Poaching originally refers to the act of illegally snowboarding

Snowboarding

Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set onto mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the U.S.A...

 at a resort where snowboard

Snowboard

Snowboards are boards, usually with a width the length of one's foot, with the ability to glide on snow. Snowboards are differentiated from monoskis by the stance of the user...

s are explicitly prohibited. Poaching is intended as a form of protest against what snowboarders view as segregation and can be seen as a form of civil disobedience

Civil disobedience

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...

.

Very few resorts continue to bar snowboarders. Because, by definition, poaching is the practice of snowboarding where it is disallowed, usage of this term as a mean of protest is falling out of use as most resorts now allow snowboarding. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poaching is only possible at three resorts: Deer Valley

Deer Valley

Deer Valley is an alpine ski resort in the Wasatch Range, located east of Salt Lake City, in Park City, Utah, United States. The resort, known for its upscale amenities, is consistently ranked among the top ski resorts in North America...

, Alta Ski Resort (Both in Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

) and Mad River Glen

Mad River Glen

Mad River Glen is a ski area in Fayston, Vermont. Its terrain has been ranked by SKI magazine as the most challenging on the east coast of the United States. Located within the Green Mountain range, it sits in the Mad River Valley, close to the larger Sugarbush Resort...

 in Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

. In contemporary usage, the term sometimes refers to skiing and snowboarding in out of bound areas.

Background

Even though snowboarding was accepted by the mainstream winter sports industry in the 1990s, and is now recognized as a Winter Olympic sport (debuting in 1998), ski areas adopted the sport at a much slower pace than the winter sports public. For many years, there was animosity between skiers and snowboarders, which lead to an ongoing skier vs snowboarder feud. Early snowboards were banned from the slopes by park officials. In 1985, only seven percent of U.S. ski areas allowed snowboarding, with a similar proportion in Europe. Because of this, snowboarders sought ways to protest of such treatment from resorts owners and to a lesser degree, other skiers. Indeed, the snowboarding way of life came about to rebel against skiing. As a result, snowboarders chose to "shock" skiers by snowboarding in a ski-only resort as protest.

Sabotage Stupidity

Sabotage Stupidity was an illegal contest in 2007 created by Burton Snowboards to encourage the average snowboarder to go out and poach then four remaining resorts (the three resorts stated above, plus Taos Ski Valley

Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

Taos Ski Valley is a village and alpine ski resort in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. Located 2200 feet above the town of Taos, the alpine environment of Taos Ski Valley offers a cool escape from the desert heat in the summer and perfect conditions for powder skiing in the winter. The...

) that do not allow snowboarders. The founder of the company, Jake Burton Carpenter

Jake Burton Carpenter

Jake Burton Carpenter , also known as Jake Burton, is an American snowboarder and founder of Burton Snowboards. He grew up in Cedarhurst, New York.- Biography :...

 has a strong view on poaching: "In the face of this blatant and aggressive disregard for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, poaching isn’t simply a peaceful form of protest, it is truly your patriotic duty" despite the fact that all of the mountain resorts are privately-owned entities with no legal obligation to serve snowboarders.

However, it can also be argued that the actions of these companies are actually not a disregard for the Constitution, as the its purpose is, specifically, only for the restriction of government in the following way: by listing "freedoms", the Constitution is saying that the government is not allowed to prevent people from doing particular things. In this case, then, the Constitution would actually protect the right of a private company to decide who they would like to sell their service to (i.e. skiers but not snowboarders). The government has the right to restrict such a right from a company if it is on public land (uncommon among ski resorts); however the government does not enact such inhibiting legislature.

Taos made the announcement of lifting the ban soon the competition was announced.

10 Commandments

Burton Snowboards has established The Ten Commandments for Poaching. These commandments made it clear that this illegal form of protest is non-violent and requested that except the act of snowboarding itself, all other regulations are to be followed (Commandments 1 "don't break the law.", 2 - "Always buy a lift ticket." and 3 - "keep it safe, stay inbounds, and always wear safety equipment") and respect the authorities (e.g. ski patrols) (Commandment 6 - "Always respect Ski Patrol; even if they tackle you."). The Commandments has parallels in the theories of civil disobedience.