{"id":2451426,"date":"2019-11-21T23:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-locals-react-to-death-of-snowboarding-icon-jake-burton\/"},"modified":"2019-11-21T23:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T06:04:00","slug":"aspens-davenport-bleiler-react-to-death-of-snowboarding-icon-jake-carpenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspens-davenport-bleiler-react-to-death-of-snowboarding-icon-jake-carpenter\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen\u2019s Davenport, Bleiler react to death of snowboarding icon Jake Carpenter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Jake Burton, left, poses with snowboarder Kelly Clark following her final run through the Buttermilk superpipe at X Games Aspen 2019. Burton, one of the snowboarding industry’s most iconic names, died Wednesday.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Jake Burton Carpenter shaped snowboarding into what it is today, and, says Aspen skiing icon Chris Davenport, he saved the ski industry by showing it what it could become.<\/p>\n

One of the most influential people in the snowsports world, Carpenter died Wednesday night due to complications from his ongoing bout with testicular cancer. He was 65.<\/p>\n

\u201cJake\u2019s whole vision was to create products to allow people to set themselves free in the mountains,\u201d Davenport said Thursday. \u201cIn the late \u201980s and more in the early \u201990s, skiing itself needed a serious kick in the ass. The sport was stale. I won\u2019t say dead, but we owe Jake Carpenter a gigantic debt of gratitude for jumpstarting the ski industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carpenter, the man behind Burton Snowboards, was the guiding light for the ski and snowboard industry during that time. If anyone can be credited for making the sports fun and hip and bringing up the next generation, it was Carpenter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout snowboarding history there has been a common thread, and one of them is Burton,\u201d Aspen snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler said. \u201cJake was a luminary in a sport and an industry where the spirit of it has always been innovative. And for him to innovate within that sport itself, it just shows a lot about who he was as a human being. It\u2019s definitely a great loss for snowboarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bleiler, a four-time X Games Aspen gold medalist in the halfpipe and 2006 Olympic silver medalist, was never a Burton rider, but had a front-row seat throughout most of her career to the Burton brand.<\/p>\n

Davenport\u2019s connection to the Carpenter family runs deep. His wife, Jesse, grew up as neighbors to Jake and his wife, Donna, in Stowe, Vermont.<\/p>\n

The Davenports knew the family well, and attended their annual fall party in Vermont more often than not. Despite being a professional skier, Chris Davenport\u2019s admiration for the Carpenters and what they built matches that of any snowboarder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that really resonates with me about Jake is he stayed so true to the passion of riding the mountains,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cRegardless of skiing or snowboarding, he loved being out there and he loved creating products that made people happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carpenter founded Burton Snowboards in 1977. While Sherman Poppen is credited with inventing the snowboard \u2014 he made the \u201cSnurfer\u201d in the 1960s \u2014 it was Carpenter who is largely credited with taking the sport forward.<\/p>\n

Only a few days ago, Miah Wheeler stumbled across a relatively unspoiled \u201980s-era Burton Performer Elite snowboard in a Carbondale store. The longtime snowboard program director for the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club, Wheeler, whose go-to board is a modern Burton, had to scoop it up.<\/p>\n

Now AVSC\u2019s development director, Wheeler was born in 1976 and fondly remembers Carpenter\u2019s constant push to make snowboarding into the sport it is today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a snowboarder through and through,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cSnowboarding and skateboarding certainly have that anarchic feel to it. When FIS was pushing to get snowboarding into the Olympics, it felt like they were asking us to change our identity and who we really were. He really pushed back against that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carpenter also made the push to get snowboarding into the ski resorts. Even Aspen Mountain once scoffed at the idea of allowing snowboarders on its chairlifts, with Aspen Highlands being among the first to open its runs to both, prior to being acquired by Aspen Skiing Co.<\/p>\n

Without Carpenter and his passion, snowboarding \u2014 and possibly skiing \u2014 may not have survived into this century.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made his money and he made his impact with a snowboard company, but his legacy is so much greater than that. He propelled the ski industry,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the real icons who is a total legend. He basically built a sport from scratch. How do you get any bigger than that?\u201d<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Burton, left, poses with snowboarder Kelly Clark following her final run through the Buttermilk superpipe at X Games Aspen 2019. Burton, one of the snowboarding industry’s most iconic names, died Wednesday.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times Jake Burton Carpenter shaped snowboarding into what it is today, and, says Aspen skiing icon Chris Davenport, he saved the […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 05:16:56","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}