Local Stratton Mountain protege Mr. Forest Bailey threw down a sick couple of runs at the Winter X Games in Aspen, CO this week. And wouldn’t you know it, he took home the gold — not bad for an X Games Rookie.

“I definitely can’t believe it,” he told ESPN after Thursday’s final.

Bailey lead after Round 1, making it into the five-man final with Ryan Paul, Nick Visconti, Ethan Deiss, and Phil Jacques. His 270 to frontside on the cargo container was a highlight of the competition, and his win was doubly impressive because — in true snowboarder fashion — he missed practice on Wednesday and showed up on course just one hour before Thursday’s elimination round.

“I never thought I’d even come to X Games in my whole life, but I guess we’re here and I guess gold will do,” said Bailey.

Smooth, Forest. Take a look at the highlights from Snowboard Street and plan on catching Forest back at his home mountain for the US Open in March, unless he forgets to put it in his planner.

Jake Burton at Stratton, late 70s.

Someday soon, we’ll be telling our grand children about the days when snowboarders were banned from Vermont’s ski slopes. It’ll be our version of the classic “When I was your age, I hiked 20 miles to school, in the snow, uphill!” adage that old timers like to toss around.

“When I was your age, I had to hike up the mountain to snowboard. There was no high speed gondola like that fancy thing they got at Stowe!”

Before resorts allowed snowboards on the lift, anything with an incline had to do. Jake Burton, pictured here at the Stratton Dump in the late 1970s, was known to hike whatever he could find to get turns, especially during the development of the Burton Backhill. Often referred to as the BB1, the board pictured was Burton’s first and manufactured in Londonderry, VT. This photo is one of the earliest Burton shots on record.

Each Thursday we present a photo from the annals of snowboarding history in Vermont.