Maddie Mastro knows her snow.
The 21-year-old snowboarder from Wrightwood, Calif., can expound on the differences between the flakes upstate at Mammoth Mountain (“it’s really heavy and wet”) and the powder in Colorado (“it’s typically dry and fluffy”), so she can tell instantly when the snow in a halfpipe is fake.
Mastro says artificial snow—like the stuff that will dominate the Beijing 2022 Olympics—is sticky and “doesn’t glide the way natural snow glides,” so it feels like you’re riding on sand or carpet. But like all the skiers and snowboarders who will compete in the 2022 Olympics, she has learned how to adjust to the icy imitations that will cover the courses, hills and halfpipe in greater Beijing. Mastro, who finished 12th in the halfpipe at the 2018 Games, likens man-made snow to fine-grit sandpaper. Because it lacks any natural moisture or crystals, she says, snowboarders use a harder wax made for colder temperatures to make sure their boards will “stand up to the snow” and “slide as fast as possible.”
