Being in the position I am, I am very fortunate to be surrounded by people who have a wealth of knowledge on all things snowboarding. This, combined with pretty much living on the internet, has helped me learn a great deal myself. I am also very fortunate to work where I work (heads up, shameless plug coming), not only because Salty Peaks is the premier specialty board shop in Utah, but it is the Utah Skate and Snowboard Museum. The ceilings and walls are literally lined with our history and our roots, and it definitely has helped me appreciate where snowboarding came from and how it got to where it is today.
What I’m getting at is that the most important thing I’ve learned in my still-little time in the snowboard industry, is in fact its roots. I believe it is absolutely critical that we know and respect where we’ve come from, and too many people today don’t know how it all began or who was involved. Maybe it’ll help us all understand where we’re going, but at the very least, it’s good to have an appreciation for the founders of this lifestyle. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. Plus, everything was new and exciting in the early days. Style was being defined and literally every trick was being invented. Even if it was already a skateboard trick, it was new to snow.
While it would be pretty difficult to lay out our full history in this one blog post, as well as require way to much reading for this day and age, I thought I’d share with you my favorite video series on snowboarding’s history. Vice‘s Powder and Rails has been out for a few years now, but it is still a great look at the past, with interviews and old footage of the biggest legends and pioneers of the sport. I’ve selected my favorite episodes to share with you, but there’s quite a few more on Vice.com/Powder-and-Rails. Take a look at this short introduction to the series, then follow the jumps to get a crash course in the history of snowboarding. Cheers.
