Jake Burton at Stratton, late 70s.

Someday soon, we’ll be telling our grand children about the days when snowboarders were banned from Vermont’s ski slopes. It’ll be our version of the classic “When I was your age, I hiked 20 miles to school, in the snow, uphill!” adage that old timers like to toss around.

“When I was your age, I had to hike up the mountain to snowboard. There was no high speed gondola like that fancy thing they got at Stowe!”

Before resorts allowed snowboards on the lift, anything with an incline had to do. Jake Burton, pictured here at the Stratton Dump in the late 1970s, was known to hike whatever he could find to get turns, especially during the development of the Burton Backhill. Often referred to as the BB1, the board pictured was Burton’s first and manufactured in Londonderry, VT. This photo is one of the earliest Burton shots on record.

Each Thursday we present a photo from the annals of snowboarding history in Vermont.