The Origin Of Snowboarding

Jeremy Jones is one of the best snowboarders. It's been a while since I first saw this video in which he was doing lazboard in the Kackar mountains. While I was snowboarding at Uludag just three days ago, I remembered the video and I did some research about Jeremy's trip to Turkey and his lazboard experience.

Jeremy and his teammate Gimpl went to the Kackar mountains in 2008 to find the origin of snowboarding. On contrary to what Americans or European think snowboarding was invented neither in the US nor in Europe, its origin was in an astonishing place in the Eastern region of Turkey and was invented out of necessity to go around the village in snow. As a Turkish snowboarder there are some questions that are bothering me like; if Jeremy Jones hadn't visited Turkey we wouldn't have known that Lazboard existed. Without digressing from the point let me present you Jeremy's journey to the origin with his own words;

(The words that are written bold are Jeremy's)

The Origin Of Snowboarding Discovered

It is so hard to explain what happen today so I will just stick to the facts. We drove for three hours up a valley that culminated with 12 switchbacks carved into the side of a 70-degree mountain face. At the top of the gnarliest road I have ever driven on sits a small village that is surrounded by fields of upon fields of perfect powder.
Like most of the towns in Turkey, it is older than my country, but that is not why it is special. It is the first place people started standing sideways on boards and gliding down hills over 150 years ago.



Turkish Snowboarder Selim, 62 years of riding still strong.

90% of the town rides, no one has ever skied there and the equipment and the style has stayed true to its origins. We met up with the oldest rider in the village, Celime.



He is seventy years old, and started riding in 1946. He has been riding almost daily for 62 years and it shows. Gimpl and I dropped in next to him he took of effortlessly, standing tall and proud as we did all we could to hold on.



Jeremy riding lazboard

The sport was started out of necessity to get around the village in deep snow. The boards are so perfect for the terrain and snow conditions that the equipment had hardly changed in 150 years.

We sessioned the local hill for awhile and then headed up to the mosque for some aprs tea around the fire. I couldnt get the questions out fast enough.



Are there any contest? Yes. Do you hit jumps? Yes? When was the first time you saw a modern snowboard? Three years ago. Do you have any desire to use new equipment? No.




What really overwhelmed me was how content they were. There seemed to be little desire to progress the equipment or their riding. They hit jumps but do not have specific tricks.




You never know what you will find when you travel. Once again, the bond of sharing a few powder turns breaks down language barriers and cultural differences. Big thanks to the locals for letting us into there lives for the day.


With this trip Jeremy demonstrated that he is not only a sick snowboarder but also is a person who conducts researches about the thing he loves to do. He is one of the greatest.

Here is the video;

O'neill Legends - Lazboard
Yükleyen intersportturkey. - En yeni ve en heyecanlı spor videolarını keşfedin.

Comments are appreciated, I'd like to know what my visitors think about lazboard and Jeremy's trip...