Snowboarding in JERSEY!

One wrong turn and a series of right ones.

Chris Cefalli was in the middle of that sequence, staring down a double black diamond and at the prospect of death.

If a double black diamond sounds more like a rattlesnake than an advanced alpine trail, you're not too far off.

Long, winding and suddenly dangerous, a trail on Vermont's Stratton Mountain had the 21-year-old snowboarder snaking between oncoming trees, narrowly avoiding the biggest splinter of his life by latching onto another.

``I thought I was going to die,'' the Mays Landing resident said.

Thanks to the tree hug, the only limbs Cefalli broke were branches.

Shedding much of its counter-culture stigma with its acceptance into the 1998 Olympics,shredding - as the kids call snowboarding - has since snowballed in popularity to now arguably dethrone skiing as the new national king of the hill.

Despite being flatter than road kill, South Jersey is home to a number of avid snowboarders and is within day-trip range of several mountain ranges.

Style for miles

It's hard to turn down a free ride, but as snowboard freeriding goes, Chris Sinclair, 22, would rather freestyle.

A snowboarder since age seven, when he started on the bunny slopes of Mountain Creek Ski Resort in Vernon, Sinclair knows double black diamonds here to Canada like the back of his mitten.

Still, the Voorhees resident, like one of the many surfer/skater crossovers, favors style over speed, opting to carve his credentials in both ice and air.

`I like to do a trick and get better at it,'' said Sinclair, a Rutgers-Camden junior. ``It's a thrill. Just the speed and the excitement is an adrenaline rush.''

While Mountain Creek's top top, Vernon Peak (1040 feet), is a mole hill compared to most mountains out west, the resort's park boasts the largest terrain park in the East at 60 acres, brimming with ramps, rails and pipes.

Here Sinclair tries to perfect a switch 540 - one and a half aerial rotations from his weaker stance - during the weekends between mid-December and mid-March, the peak months.

Unless competing, don't expect any of the freestylers to know the score, said Joel Green, owner of the Eastern Mountain Sports store in Marlton.

``When they're in the terrain parks with each other, it's really laid back,'' said Green, 27, at his Maple Shade business.

``Everybody is just taking turns, having fun, pushing each other to go harder and go bigger.''

Participation in snow boarding has gone bigger from 1996 to 2004,jumping from 3.1 million Americans to 6.6 million, according to National Sporting Goods Association, a recreation industry trade group.

Green said the sport owes much of its popularity to one man.

``Look at Shaun White,'' Green said of the 21-year-old Californian who won the men's half-pipe at the 2006 Olympics. “Kids look up to him.

``Just 10 years ago, snow boarding was perceived as that rebellious, that down-hill counterculture. It's mainstream now.''

Snow pain

Half a moment after separating himself from the tree, Cefalli knew he was lucky.

Sore, sure, but after seven years on the mountains, Cefalli knows the risks of snowboarding.

It's X-treme. It's X-citing. It’s also X-rays.

Cefalli broke his left wrist, sprained the other and, oh yeah, suffered a concussion; Sinclair was dealt a concussion, his first from snowboarding but his fifth overall (surfing: 2), after falling on a rail headfirst.

Rosemary Camezzi, a Stockton classmate of Cefalli's, never thought her Christmas present from two years ago would put her in a cast on her 21st birthday. And, no, it wasn't a Red Ryder BB gun.

``I was out all of last winter,'' the Cape May resident said about landing a six-foot jump on her left arm, breaking it. ``It happened on my 21st birthday. I got sympathy shots out of it.''

Once down, Camezzi, 22, knows the best pick-me-up is a ski lift, having purchased lift tickets from both Blue Mountain and Jack Frost Mountain this winter.

``I was kind of nervous, but once I was riding again I was pretty good,'' she said. ``I started with a couple little jumps again, and I was back riding. You can't let the fear hold you down.''

Rather than shy away from the sport, Cefalli tries to introduce the sport to new friends.

``I don't think there's a much better feeling than flying down a mountain with the beautiful view and wind blowing past your face,'' he said.

Snow fight

Andrew Katz would probably agree with the above statement if not for one issue - Cefalli is a snowboarder.

``As a skier I'm not allowed to do that,'' said Katz, 22, a sales specialist at REI, an outdoors shop in Marlton.

While he was kidding, the historic relationship between is icy.

Seen as a threat to their safety and their skiing tradition, 93 percent of American winter resorts prohibited snowboarding in 1985. But due to stagnant skiing attendance, pressure from snowboarders and recognition by the Olympics, more than 95 percent of resorts are welcoming the $275 million industry, according to NSGA.

With the announcement of Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico ending its snowboarding ban for March 19, only three U.S. holdouts remain, according to Taos' Web site.

``It's not like there's this turf war going on, people on battlefields raising up their boards and skis,'' said Green, who's involved in out door retail for more than a decade. ``But 10 years ago, it would've been closer to that case.''

Katz has seen the acceptance of snowboarding manifest itself at the Poconos.

"In the last four to five years, snowboarding has picked up dramatically," said Katz, who's skied on Bear Creek Mountain, Blue Mountain and Camelback Mountain for 14 years. ``You used to see maybe a snowboarder or two a day and now it's mostly snowboarders.''

A recent trip to Veil, Colo. showed a greater ratio of skiers to snow boarders than that of the East Coast, Katz said.

Having collided with them before, Katz wasn't missing the local crowd; after all, these snowboarders are no snow angels.

``There seems to be a lack of awareness which could be from their blind spot,'' said Katz, referring to their inability to see behind their side-stance. ``It could be that they just don't care in general.''

Sinclair sees it differently.

``[Skiers] take up a lot of mountain space. They go from side to side and are just a little slower,'' he said. ``You're faster and you never know what they're going to do.''

Whomever is getting in the way, freeride boarders sometime pave it, ruining the mogols that skiers bob on. Other times, Katz sees boarders packing ice together, creating hazardous ramps and not always intentionally.

``When there's a steep downhill, the snowboarders will just scrap down, stopping sideways down, and that just makes a big sheet of ice. And it makes me very upset,'' the Drexel senior chided. ``Ice is not good.''

Above: Joel Green, store owner of Eastern Mountain Sports in Marlton. Photo courtesy of the Courier-Post's Douglas M. Bovitt

Get airborne

And you thought the double black diamond was steep.

Buying the mininum snowboarding gear - board, binding, boots - can range from $500to more than $10,000 while resort rentals usually range from $25 to $50.

Although recommended, a helmet typically comes separately.

Lift tickets - from hour to day to night passes - are treated as admission and can cost $30 to $70. Prices for both tickets and rentals are cheapest weekday nights; weekend days are the most pricey - and crowded - time to shred.

Although you won't tap the Rockies in or around the Garden State, Katz said a good time can be had regardless of your sleigh of choice.

``Out there you're getting 3[,000]-4,000 vertical feet. Here you're getting 800,'' he said. “But don't get me wrong, skiing here you're still getting out there. And to me that's what it's really about - getting out there.

``I rather get out there here, then not get out there at all.''