History of Snowboarding

The first modern snowboard was arguably the Snurfer (a portmanteau of snow and surfer), originally designed for his children by Sherman Poppen in 1965 in Muskegon, Michigan. Poppen’s Snurfer started to be manufactured as a toy the following year. It was essentially a skateboard without wheels, steered by a hand-held rope.

During the 1970s and 1980s as snowboarding became more popular, true pioneers such as Dimitrije Milovich, Jake Burton (founder of Burton Snowboards from Londonderry, Vermont), Tom Sims (founder of Sims Snowboards) and Mike Olson (GNU Snowboards) came up with new designs for boards and machineries that had slowly developed into the snowboards and other related equipment that we know today.

Dimitrije Milovich, an east coast surfer, had the idea of sliding on cafeteria trays. From this he started developing his snowboard designs. In 1972, he started a company called the Winterstick; by 1975, The Winterstick was mentioned in Newsweek magazine. The Winterstick was based on the design and feel of a surfboard, but worked the same way as skis.

The growing popularity of snowboarding is reflected by recognition of snowboarding as an official sport: in 1985, the first World Cup was held in Zürs, Austria. Due to the need for universal contest regulations, the ISA (International Snowboard Association) was founded in 1994. Today, high-profile snowboarding events like the Olympics, Winter X-Games, the US Open, and other events are broadcast to a worldwide audience. Many alpine resorts are now setting up terrain parks. It is also notable that the sport has had a significant impact on such countries that are largely without snow, such as Australia and Afghanistan.

Although many skiers and skateboarders took up the sport, the vast majority of ski areas didn’t. Many of the early snowboards were extremely difficult to control and they were generally banned. Only 7% of U. S. ski areas allowed snowboarding in 1985 and the story was much the same in Europe . As equipment and skill levels improved, though, snowboarding gradually became more acceptable. Most of the major ski areas had separate slopes for snowboarders by 1990. Now, about 97% of all ski areas in North America and Europe allow snowboarding and more than half of them have ramps and pipes.

Today, more than 3.5 million people have taken up snowboarding. That is around 20% of all visitors to US ski resorts.