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Snowboarding, as we know it today, evolved from a winter sport called “Snurfing”. The snurfer, invented by Muskegon native Sherman Poppen, was a single board with a rope attached to the nose. The riders stood up with no bindings, and held on to the rope as they careened down the hill. It combined snow and surfing, thus the “snurfer”.
Snurfing was all the rage in the 1970’s. At the World Championships of Snurfing, held here at Pando Park in 1979, a young man from Vermont named Jake Burton Carpenter brought his invention and tried to enter the race. There were many protests from the competitors about Jake entering a non-snurfer designed board. The flexible wooden plank, with water ski bindings and no rope just didn’t look like a snurfer. The top snurfer at the time Paul Graves, and others, stood up for Jake’s right to race. A “Modified” division was created, which only Jake entered. He won.
That race was the birth of what has now become competitive snowboarding around the world. Pando, the first ski resort to welcome snurfers and snowboarders to the hills with no restrictions, is proud to have played a pivotal role in the development of the competitive side of one of the largest winter sports in the world today.
Pando Park welcomes you to the birthplace of competitive snowboarding.