VAIL, Colo. – September 9, 2026 – Snowboarding has never been just about the person standing on the board. It is the product of innovators who built the equipment, entrepreneurs who created an industry, advocates who fought for access, competitors who pushed its boundaries, and mentors who inspired the next generation.
This year, the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame celebrates that history in an unprecedented way.
For the first time in the Hall of Fame’s history, five snowboarders will be inducted in a single year: Trent Bush, Jeffrey Grell, Tim and Tracey Canaday, and Chris Pappas. Together, their stories span the earliest days of Colorado snowboarding through the evolution of the sport into a global industry and cultural force.
They will be inducted alongside Alan Henceroth, longtime leader of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, during the 2026 Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame Celebration on October 10 at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek.
For tickets and event information, CLICK HERE.
The five snowboard inductees represent different pieces of the same story, and it’s truly inspiring.
Trent Bush has spent his career building snowboarding, shaping its culture, and preserving its history. With five generations of his family in Boulder, he started snowboarding in its earliest days and entered the industry as a teenager at University Hill’s Wave Rave, one of the world’s first snowboard shops. In 1989, he co-founded Twist, whose skateboard-driven approach defined the new school movement snowboarding reflects today. Twist also created Tuesday, the pioneering brand driving access and progression in women’s snowboarding. As the youngest board director at Snowsports Industries America, Bush worked alongside Jake Burton Carpenter to retain snowboarding’s singular culture as it entered the Olympics. He co-created Analog at Burton, then co-founded Section Clothing, and Brandbase, home to Technine Nomis and SOUND. He drove apparel innovation at Oakley, Mountain Hardwear, Black Diamond, Spyder, Dakine, his own brand ARTILECT, and YETI, including leading the team behind the 2022 Beijing Olympic uniforms. Bush founded the Colorado Snowboard Archive, serves on the board of the Colorado Snowsports Museum, and champions the pioneers who built snow sports.
Jeffrey Grell, born in 1958 in New Milford, Connecticut, is a snowboard pioneer, inventor, event producer, and general contractor. After graduating with honors from the University of Massachusetts with a B.S. in Environmental Design, Jeffrey returned to Aspen, Colorado, where he helped gain mountain access for snowboarding and developed his high-back snowboard binding concept. He worked with Sims Snowboards, built snowboard factories in France and Colorado, and became Director of Snowboarding at Aspen Highlands and later Aspen Skiing Company’s first Director of Snowboarding. Jeffrey helped create the Aspen Grand Prix and developed and directed national events including the Professional Snowboard Tour of America, American Pro Snowboard Series, ESPN Freeride Snowboard Tour, and Vans Triple Crown. He later created the Professional Surfing Tour of America. Since moving to South Lake Tahoe in 2016, Jeffrey has continued contracting and snowboarding, sharing more than 700 days on the mountain with Elizabeth Maxcy.
Tim and Tracey Canaday helped shape Colorado’s snowboarding identity. After discovering the emerging sport in 1982, Tracey and friend Scott Rolfs would go on to found Swift Snowboards in 1983 in Fort Collins, testing their creations in the powder of Berthoud Pass. Tim would build his first snowboard in his high school woodshop class, establishing the Canadays among Colorado’s earliest snowboard manufacturers. In 1991, the brothers launched Never Summer Industries, building on those early lessons to create one of the world’s most respected independent snowboard brands. From their Denver factory, the Canadays championed hand-built craftsmanship, domestic manufacturing, and rider-focused innovation. Never Summer pioneered technologies including a patented rocker-camber profile and helped popularize P-Tex sidewalls. The company also supported other independent Colorado manufacturers, strengthening the state’s snow sports industry.
