History of Snowboarding

The advertisement that sold a million Snurfers.

A 23-year-old student named Jake Burton Carpenter, completely obsessed with trying to improve his Snurfer, added footstraps and fins for more stability. His constant tinkering led to a flexible wood planked board. Learn more at Burton's flagship website

Snowboarding was not allowed on the public runs of most ski resorts, so the first snowboarders were forced to hike up at night when the areas were closed, trying to avoid detection, or were relegated to the backcountry.

The period of the early 1980s saw the development and spread of snowboarding competitions. At first, the competitions were races like skiing, but soon evolved into freestyle events, emulating skateboarding tricks. The Snurfer slowly declined as the more modern designs of Burton and Sims became more popular.

Snowboarding becomes the fastest growing winter sport on the planet with more than 6 million people. This reality crashes the doors open at most ski resorts as the sport becomes the focus of most young people learning an alpine sport. More than 80% of the kids participating in alpine sports choose snowboarding. This trend continues past 2000, before ski industry innovation begins to slow the tide with shaped skis, twin-tip skis, fat skis, and reverse camber skis.