History of snowboarding
Ah, snowboarding. Your true love, right? But do you know how this stoke-raising pastime started? Well, let’s swat up on the history of snowboarding — class is officially in session!
Snowboarding is the backbone of snowsports culture – the other side of the skiing coin. A counter-culture as fierce as skating was. But can you imagine a time when it didn’t exist – when the humble snowboard was just a dream, then a prototype, and then a sport initially banned in most ski resorts? Wild, right?
Luckily, we’re here to provide you with the ultimate history lesson – from snowboarding’s humble beginnings to its rapid-fire growth. Then, there’s only one thing left to do: look at the absolute part. So, drop in to our stylish collection, designed for you to make your own history.
Snowboard inventors and pioneers
Subculture and snowboarding in the 1980s and ‘90s
Snowboarding in the 2000s
The Winter Olympic Games
The sport today
Snowboard inventors and pioneers
Snowboarding is said to have originated in the US – although some people argue over who the actual ‘inventor’ is. Regardless, a few names always pop up when speaking about the sport’s beginnings. So, let’s see who’s who…
Sherman Poppen
Let’s rewind to the early 1960s. Sherman Poppen, a surfer and engineer, was about to make history. By tying two skis together for his daughters and attaching a rope to the end for steering, Sherm created the Snurfer – the snowboard’s founding father, if you will.
The Snurfer went into commercial production through the Brunswick Corporation, selling for $15 a unit. But did it work? We’ll let the numbers do the talking: over half a million Snurfers had sold by the end of the ‘70s. Not bad, right? Poppen also organized the National Snurfing Championship in Muskegon, Michigan, in 1968.
Dimitrije Milovich
The evolution of a new invention is pretty much inevitable. And the same was true of the classic Snurfer. In the 1970s, Dimitrije Milovich, an East Coast surfer, began playing around with length and materials.
The result? A board with laminated fiberglass, steel edges, and nylon straps. This led to the creation of Winterstick, arguably the world’s first-ever snowboard company. And it’s still going strong today.
Jake Burton Carpenter
In the late ‘70s, a 23-year-old became obsessed with improving the Snurfer. So, he added foot straps, enhanced board flexibility, and set up his own company out of his Vermont barn in 1977.
This 23-year-old was none other than Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of the legendary Burton Snowboards. Needless to say, once Burton had perfected his design, the brand catapulted into the stratosphere, becoming one of the biggest names in snowboarding.
Tom Sims
In California, just as Burton was fiddling around with his designs, another Snurfing addict also started experimenting. This fellow entrepreneur was Tom Sims, a former skateboard pro and future snowboard champ (he would go on to win the World Snowboarding Championships in 1983).
Sims flexed his skills and founded SIMS in 1976. Like Burton, SIMS snowboards soared to shred stardom.
Mike Olson and Pete Saari
In 1977, Mike Olson and Pete Saari founded GNU Snowboards, with each order hand-built in the US. However, they broke the mold in the 1980s by creating the first-ever women-specific snowboards. They then worked with shred icon Barrett Christy to produce one of the first women’s pro models – the industry’s longest-running design.
Jamie Anderson – one of the world’s most decorated female snowboarders – and many other female riders stomped with GNU boards. In fact, with a GNU, many outperformed their male counterparts in competition. Coincidence? We don’t think so!
Subculture and snowboarding in the 1980s and ‘90s
Initially, snowboarding was treated as inferior and an ‘underdog’ to life on two planks, with most US ski resorts even banning it altogether. Many snowboarders had to get their hit once the ski areas closed, hiking up at night to avoid Ski Patrol detection. This ‘outlaw’ perception fuelled snowboarding’s rebellious nature and saw boarders adopt their own style, attitude, and slang. Snowboarding also drew inspo from other subcultures, such as grunge, hip hop, surfing, and skating. It’s fair to say that baggy outerwear was everywhere!
Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, snowboarding competitions became more popular. Initially, these comps involved racing (much like skiing) and led to the formation of the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF) in 1990. These comps evolved into freestyle events inspired by the skateboarding scene at that time. Ya know, thanks to Tony Hawk and the like!
These decades saw another jump in snowboarding’s evolution – this time around tech and materials. Yep, Jeff Grell made ‘hibaks’ in the early ‘80s, which he then developed with Flite to launch the planet’s first highback bindings. All the elements we know and love today soon followed, such as plate bindings, rounded tails, and hard boots. Oh, and how can we forget pow boards, freestyle whips, twin tips, carving boards, and more? The snowboarding buffet was set up for a feast!
Snowboarding in the 2000s
Snowboarding exploded, becoming the fastest-growing winter sport in the world. In the early 2000s through to the 2010s, over 8 million people per year were snowboarding in North America alone. And, pre-2005, over 80% of little ones chose to learn to snowboard over ski. Fair to say, ski resorts became more accepting, with most North American and European destinations finally allowing boarders to rip the slopes alongside skiers.
But what about going beyond resort borders? Well, in the early ‘90s, Brett ‘Kowboy’ Kobernik created a prototype of the very first splitboard. Then, in the early 2000s, Voile launched the splitboard slider track system. Okay, it was a way off what we use today. However, this functional system suddenly made accessing backcountry lines and wild terrain easier. Other legends also helped shape snowboarding’s freeriding landscape. Jeremy Jones, Xavier de Le Rue, Elena Hight, and others became synonymous with big mountain riding and going beyond boundaries (both literally and figuratively).
Freestyle also took off, becoming the most popular snowboarding style in the 2010s. That’s all thanks to riders such as Shaun White and Halldór Helgason stomping history-making-firsts and defying limits. Corks suddenly made it big, going from doubles to triples and quads (yo, Billy Morgan and Torstein Horgmo!). Plus, comps such as the X Games, the Laax Open, and the Natural Selection Tour showed the world just how far tricks and creativity could go – talk about inspirational!
The Winter Olympic Games
In 1998, snowboarding made its Olympic debut in Nagano, Japan, with halfpipe and giant slalom events. Boardercross became an official Winter Olympic event in Turin in 2006. And snowboarding made its debut at the Winter Paralympics in Sochi in 2014. The world paid attention.
But it was at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver where snowboarding really took center stage. In the US, the halfpipe event was broadcast as a primetime event, with snowboarding legend Shaun White landing the world’s first-ever Double McTwist 1260 and Torah Bright taking home the women’s gold medal.
The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics had a whopping ten snowboarding events, including the newly approved Slopestyle discipline. From there, things have only snowballed (pun fully intended). We’ve seen the introduction of Big Air and even more insane displays of epicness from the likes of Shaun White, Chloe Kim, Kelly Clark, Mark McMorris, Anna Gasser, Ayumu Hirano, Max Parrot, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, and loads more.
The sport today
Okay, snowboarding might have hit the mainstream, however, we don’t think it’ll ever lose its rebellious, radical roots. Just ask Deer Valley, Alta, and Mad River Glen – North America’s only ski resorts to still adhere to the ‘no snowboarders allowed’ rule.
Today, snowboarding shows no signs of slowing down. The once subculture now encompasses a broader, more inclusive, and diverse group of riders spanning across the globe. Brands and organizations also continue to innovate – take a look at strap-in-free bindings like step-on-style systems.
Snowboarding continues to embrace creativity, individuality, and freedom – just as it did over 60 years ago. And the next generation of riders are happily carrying this torch. In fact, in North America, 33.4% of all snowboarders are under the age of 18. Don’t forget to watch out for the likes of Bea Kim, Mia Brookes, Jake Canter, Bri Schnorrbusch, Severin van der Meer, and more. These newcomers are on fire and prepped to dominate the scene.
Wrapping up
Yew! Snowboarding showed up and fully made its mark, turning the snowsports scene on its head. Today, it’s hard to imagine the mountains without boards ‘n’ boarders, right?
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