Dustin Craven

The Kootenay King weighs in on snowboarding’s maturation, building and competing at NST, his golf game and heli-ing versus sledding.

T. Bird: How are you, my man?

Dustin Craven: Yeah, good. Just been golfing a lot.

Tell me more about your golfing game.

It’s atrocious.

You seem to me like a long driver.

No, I quit using my driver three weeks ago.

What’s the reason behind that?

I can’t make it work. I stopped using it and my golf game went down eight strokes. My strong suit is putting, honestly. I love it.

Have you ever participated in a foursome?

Yeah, I’m going to one here in an hour.

Oh, good luck with that.

Thanks.

I’m going to start off with two questions. You’re in rarefied air, because these are questions from none other than Jeff Pensiero. Are you ready?

Yep.

OK. Question one: “If you could go on one trip to one place you haven’t been, with three people, who would it be and where would you go? You’re not allowed to say Baldface or Valhalla, because I know you want to.”

Snowboard trip? My God, I’ve been to so many places. I feel like I would like to go to Russia, because I feel like they have good snow and they are big fans of drinking, so it’d be fun. They’d probably like to party. Then I would take my best friend, Charles White, my other good friend, Mineki Yamada, and my other friend, James Combs, aka Dozer.

Next question from Pensiero: “How has Revelstoke changed in the past five years, and do you miss the old town or do you like the new town?”

It’s changing. Right now, there’s construction absolutely everywhere on every block. Either mansions are going up or people are doing million-dollar renos, so that’s pretty crazy. I like it because a lot of my friends that were here own construction companies, and carpenters were almost struggling when I first arrived. Now most of them have multiple employees and are set up to be titans in this town eventually. So from a friend standpoint, us getting older, I like to see my friends succeed. Obviously, anywhere getting busier sucks. But we’re still not quite in total Suck Town.

If you could only heli or only snowmobile from now on, which would you choose and why?

I would snowmobile, because when you heli, you have to have a guide, and sometimes guides like to tell you what to do, and I don’t like to be told what to do.

That’s a great answer. What was your mentality this year coming into the Natural Selection Tour? I’ll preface it by saying I feel like you were a little more relaxed.

I mean, I was still super stressed, but I just think there was so much going on. I was more worried about how the course was going to ride and a little bit worried about how I was going to ride. So just getting out there, I think I was a little bit exhausted, a little bit at ease at the same time. So that worked, but maybe not in my favor, because I fell.

Well, for the audience reading this that may not know, you were one of the builders on the course this year out in Montana Bowl. Did you feel like you had a little bit of a home-field advantage having helped construct the course and hosting it in your backyard? 

I definitely had an advantage. I had been out there in the winter and walked around, but I never snowboarded down the face. I didn’t really want to ruin that experience for myself, because the stress and everything of the contest day and being able to hit stuff for the first time, you only get to live that once, so I wanted to live it with all my competitors. But yeah, definitely a leg up, because obviously you can’t get on course [in advance], so I know distances between features and I know every single line through every single feature. But at the end of the day, I only got to ride two runs. So then afterwards, when you’re sitting there having beers and you’re watching people charge the runs, you’re like, “Whoa, that’s sick.” It’s super exciting.

If you didn’t live in Revelstoke, where would you live?

Indonesia. I’d live in Indonesia.

Have you ever golfed in Indonesia?

I did last year, and it was hot as hell. I would never golf there again.

Do you feel like snowboarding is in a place where the audience and the industry are coming around to accept the more veteran riders? I mean that in the sense that for the longest time, from my standpoint, it was always looking to who’s next, who’s younger, who’s better, who can push the sport. Do you think we’re maturing a little bit in a way?

Yeah, I think maybe. I also think the veteran athletes want to keep going, so they’ll take a pay cut and they’ll do it for less. If you can have someone that you know is going to produce that’ll do it for the same price as the kid that’s got to figure it out, until they retire, what’s the point?

Yeah, that’s a really good point. That is true.

I think what I feel like now is some of the younger kids that are coming into the backcountry are starting to realize the meaning of a veteran. Whereas I think that disappeared for a while, and how much easier it is to have us older guys and girls around that can take you out in the backcountry and show you some things and utilize terrain and all that kind of stuff, use our knowledge. So I think the scene lately, it feels like there’s a vibe where I’m like, “Oh, some of the kids think I’m kind of cool.”

Give me a dream sponsor that’s not a snowboard brand. Doesn’t matter what it is, but it cannot be a snowboard or outdoor-industry brand.

I feel like United Airlines.

Oh, shit. That’s a good one. I think I asked someone recently—I don’t remember who it was—but they said Home Depot.

Yeah, that’s not bad, but having access to a free hardware store, it’s like you’re just fucking yourself with projects for the rest of your life.

That’s true. Whereas the free airline, you’re just finding excuses to go on dope vacations.

Yeah, you’re running away from your problems. You’re not trying to solve them.

Lastly, what does the summer look like for you to kind of wind down from a hectic, crazy winter?

I have golfed about 40 rounds in the last two months, so I’m just doing that, and then I’m going back to work for 12 weeks up on the Montana Bowl course, and so I just bought myself a $3,000 chainsaw and I’m ready to go.

What brand?

I got a Stihl 500i. It’s the most power-to-weight production saw available.

Do they have electric-button starts or is it still all rip cord?

It’s rip cord, but this one’s fuel injected, so it’s first pull every time.

I’ve heard that you don’t fuck with any machine unless it’s first pull every time. Sleds, chainsaws, whatever it is.

Exactly.