A pioneer in the rise of competitive snowboarding dies

Snowboard industry pioneer Paul Alden died on April 9, 2026, at age 89. Here he is at Vail Resort in a pair of one of the first step-in snowboard bindings ever invented, by his son Rick Alden, also the founder of action-sport headphone brand Skullcandy and co-founder of snowboard apparel brand Stance. | Alden family photo A Utah man who worked behind the scenes to bring snowboarding into the mainstream in North America has died at the age of 89.

In the mid-1980s when ski resorts denied snowboarders access to their slopes, Paul Alden worked the phones, navigated institutional resistance and helped build the organizational infrastructure that allowed the sport to grow into what it is today. His efforts were rarely noticed. Born in New York City in 1936, Alden came to snowboarding through his son, David, a Burton Snowboards team member through the 1980s.

Jake Burton Carpenter is one of the inventors of modern snowboards and built Burton into a global brand. Alden bought Snurfers, the predecessor of snowboards, for his family for Christmas in 1968, marking the start of a path that would lead him and his family to lifetime involvement with the snowboard industry. Alden worked at Burton from 1984 to 1990, and during that time he helped resolve the insurance issue that kept snowboarding out of major ski resorts.

Working with Jake Burton and others, he made the case for snowboarding directly with insurance industry representatives. After those companies revised their policies to cover the sport, ski areas across the country gained the legal footing they needed to open their lifts to snowboarders. The number of resorts allowing snowboarding grew from 40 in the 1984-85 season to 476 by 1990.