Surfing on powder

Snowboarding is a winter sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow while standing on a board attached to a rider's feet, using a special boot set onto a mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the United States in the 1960s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998. In 2002 competitive snowboarders formed the World Snowboard Tour.

Freeriding is a discipline of snowboarding with no set course, goals or rules to abide by. It is also referred to as "backcountry", "all-mountain" or "extreme" snowboarding. Freeriding merges aspects of other snowboarding disciplines such as freestyle and alpine snowboarding into a style that adapts to the variations of natural terrain and eschews man-made jumps, rails and half-pipes, or groomed snow.

Due to their use of back-country routes, freeriders are (proportionally) much more likely to become a victim of avalanches. One estimate considers that about 80% of all avalanche deaths in the Alps occur among the freerider/backcountry ski tour group.