First person to slide a rail on skis?

Crehm

Crehm

Member
search barred found nothing, i have been curious about this for a while, and i was wondering if any of the older members on here knows anything about who was first.

old pics/vids are appreciated
 
i was. not really though.

I think skogen sprang got the first cover shot while hitting a rail, it was on an issue of Freeze. October 2000.
 
I believe it was the Ancient Chinese. They built rails out of mountain goat horns and tree stumps
 
jlevi cause of photo proof. me because skis werent allowed in "snowboard parks" and jiminy peak had a rail setup for snowboarders like 15 years ago. It was a seesaw rail.
 
Well it's def older than 2000. I def did it on dynastar extremes back in '92 at killington and I highly doubt I was the first. It wasn't long after that year that levinthal started doin his thing in VT. So it was def gaining popularity before 2000. It just wasn't as mainstream as it is now. Some of the older heads may remember quarter skis. Basically where you cut the front 1/4 off an old ski and mounted a crap binding with shallow screws. Great for spring rippin. We used to also go through the "snowboard parks" (skiers weren't allowed back then) on the quarter skis and hit the rails. I was also attempting back then to make a twin tip. So we're others so it's no "claim". But I attempted to cut the tips off two pairs of skis and glue two tips together, try to ptex weld the bases, and hope the binding mounted at center would hold. It never worked longer than a few runs. I also tried cutting 3/4 deep notches across the tails of old rental skis and then bend them up in a vice. Then epoxy them. Those worked a little longer. If I wasn't such a pothead back then I probably woulda made myself a damn ski press and beat jay to the punch but herb and women win the day back then. Haha
 
i seriously love when you come into these threads and just drop knowledge. haha. write a book dude!
 
Honestly dude, being a ski bum back then was some of the best times of my life and I def don't mind sharing my experiences. I think it's awesome to have a place to relive some of that and I love it when there's a thread that allows me to do so. I'm sure there's a ton of other peeps on here with similar experiences to share.
 
I didn't say 2000 was the first year, it was just the first cover shot with a skier sliding a rail. My hill's park first got a rail in 1998, which is also the year I first hit said rail, and it was nothing new at the time.

Hell, I remember back in the early 90's I would try and jib this bench that my step brother had set up in the backyard for his snowboard... shit was wack, but it was still "jibbing" in suppose.
 
Yeah I wasn't hatin on anyone saying 2000. I was just saying that I know it was before that. And most parks had rails and all sortsa craziness they'd never get away with now in the early 90s. The thing back then though was most resorts wouldn't allow skiers in the parks. They'd straight up yank your pass for that. It was believed that skis jacked up the takeoffs. Back then it was semi true cause the booters were built pretty soft back then and skis were narrow. We now know of course that it's about 50/50 as snowboarders scrape all the snow off the landings. But yeah Killy had like full on buses in the park. Haha. Shit was nuts. Huge gaps. All kindsa liability issues these days. Haha
 
I slid my first rail the winter of 97-98 on atomic arc comps. There were a few shitty snowboard rails set up at stratton and bromley around then. It might have been a 10' rail.
 
I don't think we'll ever truly know, but I can just imagine that moment.

A couple guys just skiing, guy one says, "Duuuuuuude, you think we could do that?"

And thus, a sport is born.
 
Haha. This is why I love these threads. Yeah I was rockin atomic ARCs for big mountain/trees. Things were like 205s I think and bullfrog green!
 
it was obviously the vikings.....those guys were hard core and there was no dought they were the first to shred gnar.
 
Wish I had vid. Back then peeps havin cams on the slope was pretty rare. Nothin like today. If you can find it digitally though, there's a vid called "far east" that was pretty popular in that era. It was filmed in 92 I think. Featured alot of the my snowboard buddies I hung out with at Killy around that time.
 
yeah people been messing around sliding rails on skis for a long time , poaching parks n shit, as far as the first mainstream ( and when i say mainstream , it wasnt really mainstream back then haha) but ya as far as published or documented things i would have to say all the ol LINE team including jlev take the cake..
 
Peeps were on his nuts for that back in the day too. Think he was like the only dude doin it. Looked so sick in the smaller pipes.
 
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