Burton Offers $20,000 for Poaching Ski-Only Resorts

Written on December 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am by Bill
Filed Under: Ski News

On the heals of Taos Ski Valley lifting their snowboarding ban, Jake Burton and Burton snowboards are hoping to ride the momentum and bring snowboarding to ALL ski resorts.

Since Taos gave in, there are now three resorts that do not allow snowboarding: Deer Valley and Alta in Utah, and Mad River Glen in Vermont. All three of these ski resorts pride themselves on their skiing-only culture and appear unwilling to change. Many skiers choose these resorts based on the fact that they can have a ski vacation without snowboarders.

According to Mad River Glen’s website, "To preserve the area’s unique character the shareholders of the Mad River Glen Cooperative chose not to allow snowboards."

Jake Burton believes this is discrimination and Burton Snowboards is offering up $20,000 to bring more awareness to the issue:

There are four [now three] resorts in North America that still don’t allow snowboarding. In the face of this blatant disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, poaching isn’t simply a peaceful form of protest; it’s truly your patriotic duty. It’s time we take a stand and let these elitists know that it’s not acceptable to discriminate. Power to the poachers!

To fuel the movement, we’re throwing down a $5,000 cash purse per resort video to the person or crew that submits the most creative documentation of their poach experience. Hit all four spots and you could claim $20,000. Deadline for entries is March 1, 2008. Videos should not exceed five minutes and must be in .flv format.

Certainly this is a noble effort by Burton and a pretty sweet contest by Burton but we doubt it’s going to bring any change to the snowboarding stance taken by Deer Valley, Alta and Mad River Glen.

Which ski resort do you think will be the next to cave in and allow snowboarders?