the Ride crew?
I’ve wanted to get on Ride for a long time. They always are putting out cool content and the boards always look really good. Also they have one of the coolest teams in snowboarding right now, in my opinion, so being able to join them really means a lot. It would’ve been really sick to be on while my brother was still apart of the team, haha.

What’s your set-up that you have you been riding?
This winter I rode the Benchwarmer, Burnout, and Kink. I really like those the boards; they’re good for everything, whether it’s jumping or in the streets. For bindings, I ride the Ride A-6. And surprisingly, I’ve been riding the DC Travis Rice boot this winter, ha.

Looking ahead at winter, it’s still early, but do you have any plans? What are you hoping to get into this season?
I just wanna film as much as I can. It would be nice to get some more powder days in, too. But really the only thing I want to make happen is spend a good amount of time in Europe, ha. I’ve only been once, but it was a lot of fun and there are a bunch of places I’d like to check out. Street snowboarding there just seems way more fun and convenient, with less kick-outs and more unique-looking spots.