Snowblading: The Key To Freestyle

As park skiing progresses, riders are always looking to advance their ability. New technologies have allowed skiers to push the sport to places that we have never seen it gone before; 1440’s, triple corks, 450’s in and out of rails, the list goes on. As we look forward to the next trick, we always wonder, who is doing it right? Who is following the next trend to take them to the top? The answer: Skiboarding. Allowing for maximum spinning, amazing control, and all out mayhem on the hill; skiboarding has created a niche market for only the best. The fastest, the highest, and the most agile can all thank skiboarding for their superhuman like abilities on and, arguably, off the slopes. But skiboarding isn’t new, in fact it’s an age old past time which dates back to the 1940’s.

Snowbladers Today:

A Brief History Of Snowblading

Though this glorious sport has only been commercialized within the last few decades, it is arguable that snowblading(or skiboarding) holds a great part of  the skiing and mountaineering heritage. First used in the 1940’s skiboards, known then as Firn Gliders, were used as mountaineers to traverse the glaciers mountaineers would trek across in the summer months. It wasn’t until the early 1990’s that skiings best kept secret hit the shelves big time. Australian ski company Kneissel began mass producing BigFoot skiboards with the classic toes on the tip of the skiboards. Throughout the decade, skiboarding exploded into the ski scene, pro-models started flying off the shelf and it was even featured in the X-Games! Sadly, in the early 2000’s the skiboard community fell apart. The World Skiboard Federation and the United Skiboard Series called it quits and little shredders had to look elsewhere for inspiration. Luckily for skiboard devotees, skiboarding was not gone for long and in the late 2000’s the W.S.A. began to organize events again. Though this was nothing like before, skiboarding was back and buisness and is now one of the coolest things to do on the hill other than maximizing the gap between your goggles and hat, or wearing ‘pizza’ing down the hill as fast as possible.

Fun Snowblade Facts:

• “Snowblading” is actually called Skiboarding. The term ‘snowblade’ was trademarked by Salomon.

• Skiboards are short skis typically 75-110cm in length.

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