Tom Burt and Damian Sanders at Mt. Rose Nevada before mainstream ski area acceptance, 1987
Tom Burt and Damian Sanders were two of the original founding fathers of snowboarding. While Damian’s freestyle flare and movie debuts drove mainstream acceptance and explosive growth, Tom (and Jim and Bonnie Zellars) fathered the backcountry movement in early media. Damian was FLF Films early poster boy and starred in their earliest snowboard movies which further fueled snowboarding’s popularity into the early nineties. Together, the four were sponsored by Chris and Bev Sanders/Avalanche Snowboards of South Lake Tahoe.
Damian Sanders at the first Squaw Valley Halfpipe (Lake Tahoe, 1989)
Tom Burt at the first Squaw Valley Halfpipe (Lake Tahoe, 1989)