A snowboarding Starr
A 720 isn’t always as simple as it seems.
Starry mid 360 at the 2021 Mount Baker Brain Bowl Session // photo by Makani Falkin
Written by Makani Falkin
Finally, it was Dec. 30, 2021, Starry’s first day of the season snowboarding.
26-year-old Jordon Starry spent Dec. 15 in Alabama where his girlfriend’s family lives, watching opening-day clips on Instagram. Any die-hard skier or snowboarder knows how hard it is to miss opening day at your home mountain and watch everyone’s epic clips from the day. He wished he could go to Mt. Baker the next day to start trying the new tricks he wanted to land this season.
Driving up Mt. Baker Highway, Starry couldn’t wait to feel the snow under his board.
“I did 10 backflips and didn’t fall on any of them, it was so good, and I landed a backflip 180,” Starry said. He was so stoked after; he didn’t know how to explain it.
His quiver of boards consisted of Lib Tech, Never Summer, and Sims snowboards. Along with a new 686 outfit picked out for the season.
Starting his snowboarding life at Mt. Baker when he was 16, Starry to this day has only snowboarded at Mt. Baker Ski Area.
Before starting his snowboarding life, he lived in Kihei, on Maui Island in Hawaii. He moved there when he was two, surfed for 10 years, and moved back to Washington at 15. Now, Starry lives in Burlington, Washington and drives an hour and 30 minutes to Mt. Baker. He goes at least once, if not multiple, times a week.
As a snowboarder he has gained quite the reputation at Mt. Baker over the last two years. Known for hucking huge 720s, (two 360-degree turnarounds in one), and bringing a rowdy trick to the table on a questionable feature.
Conditions were all over the place this season. Some of the midwinter pow days started with everyone in line for chairs four, five and six at 8 a.m., just for the fresh snow and their hats to be greeted with rain before the chairs open at 9 a.m.
According to MtBaker.us’ snowfall statistics, Mt. Baker has averaged 657 inches of snow in the last 10 seasons.
Regardless of conditions, nobody has a level of drive like Starry does. Even after slamming five times in a row trying a trick, he’ll just get up and ride away smiling, feeling positive about it and ready to go up the chairlift to try it again.
When you ask Starry if he’s okay after falling he usually responds with, “yeah, just gotta shake it off and keep going,” or “yeah that was nothing,” after slamming hard.
Hucking backflips off any jump with enough lip and being steezy in the powder, Starry has become an animal at Mt. Baker Ski Area.
“People recognize me sometimes on the slopes and it blows my mind that they know who I am,” Starry said.
This recognition probably stems from his Instagram presence.
Starry picked up some sponsors last year, including Hidden Wave Boardshop based in Burlington, and The Pot Factory based in Bellingham. But he wants more, he wants to be a professional snowboarder.
37-year-old Cody Cavanagh is the owner of Hidden Wave Boardshop. Cavanagh is in the shop six to seven days a week with his wife, Amanda.
“Jordon has a passion for snowboarding that reminds me of myself when I was his age. I think he’s living all our dreams,” said Cavanagh in 2020, “We are stoked to fuel his passion.”
In January of 2022, Starry was presented the opportunity to help collect media content for Casual Industrees; a Pacific Northwest clothing brand based in Seattle.
After modeling some hoodies and stickers for Casual, he was picked up as a sponsored rider for the Casual snowboard team. Casual managed to secure One MFG as a snowboard wax sponsor of their riders, providing Starry with a ton of wax, stickers and more.
Starry realized it was time to ride harder than ever. He went up every day that he could, usually riding until the resort closed at 3 or 4 p.m.
He started landing even bigger tricks, backflip 180-degree turnarounds, backflips off cliffs and bigger 360-degree turnarounds with grabs than ever before.
“For the tricks, it’s repetition. The more you do it the better you get at stomping it,” Starry said. “I still have a long way to go, but I love the process.”
Starry said it felt great to have picked up some bigger sponsors and probably could have secured a board sponsor this season, that is… until Feb. 5 happened.
Going towards a jump he hits regularly, he launched off the lip, landed the 720 and then fell riding away on the groomed run. As he fell forward, he landed on his arm. He smashed his shoulder into the ground, breaking his collarbone.
The injured snowboarder drove himself home in absolute pain to find out he was going to be out of the snowboarding scene for a month.
“Initially, it was the guilt of not being able to keep progressing and the financial setback,” Starry said. “I was so bummed, it felt like my season was over.”
He didn’t let a broken collarbone stop him.
“One month after, I was riding with a sling,” Starry said. “After two months I was riding hard.”
Starting off, he didn’t throw very many tricks; he was focusing on getting his confidence and his riding abilities back while keeping his arm tucked near his body.
Every now and then Starry says he’s scared to try a backflip or a new trick on a jump he isn’t super comfortable with. He opts out of hitting features that are massive if he isn’t confident he can land them. Before the injury Starry would try any trick off of any feature.
Starry is still hucking backflips and huge 360-degree turnarounds but now he is a lot more conservative when it comes to tricks that he isn’t a hundred percent comfortable with yet. He’s still scared to land on his arm and re-injure himself.
To this day, Starry is still going to the mountain to shred as much as he can. He is still determined to go fully-pro. Logging over 50 days at Mt. Baker before the chair lifts stopped running this season, Starry now hikes to get some shredding in.
Starry mid backflip at Mount Baker Brain Bowl Session 2022 // photo by Mike Stockman
He is only now getting a sense of the dedication and difficulty of going pro.
32-year-old Matt Wainhouse is a professional snowboarder who graduated from Western Washington University in 2013 and knows the difficulty of being a pro.
Wainhouse currently rides for 686, CAPiTA, Union Binding Co., Stevens Pass Snowboard Shop and 20 Corners Brewery. Wainhouse said he’s been riding for some of these brands for almost 10 years now.
“In my situation, I don’t get paid enough from snowboarding to put money in the bank. Therefore, I have an off-season job to help get me through the winter,” he said.
Injury, dedication and money aren’t the only challenges Starry’s facing when considering a future in snowboarding. The well-being of the coming winters depends on the outcomes of climate change and changes made by humanity.
According to an article from ClimateCentral.org,“It has made winters hotter on average, shrinking the numbers of days per year with below-freezing temperatures.”
Mt. Baker has yet to have a season with a total snowfall over 1000 inches since the winter of 1998–1999. That winter it snowed 1,140 inches, which is equivalent to 95 feet, setting a record for the most snowfall in one season.
Protect Our Winters, or “POW,” is an organization working to save the future of many outdoor activities, including snowboarding. 32 POW ambassadors met with republican and democratic congress members in 2020.
“I feel like the future of snowboarding will depend on people taking action to replenish the planet,” Starry said. “We need to do something, it’s never too late.”
Despite the challenges Starry faced this season, he still managed to end the season off with a bang. He threw down at the fifth Brain Bowl Session at Mt. Baker, an event hosted by Tre Squad and led by Max Warbington, a pro snowboarder from Airblaster.