Atchison, Kansas. Home to Amelia Earhart, haunted hayrides and...snowboarding?
Despite Kansas’ notoriously flat terrain, Clint Ross and Justin Manion are avid snowboarders.
“It’s just something that I love,” Ross said. “It is kind of odd that we go to the flattest state in the US.”
Ross and Manion defy the level land by working at Snow Creek.
“It doesn’t really compare to a mountain, but its snow,” Ross said.
They also utilize their school breaks to seek out better challenges. They have traveled across the US and Canada, and would like to travel to Alaska in the future.
Some of these adventures were chronicled in a Discovery Day project last year, entitled “Discovering Freedom.”
Ross said the title came from the sensation he feels while snowboarding.
“When I’m on a snowboard, I don’t think about anything else,” Ross said. “It’s just me, the mountain, and the snow. It’s all peace, freedom, and adrenaline.”
Of course, that adrenaline rush comes with injuries.
Ross has had a major concussion with amnesia, two sprained wrists (at the same time), a partial tear in his left knee, in addition to his permanently bruised shins.
Manion has sprained a knee and deeply bruised his shins. 
However, his latest injury trumps them all.
“I broke my back in February,” Manion said. “I went up a quarter pipe and landed on my back.”
Manion fractured his transverse processes, the protrusion located on either side of each vertebrae.
His doctor advised him to wait six to eight weeks before getting back on his board.
However, Manion plans to resume boarding after five.
“It’ll take a bit to get back to how I was before the accident,” Manion said. “It’s definitely worth the injuries.”
Despite their long list of injuries, Ross said both he and Manion learn from their mistakes.
“As we get injured, we buy more protective gear,” Ross said.
Both Ross and Manion say that short of paralysis or “really hurting” themselves, they cannot think of a reason they would stop snowboarding.
“Other than being paralyzed, I don’t know what else could stop me,” Ross said.
