Snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton still rides more than 100
days a year on mountains around the world. Photo by Matthew
Haggart.
Jake Burton's influence on the sport of snowboarding
is unrivalled. A pioneer of the sport who helped found a global
industry, he visited Wanaka last weekend for the New Zealand
Open and spoke to Matthew Haggart.
Jake Burton Carpenter had a burning desire to emulate the
achievements of professional athletes when he was growing up.
The one-time wannabe skier lucked out before he even got the
chance to try for his college ski team at Boulder, Colorado,
when he managed to break his collarbone three times before
winter.
"Sport always appealed to me as a kid. I just wanted to live
it. I was so envious of people who became professional
athletes."
The fledgling entrepreneur turned his attention to the
"snurfer" - a sled toy, similar in size to a skateboard
without edges or bindings, which he used to ride as a
teenager on snow-covered hills and golf courses.
"I knew there was a sport there and that is what gave me the
incentive to go for it. The snurfer was so much fun and
something we used on the sledding hills around town.
"We started to go hiking further up in the hills and looking
for powder and I looked to grow it from there."
He took a job out of college training thoroughbred racehorses
in Vermont, and started working out of a barn making various
snowboard prototypes, which he and his buddies would ride in
the powder-coated back hills.
Burton has always acknowledged he didn't invent snowboarding,
but no-one has done more than he to establish and popularise
the sport.
Instead of becoming a professional sportsman, he has helped
create an industry which in turn provides a professional
livelihood for the many riders from around the world who are
invited to join the Burton stable.
"I'm super-happy I managed to find a sport that I could base
my life around, and [am] really lucky things worked out that
way," he says.
The company that bears his name is the largest in the
lucrative snowboarding industry and also drives the six-stop
world tour known as the Burton Global Open Series.
Last week, he visited Wanaka for the first leg of the series,
the New Zealand Open, at Snow Park.
The occasion doubled as his first day of riding in an
international season which includes events around the world
and lasts more than 100 days.
"Yeah, today was my first day. I start counting in the [US]
summer . . . I think I did 117 last year, and 125 the year
before," he said.
The 54-year-old travels regularly with his family, usually
chasing the winter, but as surfing is his other love, he also
gets his fair share of summer action.
Three years ago, Burton handed over the day-to-day running of
his multimillion-dollar company and went on an extended
international holiday with his wife, Donna, and their three
sons.
They spent six weeks based in Christchurch, visiting South
Island mountain resorts, riding the back-country powder, and
also surfing the coastal breaks.
He returns regularly to New Zealand to test new products in
the northern hemisphere off-season and check out the local
snowboarding market.
He is also involved with marketing the Burton brand,
including presenting prizes to the half-pipe winners at last
Saturday's Open, and intends to visit the Stash - a newly
opened terrain riding park at the Remarkables.
"I've got the best job in the world and I wouldn't change it
for anything," he says in a deep East Coast drawl.
The advances in snowboarding have left Burton unsure where
the sport will go.
He had "no idea" the sport would even reach the heights it
has, such as when it achieved Winter Olympic status in 2002.
"It's so rewarding to see what riders can do now. They are so
capable that it is hard to project where it will go next.
"I remember when two 540 [degree] spins in a row in the pipe
was a huge deal and now they are doing back-to-back 1080s as
a minimum.
"Hopefully style will continue to play a big role and it just
won't be about the gymnastics and number of rotations."
"Riding in the back-country is different. It's fun to scare
yourself and overcome it. I'm a big fan of that and pushing
yourself to progress.
"Overcoming fear is part of the whole experience of the
sport."
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