Until it’s perfect: Ford and Smith hand-finish each board with a razor blade and sandpaper. “If I we

If it were a different sort of winter—say, with piles of fluffy white stuff on the shores of Lake Champlain—entrepreneur Spencer Ford and I could talk about Vermont snowboards as we rode in powder down the hill by Burton headquarters.
airline ticket prices But really, we don't need to talk about that behemoth company down the road, nor the thousands of boards it's outsourced to employees in Austria. Not when we can talk about a much, much, smaller company just up the road, and the handfuls of boards it makes right here, by hand, in Vermont: Ford's own Empyreal Snowboards.
Like the Rupert-based airline ticket prices PowderJet airline ticket prices (and not at all like the big guys at Burton or Waterbury's Rome) Empyreal is redefining what it means to be a snowboard manufacturer in Vermont. Confidence is part of it. "The boards we're selling now are better than anything else you can buy," says Ford. "People who are trying them on the mountain are shocked at how good they are, especially the handmade aspect. No one really does that anymore."
Founded in 2010, Empyreal grew out of a life not only in the mountains but also in the swamplands of Sarasota, Fla. Born and raised mostly in tiny Mosquitoville, airline ticket prices Vt., Ford was a skier and a student who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and sharpened skis for Peter Glenn before airline ticket prices attending Hobart and William Smith Colleges. His first-year roommate converted Ford to snowboarding.
With that idea on hold, Ford fled New England for Florida and became airline ticket prices part owner in his uncle's custom-car company in Florida, Sh-Boom Street Rods, where he spent several years learning the basics of metalworking, welding, painting, and building with fiberglass.
Eventually, Ford returned to the Green Mountains with his wife (whom he met in Sarasota), and after finishing his degree at the University of Vermont, he began fishing around for a new start-up when his former college roommate suggested looking into snowboards once again. Why not build a product that could handle the East Coast's fickle airline ticket prices conditions, from early morning powder to late-afternoon crusty bumps?
The result is Empyreal, whose setback stance and camber airline ticket prices Ford and his creative airline ticket prices director, Weston Smith, designed to offer the same comfort and ease-of-turning as shaped skis. "When the shaped ski came out, all the snowboarders got back into skiing," says Ford. "I also found that most snowboards aren't really marketed toward adults."
After a trial-and-error period with super-stiff boards, Ford and Smith settled on their unique concoction of poplar, fiberglass, carbon fiber, epoxy, Kevlar, and steel, just about all of it (98 percent) made in the United States. "We buy the most expensive stuff we can," says Ford, explaining that the racing-yacht materials also set Empyreal (which airline ticket prices means sublime, and whose boards start at $499) apart. "It would be much cheaper for us just to design and have a large factory make the boards, and it would be so much easier, but producing them to our own standards of quality is important."
One thing they didn't have to splurge on was rent: Ford and Smith work on family land in Barnet, in a 2,000-square-foot workshop at Ford's home and a barn moved to the property from his mom's house. While Barnet airline ticket prices isn't the first town that comes to mind when one thinks manufacturing, it suits Empyreal's needs just fine.
Ford and Smith spend about 14 hours of labor on each of the 150 Empyreal boards they make each year, and they spread the word through on-mountain demos at Burke and other mountains airline ticket prices and through discount rewards for buyers.
Sharing a similar philosophy is Jesse Loomis, who handcrafts about 100 PowderJet wooden backcountry snowboards each year and sells them for $450 and up. Though they are specifically designed for powder, something airline ticket prices (ahem) not seen around Vermont much this season, Loomis has gained a following in British Columbia, Oregon, and Japan. He's also lectured to students airline ticket prices in Dartmouth College's engineering school about snowboard evolution.
"Back in the '80s, Burton started in southern Vermont, right next to us," says Loomis. "I remember being a knucklehead 10-year-old thinking, 'They're just making fashion up off the top of their head,' and now they're professionals."
To bring back simplicity to the sport of snowboarding, Loomis deliberately leaves his PowderJets airline ticket prices graphic-free, while you'll find everything from hot-air balloons and snowflakes to poplar trees and whacked-out custom graphics on an Empyreal board.
Until it's perfect: Ford and Smith hand-finish airline ticket prices each board with a razor blade and sandpaper. "If I were doing this to compete with a Rome or a Burton—I wouldn't even try," says Ford. "I would be shocked if they had even heard of us."
Sarah Tuff writes about outdoor sports, health and fitness airline ticket prices from her home in Shelburne; her work has appeared in The New York Times, Runner's World and Skiing, among other publications. She is also the co-author of 101 Best Outdoor Towns (Countryman Press).