Snowboarding has grown up over the years

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that "before anyone ever heard of highbacks or halfpipes, when only the most dedicated ski racers understood what it meant to carve a turn, Colorado's first generation of snowboarders slowly was shaping its niche in history.

It was an uphill battle, quite literally, as those early riders were relegated to a lone lift at Berthoud Pass or a half-day's drive from Denver to Wolf Creek, more often choosing to take their chances on the avalanche chutes of Loveland Pass with the hopes of hitching a ride back up to the summit between powder runs. They hiked the hills in search of deep snow, strapped Sorel boots to slabs of laminated ply-
wood and surfed the earth in a fashion most skiers couldn't fathom.
"All we had were fins on our boards," recalls Kevin Delaney of Boulder, who began snowboarding in 1980. "No metal edges or highbacks or any of that. We didn't quite have the equipment yet for the conditions at someplace like Breck."

That all changed in 1984 when Rick Sramek, then a Breckenridge Ski Patrol director, got a call over the radio about a renegade snowboarder riding on his mountain." Complete Story.