Steamboat Springs snowboarder Cody Winters sat on a bench in Howelsen Lodge earlier this week, reflecting on what Steamboat Springs and its Winter Sports Club means to him.

Winters became nostalgic while thinking of how many hours he spent at Howelsen as a young snowboarder and remembering all the different teammates and mentors he had throughout the years leading up to his current third season competing in the World Cup.

While only in town for about a week, Winters has taken time to train and give back to the club by acting as an abbreviated mentor for Steamboat’s next generation of snowboarders.

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“It’s good to come back and inspire these younger kids,” the 23-year-old said. “I had the same thing growing up with Justin Reiter, AJ Muss and Mike Trapp, who were all really good riders when I was young. Watching them train was such a big help to my riding. I learned more in the few days they would come back than I would for a lot of days of normal training.”

It was those early years of training in Steamboat that helped lead to the best start Winters has had in his World Cup career. Winters has competed in three World Cup events, taking 12th and fourth at boardercross events in France and Italy earlier this month and most recently taking fourth in a slalom race in Switzerland. 

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Prior to this season, Winters had never broken into the top 18 in a boardercross World Cup event, and he tied his best finish for a slalom World Cup on his first try this year. He credits much of his improvement to putting in a more serious effort in his workouts over the summer. 

Winters runs his own business, Winters Window Washing, and uses the money he makes to supplement his snowboarding career. In previous summers, he would work all day in the sun and workout afterward while having already drained the majority of his energy. 

This summer, Winters rose before the sun and got his workouts done first thing in the morning before washing windows each day at 8 a.m. The early mornings paid off for Winters, who said he is finally turning heads across both sports in his snowboarding circle.

Winters is the first snowboarder to compete in World Cup events across parallel and snowboard cross since 2009. He has always put up strong results in parallel over the past three years, but now that he has progressed in boardercross, he feels he is starting to get more recognition from his competitors. 

“One of my favorite things in snowboarding is earning respect from other snowboarders,” Winters said. “That to me is top tier and to be getting that is really nice.” 

As luxurious as the recognition may be, Winters might have the hardest and most jam-packed schedule of any snowboarder in the world. He has limited training time for either sport, and if he is not training or competing, he is likely traveling to his next World Cup event.

Because of his busy schedule, Winters’ most recent parallel World Cup was just his fourth day focusing on slalom this winter.

“My slalom riding is there and it is good,” Winters said. “I just needed to do a few turns to get used to my hard boots. I was anxious about my lack of hard boot training, but it turned out to be OK, which was good. Now going forward, I have more hard boot training days.” 

Some of those hard boot days will take place on Howelsen Hill this week. Winters said being home gives him the opportunity to recharge his battery and his soul. He said putting away his clothes in a dresser and not living out of his suitcase for the week is a weird feeling, and being able to choose from more than five shirts to wear has been great. 

Next week, Winters will return to Europe, beginning with training in Austria before traveling to Switzerland for a parallel World Cup event. By February, he will have traveled to six countries in less than a month for either training or competition. Winters is most excited to have his father, Dave, joining him briefly in Europe to watch him compete in a parallel World Cup event for the first time. 

Entering the season, Winters’ two main goals were to win a parallel World Cup and finish in the top 16 of a boardercross event. He has already accomplished the latter twice and has shifted his goals to placing in the World Cup’s top 16 overall for both slalom and boardercross by the end of the season. 

Winters said he is focused for the rest of the year on adding more versatility to his skill set. And while he is famous for taking a straight-line approach to his slalom runs, he is looking to improve on his outside-in lines moving forward. 

“The straight line doesn’t work so much as ruts develop,” Winters said. “As ruts develop, there is a curb after the stubby so when you ride a straight line, you fall off the curb. So I have been working on different techniques of more round lines and playing with new boards. You have to have a lot of tools in your bag, and I’ve been polishing off my old tricks.”