Chris Pappas has helped shape modern snowboarding through more than 45 years of innovation, leadership, and dedication to the sport. One of Colorado’s earliest snowboard pioneers, he embraced snowboarding in its infancy, hiking Berthoud and Loveland passes in the early 1980s in search of powder when riders were still prohibited from using ski lifts. As a competitor, instructor, and ambassador, Pappas helped expand opportunities for snowboarders by establishing instruction programs, competitions, and organized teams while advocating for acceptance at ski areas throughout Colorado and beyond. Pappas was the first snowboard instructor at Jackson Hole, founding the program for future generations. His groundbreaking riding, including the first documented snowboard descent of Jackson Hole’s Corbet’s Couloir and the world’s first to land an inverted aerial in a halfpipe, helped redefine what was possible on a snowboard. His greatest legacy may be the riders he has mentored, including Olympic medalists J.J. Thomas and Red Gerard, as well as countless others. Through coaching and inspiration, Pappas continues to shape the future of snowboarding.
Their stories are intertwined in ways that go far beyond a Hall of Fame plaque.
For Shannon Dunn-Downing, a pioneering snowboarder and 2016 Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame inductee, these weren’t simply the names of people who helped build the sport. They were friends, mentors and fellow riders who were there when snowboarding was still finding its identity.
Dunn-Downing remembers meeting Jeffrey Grell at a Rocky Mountain Series event in 1990, where she learned about his invention of the high-back binding. She remembers Trent Bush through the Boulder snowboard scene and eventually becoming sponsored by his clothing company, Tuesday. And she remembers riding and competing alongside Chris Pappas and his brother George.
“Never in a million years did I think these friendships and moments would become part of the pioneering foundation of snowboarding,” said Dunn-Downing. “So awesome seeing this crew recognized for their fun, creativity, and massive contributions to the sport—not just in Colorado, but worldwide.”
That personal history is part of what makes the 2026 class so significant. These individuals did not simply participate in snowboarding’s rise. They helped create the environment in which the sport could grow.
They built boards. They invented bindings. They organized competitions. They created clothing and brands. They convinced ski areas to let snowboarders ride. They mentored young athletes. And they helped establish Colorado as one of the world’s most important centers of snowboard culture and innovation.
“Congratulations to the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame Class of 2026. It’s a legendary group, and it’s a great reflection of the people who have shaped Colorado snow sports,” said Marty Carrigan, CEO – Founder at Sales Guys Inc. and on the Colorado Snowsports Museum Board of Directors.
That legacy continues today through athletes such as Noah Elliott, who will be recognized as the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame’s 2026 Adaptive Athlete of the Year.
Elliott represents a very different era of snowboarding, but one made possible by the generations of innovators and advocates who came before him. A three-time Paralympian and three-time World Champion, Elliott capped the 2025–26 season with gold in banked slalom and silver in snowboard cross at the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina. He also won six World Cup events and captured the overall, banked slalom, and snowboard cross Crystal Globes, earning his third consecutive overall Crystal Globe.
From Grell’s Hybak binding to the Canadays’ handcrafted boards, from Pappas’ fight to open ski areas to snowboarders to Bush’s work building the culture and industry around the sport, the history represented by this year’s honorees is a reminder that snowboarding’s evolution has always been bigger than any one athlete.
It has been built by a community.
And Colorado has been at the heart of that story.
“Their influence can be seen on the slopes and in the generations of athletes, skiers, and riders they inspired,” said Jennifer Mason, executive director of the Colorado Snowsports Museum. “This year’s snowboard honorees represent the incredible depth of talent, creativity, and determination that has shaped Colorado’s snow sports legacy.”
The 2026 Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame Celebration will take place Saturday, October 10, 2026, at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek. The evening will honor the six Hall of Fame inductees and the recipients of the Hall of Fame’s annual awards.
Tickets begin at $75, with proceeds supporting the Colorado Snowsports Museum, Colorado’s official snow sports museum.
For tickets and event information, CLICK HERE.
About the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame
Founded in 1975 and located in Vail, Colorado, the Colorado Snowsports Museum is the official snow sports museum of Colorado. Its mission is to celebrate Colorado snow sports by telling stories that educate and inspire others to seek adventure. Through artifacts, exhibits, archives, and educational programming, the Museum preserves the history of skiing and snowboarding in Colorado, including the people, places, and innovations that helped shape snow sports around the world.
