{"id":801627,"date":"2019-11-21T20:01:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T03:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=374814"},"modified":"2019-11-21T20:01:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T03:01:08","slug":"jake-well-catch-you-on-the-next-lap-woodward-copper-red-gerard-honor-late-jake-burton-carpenter-with-memorial-lap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/jake-well-catch-you-on-the-next-lap-woodward-copper-red-gerard-honor-late-jake-burton-carpenter-with-memorial-lap\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jake, we\u2019ll catch you on the next lap\u2019: Woodward Copper, Red Gerard honor late Jake Burton Carpenter with memorial lap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Woodward Copper Senior Manager Adam Kisiel shares some thoughts about Jake Burton Carpenter’s impact on the snowboarding community and sport while a group of riders, including Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard (far right), listen in. The group took a #rideonjake memorial lap off the top of the American Flyer lift in honor of Carpenter on Thursday, Nov. 21, at Copper Mountain Resort. Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards, died Wednesday night in Burlington, Vermont.<\/strong>
Curtis DeVore \/ Copper Mountain Resort<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

COPPER MOUNTAIN \u2014 Snowboarders woke up to stunning, sad news Thursday, when word spread on social media that Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards, died Wednesday night in Burlington, Vermont, at age 65.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the grim news, Woodward Copper organized a memorial lap at Copper Mountain Resort on Thursday afternoon to honor Carpenter, more commonly known as Jake Burton. Carpenter was a man recognized by many as The Godfather of Snowboarding.<\/p>\n

A collection of snowboarders \u2014 and some skiers \u2014 gathered at the top of the American Flyer lift, where Woodward Copper senior manager Adam Kisiel shared some thoughts about Carpenter\u2019s legacy on the sport. Carpenter was the man, the pioneer, who brought snowboarding to the masses and who played a force in taking the activity from the fringes to a billion-dollar business and a sport at the heart of the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an interview in 2000, I believe, he said, \u2018I live this. I love this,\u2019\u201d Kisiel said as the memorial-lap group, including Colorado pro snowboarders Red Gerard and Nik Baden, listened.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018This sport has made my life. This sport is my life,\u2019\u201d Kisiel said, continuing Carpenter\u2019s quote. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s important, because that\u2019s something each and every one of us finds some sort of connection to. And there\u2019s a lot of us who may not even be snowboarding without Jake Burton.<\/p>\n

\u201cJake, we\u2019ll catch you on the next lap,\u201d Kisiel said before pointing the nose of his Burton Danny Davis-model Deep Thinker board down the hill<\/p>\n

Leading the lap were Steamboat Springs native Baden and Gerard, an Ohio native who honed his elite skills as a preteen and teen after moving to Summit County with his family. Gerard practiced in the Woodward Copper barn on the Burton Park Board, learning the air awareness and skills that led him to Olympic superstardom with his slopestyle gold medal win in 2018 and his Burton U.S. Open championship in Vail a year later.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Gerard shared on his Instagram a photo of him with Carpenter during the 2018 Olympics, wearing the U.S. Olympic Snowboard Team gear, which was, of course, designed and supplied by Burton. To go with the photo, Gerard kept his thoughts short and simple with merely a heart emoji.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnow\u2019s falling for you today, Jake,\u201d Gerard later wrote in another Instagram post, using the hashtag \u201c#rideonjake.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LIVE: Woodward Copper Senior Manager Adam Kisiel provides some opening remarks before leading a group lap off the top of the American Flyer lift, with Burton pro rider Red Gerard and Nik Baden, at Copper Mountain Resort in honor of the late Jake Burton Carpenter, founder of Burton Snowboards\u2026<\/p>\n

Posted by Summit Daily News<\/a> on Thursday, November 21, 2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Associated Press reported Thursday<\/a> that Carpenter died Wednesday night of complications stemming from a relapse of testicular cancer.<\/p>\n

Before founding his namesake company, Carpenter quit his job in 1977 in New York with a goal to advance the rudimentary snowboard, then called a Snurfer, which had been invented by Sherman Poppen a dozen years earlier. More than four decades later, snowboards are as common as skis at resorts across the globe, namely Colorado. <\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Burton co-CEO John Lacy put Burton\u2019s near-half-century legacy into perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage everyone to do what Jake would be doing tomorrow, and that\u2019s riding,\u201d Lacy wrote in an email to Burton staff that was shared with The Associated Press. \u201cIt\u2019s opening day at Stowe, so consider taking some turns together in celebration of Jake.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just what Gerard and Baden did Thursday, leading the Woodward Copper group down the hill.<\/p>\n

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Jake Burton Carpenter, owner of Burton Snowboards, shows an early model, right, and one of the then-newest snowboards, left, in his office in Burlington, Vermont, in March 2002. Carpenter died Wednesday night at age 65. <\/strong>
Alden Pellett \/ AP File<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSomebody like Jake Burton has changed a lot of lives, including the pros who just showed up here like Red Gerard,\u201d Kisiel said. \u201cHe\u2019s been somebody that\u2019s been pivotal in bringing in more people and supporting them in a career in snowboarding. With the outpouring that happened this morning as soon as the news hit that he passed away, I think there\u2019s just a lot of posts out there that said, \u2018I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be doing what I\u2019m doing without Jake Burton.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking back to some of his favorite Burton boards, Kisiel remembers riding Burton\u2019s Ross Powers pro models back in the day. He had a Burton Code when he first moved out to Colorado. And then Kisiel frothed as a teenager over the Burton Custom boards he\u2019d see in catalogues, just like so many other young snowboarders, including Gerard and Baden.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of those guys are kids who grew up in snowboarding and made careers of it,\u201d Kisiel said. \u201cAnd a lot of that wouldn\u2019t be possible without Jake Burton.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Woodward Copper Senior Manager Adam Kisiel carves a sweeping turn at Copper Mountain Resort during the Woodward Copper #rideonjake memorial lap Thursday, Nov. 21, in honor of the late founder of Burton Snowboards, Jake Burton Carpenter, who died in Burlington, Vermont, Wednesday night.<\/strong>
Curtis DeVore \/ Copper Mountain Resort<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Down at the base of the Flyer lift, Devin Bishop of Arvada remembers doing a school project about Carpenter in the fourth grade. To a guy like Bishop, Burton Snowboards introduced a skateboarder like him to a bigger and better board-sport world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always liked skateboarding, but it\u2019s like skateboarding in nature instead of these dirty, urban places,\u201d Bishop said about snowboarding.<\/p>\n

Former Summit resident Maximillan Crouch described Carpenter\u2019s legacy as cultivating the ethos, the essence of the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowboarding is all about the love,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cHe spread, he made that possible for all of us to share in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowboarding creates bonding,\u201d added Crouch\u2019s friend Kirsten Lima of Blue River, who was riding a Burton Deep Thinker on Thursday. \u201cAnd America needs bonding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporting from The Associated Press was used in this story<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woodward Copper Senior Manager Adam Kisiel shares some thoughts about Jake Burton Carpenter’s impact on the snowboarding community and sport while a group of riders, including Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard (far right), listen in. The group took a #rideonjake memorial lap off the top of the American Flyer lift in honor of Carpenter on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 21:49:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}