How snowboard mags survived the print-pocalypse

Not so very long ago – for the sake of argument, let’s say any time between 2005 and 2015 – one of the most enjoyable bits of an overseas snowboard trip was the ritual visit to the newsagents at the airport. Once you’d heaved your boardbag onto the outsize baggage conveyor belt, your next stop, inevitably, was the snowsports section at WH Smith’s. Here, you could take your pick from a whole cornucopia of thick, glossy snowboarding titles: Transworld Snowboarding, Snowboard, Snowboarder, Whitelines... it was less a case of “which one will I choose?” than “how many of these can I fit in my backpack before the zip breaks?”