Ever wanted to go snowboarding in North Korea? I haven’t, but apparently Snowboarder Mag is going, and you can go with them, through an 8-day tour package offered by Uritours.

Yes, it is legitimate*, and this sounds like a pretty decent tour with 3 days at North Korea’s Masik Pass resort where you’ll get to do some snowboarding presumably with the Snowboarder Mag crew, Terje, Danimals, and Mike Rav.

This is your chance to be riding the slopes with 3 professional snowboarders in Masik Pass, North Korea: Terje Håkonsen, Dan “Danimals” Liedahl and “Mike Rav” Ravelson. Yes, ya heard it! Tear it up with your favorite riders, get some tips, see some stunts, and mix it up with locals all against the backdrop of North Korea, an adventure in itself. Not only will we be delivering to you a chance of a lifetime to meet a few of the best snowboarders who have ever lived, we’ll be transporting you in style from Pyongyang straight to Masik Pass in an MI-17 chopper. Seats in the chopper are limited, which means we have to cap the trip at 15 people – so book early! Deadline to register: December 21, 2015 This tour is brought to you by Uri Tours and our friends at Snowboarder magazine. Not only will you be accompanied by the pro riders, you’ll also be traveling with Andrea Lee, CEO and Founder of Uri Tours and Tom “T Bird” Monterosso, Editor of Snowboarder magazine.

Putting it in perspective for $4,000 I could’ve bought an Epic Pass, 5 round trip tickets to Denver plus car rentals and slopeside lodging. Sure, I probably wouldn’t get to ride with Terje, Danimals, and Mike Rav, but I bet if you hang out in Park Lane long enough you can photobomb some other pros and still claim that you “rode with them” on your vacation.

Would You Go Snowboarding In North Korea?

I love to travel as much as the next guy, probably more. And there’s definitely a part of me that would be interested in seeing North Korea from a historical and cultural perspective, which this tour will take care of. Can’t say I’d feel particularly safe in a castaway Soviet-era MI-17 helicopter, and I’d also be a little worried about being “disappeared” for political reasons but I could rationalize my odds of dying or disappearing as “probably pretty low, anyways”.

Politically, though the subversive in me says “Hell no”. I mean, yeah they’ve really upped the ante by putting you on a tour with Snowboarder Mag and a few big names in the industry and assuming money is no object it would definitely be a one-of-a-kind trip that you’d remember forever. But ultimately the majority of the money you spend on that trip is funneling back to the coffers of an abusive regime, and the press that comes out of it becomes essentially a sort of propaganda that’s used to support or provide a more positive image of that regime, internationally, and I’d rather not play any part in that.

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I’m curious how they got Terje to sign up for that, just considering how vocal he has been about corruption and problems with the IOC, a man who rejected the Olympics on political grounds. You’d think he would prefer to stay very far away from a country like North Korea, which is corrupt beyond belief and not just in the sense of “We’re letting skiers control snowboarding” but more like “We’re systematically oppressing and brutalizing millions of people on the regs, so that a handful of Nomenklatura and Party Elite can live in opulence”. Snowboarder Magazine’s own Pat Bridges has even previously referred to those “archaic institutions of oppression in places like North Korea…”

North Korea is a nation which exhibits all of the worst forms of oppression, from collective punishment (punishing children, spouses, parents, etc. for the “crimes” of a family member), a rigid internal passport system which denies freedom of movement to almost all citizens, no religious freedom nor freedom of speech/expression, draconian censorship, chronic food shortages, and the list goes on. This is simply not a place that Westerners should be embracing in any form or fashion.

All you really need to do is see this stark contrast between North and South Korea, from satellite, to understand how fucked it is there:

Is This Even Legitimate?

It sounds too good to be true, and I’ll admit I was pretty skeptical at first but this tour has been promoted directly by Snowboarder Magazine:

SNOWBOARDER Magazine is going to North Korea. Yes, you heard that correctly. Mike Ravelson, Danimals and Terje Haakonsen… Posted by Snowboarder Magazine on Tuesday, December 8, 2015

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