Alex Caccamo didn’t grow up around snowboarders. The 30-year-old Liberty High School alum picked up the sport almost by accident, and spent the next two decades building a career out of it — one he insisted on building from the East Coast.
“It’s not the most common sport in Bethlehem, that’s for sure,” he said, laughing. “I think my dad took me skiing a couple of times, and then I saw snowboarding while I was there, so I kind of was just begging to do it. That’s how I jumped into it.”
Caccamo was back on his home turf earlier this month, co-hosting a snowboarding pop-out at Palmerton’s Blue Mountain on April 4 alongside his best friend and roommate Zeb Powell, a North Carolina native and professional snowboarder who competes in the X Games.
Caccamo handles the music, the microphone and much of the logistics at the events, which he and Powell run together under the “Zeb and Cacc’s Pop Out” name.
Growing up, Caccamo played snowboarding video games like X Games and SSX Tricky. He first picked up a snowboard with his ski club at Nitschmann Middle School during a trip to Blue Mountain.
“Blue Mountain’s always been a familiar place for me,” he said, adding that he spent many winters in Palmerton. “I brought it back home.”
Now, Caccamo travels around the world for at least nine months a year, if not the whole year, alongside Powell.
Blue Mountain, though, is singular. He attributed that to both inaccessibility and the niche nature of snowboarding on the East Coast.
“I mean, some people did it, but I don’t remember there being a significant number of snowboarders when I was going to school,” he said. “It’s definitely niche, and it’s also not the most accessible, compared to skiing. People don’t look at it, like, oh, I can go snowboarding when it’s not snowing in Pennsylvania. They don’t realize there’s a place to go snowboarding unless they’re looking into it.”
He said that gave Pennsylvania snowboarding an edge, though.
“I always kind of felt like the little local mountains on the East Coast that aren’t so big and have some character to them, we’re the sickest,” he said. “I think a lot of people in the city don’t realize that snowboarding is around, so when they do kind of get out there, they bring a city swagger to the mountain, which is different.”
That interaction of East Coast attitudes at Blue Mountain, he said, produces a culture unlike those on the West Coast or in Europe, where snowboarding is more entrenched.
“You know, it’s like the Jersey kids, the New York City kids, the Philly kids, Bethlehem, Allentown, it all kind of clashes at Blue Mountain, which is crazy.”
He said that now everyone can feel included on the mountain, regardless of experience or affinity for the sport. He noted that snowboarding was a much more cutthroat and solitary experience growing up, but that now it’s a community event.
He often advises beginners to learn a trick called “hiking,” in which a rider, instead of taking the extensive trail lift, hikes a bit up the hill and then hits the same ramp or rail again.
“Any ability level can come hang out, and just listen to music, or chill on the side of the hill,” he said.
Caccamo didn’t move out of Bethlehem until about a year ago. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he said sunlight is more prevalent, the mountains are nicer, and day passes run $250.
“The snow is perfect, the weather is perfect,” he said. “There’s no mood, it’s kind of just, like, out there, perfect for you. But you also have to pay for that perfect experience.”
Growing up, Caccamo resisted doing what he calls “bitch out and move west.” He said he was given multiple opportunities to move and pursue a professional snowboarding career, but decided to stay home.
“I thought it was super important just to stay home and embrace the East Coast for what it is,” he said. “Because I liked the grit of it, I liked that it was a little bit harder; there was a swagger to it that I enjoyed. And I feel like, if I stay here longer, I’ll be able to put some light on the East Coast and the talent that’s already here, because everybody out West already gets that.”
He reflected on what brings him to the mountains.
“I grew up kind of troubled, you know,” he said. “There was substance abuse in my family; I was dealing with it myself for a bit.”
Caccamo has also shared his battle online with heart conditions he has dealt with since childhood. He said that, growing up, snowboarding was the only place he felt truly comfortable.
“It was kind of like the getaway. All you had to do was focus on getting down the hill, you know,” he said. “Or landing the trick. You didn’t really have the chance to think about anything else but surviving, especially when you start trying harder tricks.”
He said the process of becoming a better snowboarder became part of his life.
“When you land that harder trick, there’s a sense of joy that you really can’t describe,” he said. “I kind of made it a point that, if I was going to keep living this life, I was a hundred percent going to be doing something with snowboarding, because that’s the only place where I really felt like myself.”
You could hear the smile over the phone. Alongside the “dude” and “to be real,” he’s been able to turn a childhood playing X Games and SSX Tricky into a career out of battling the elements.
Caccamo balances his own schedule with managing Powell’s, which he said quickly becomes complex. Powell, who won gold in Knuckle Huck at the 2020 Winter X Games and whose TikTok account has more than half a million followers, has built partnerships with companies like Red Bull, Burton Snowboards and Recess Ride Shop. In April 2025, Powell became the first snowboarder to sign with Jordan Brand.
“I help him with his schedule and how to manage life being a professional athlete at the level he’s at,” Caccamo said. “And with that comes going to Europe to do something in Europe, or we would go to Colorado to do something with Marshawn Lynch, and then we would get a call to do an event in Boston.”
He said he enjoys seeing how much the sport has grown and connecting with fellow Lehigh Valley people.
“There’s always a super welcoming community, in every sense,” he said. “A lot of times I’ll meet people that are from Allentown or Bethlehem, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ Dude, almost every trip there’s somebody who’s like, ‘Oh, I’m from here.’ And I’m like, ‘What? What are you even doing out here?’”
One of Caccamo and Powell’s partnerships, with the American audio equipment manufacturer JBL, led to Caccamo bringing speakers to the mountains. Then, his friend Colby asked him if he would be interested in commentating.
“I was like, ‘yeah, that sounds sick. So I can just commentate snowboarding and get paid to do it?” Caccamo said.
Growing up, Caccamo’s dad was an announcer for the Bethlehem Steelers, a youth football organization. Caccamo said the rise of DJing encouraged him to start emceeing at all of his events.
“We started buying DJ equipment and plugging it into the JBLs and bringing it uphill, and that’s how all that fell into place, you know,” he said. “It all kind of happened organically, in a way.”
He thinks he and Powell have contributed to bringing a new perspective to snowboarding globally.
“Zeb changing the whole idea of color and ethnicities and different cultures being welcomed on the mountain is such a big thing,” he said. “You know, it’s such a big deal to us, but I feel like we definitely spearheaded that change in culture and in snowboarding.”
Caccamo said he and Powell work to make their pop-outs free or as cheap as possible.
“That’s like a big thing for us, they’re typically free or super cheap to come to,” he said.
They also make sure that everyone who comes out walks back down the mountain with a shirt, a Bluetooth speaker, sunglasses — “whatever we have,” he said.
“We give out prizes to everybody, it doesn’t matter who you are, you don’t have to do a trick,” he said. “You just high-five your friend and you’ll go home with something cool. Honestly, we just take whatever we have from partners or sponsors, and we just put it in a box. Some of it will be Jordan product, just whatever we have and give it out to the kids.”
With the Blue Mountain season now wrapped, Caccamo said he already plans to be back next winter.
“Oh yeah, we’re going to come back next year for sure,” he said. “And we’re going to do the same event, same time of year, and make it bigger and better.”
He hopes Lehigh Valley residents can find a snowboard, despite its inaccessibility.
“You know what I like to tell people, it’s like buying three pairs of shoes,” he said. “If you just save up, and don’t buy those three pairs of shoes, or whatever those nice items are, and you go buy yourself a board, like you’re good to go. It’s accessible if you want it to be.”
