This year, the rider list was insane. Terje, Temple, Josh Dirksen, Travis Rice, Bryan Fox, Austin Smith, Curtis, the industry crew from Bend, the locals from Glacier, half of Portland, some Europeans including Elias Elhardt, some Aussies, Jake Blauvelt, Hana Beaman, Spencer O’Brien, Leanne Pelosi and many more. It was such an amazing group of people; they were all here to race, but also to celebrate everything that’s good with snowboarding.

And there is a lot of great with snowboarding right now. All you have to do is look at what people are riding to see that. Twelve years ago, snowboards were all pretty much the same: directional twin or true twin shapes with classic camber profiles, and not changing much from year to year other than the graphics. There were a couple of exceptions, of course, but that was the norm.

Since then snowboarding has exploded in terms of new innovations for riding, and that in turn has led to such a new interest in terrain, conditions and product. If you had looked down any lift line this weekend you would seen a fish, a square-looking powder shape from a brand you’d never heard of, a swallowtail, crazy wide noses and tiny tails – and all of them were being used for racing, jumping and everything in between.

The other thing that this event, and also a couple other videos over the last few years have made me realise, is that maybe now snowboarding has grown up and finally embraced its heroes and idols.A decade ago, it felt like you hit 30 and that was it, but now you see what Terje still does for Burton, what Barret Christy does for Mervin, what Gigi Rüf and Bryan Iguchi knock out every year… They’re all helping to shape the brands, and the culture. It feels like we are finally learning from the skateboarding in that regard.

“This weekend felt similar to how a Catholic must feel when they visit the Vatican”

Snowboarding needs events like this. It needs resorts like this too, and it needs those kids in their early 20s who want to live and breathe snowboarding to work on these events, and spread the gospel. Thats how snowboarding grows.

The thing no-one in events seems to have grasped is that kids nowadays who switch on X Games will never think to themselves, “oh yeah, I want to go do a cab quad cork 1800” – but they can think about turning their snowboard like Terje or Nils. You’ve got be able to relate to what you’re seeing, at least on some level.

It’s like football. I watch it religiously, and scream at the TV that I could do better – because when I have a kick about, it isn’t that far removed from what the professionals are doing. Meanwhile, no shred kid on a weekend warrior program is amping to be the next Max Parrot unless he has a coach, regular trampoline training sessions, and the backing of a national team.

Do we need to take a step backwards to go forward with snowboarding? Probably. Ed Leigh has written about it before, but for snowboarding to do what surfing is doing and become something tangible and appealing again, it needs to organise a coherent tour, with a combination of pipe, Big Air, slopestyle, banked slaloms, backcountry and street – something that lets you really see what the diversity of our sport is all about.

Think about the film Glue by Christian Haller, or Side Hit Euphoria by Arthur Longo and Oliver Gittler, or The Eternal Beauty Of Snowboarding, and you will see what I mean. There is less spinning and less flipping, but it’s a lot more fun and relatable for the average person like me.

And it’s that side of snowboarding that the Legendary Banked Slalom does so well. This weekend honestly felt similar to how a Catholic must feel when they visit the Vatican; reinvigorating a love for something bigger that yourself, and a belief that there is a belonging to which we are all drawn towards.

God, I love snowboarding.