Words & Photos: Susie Floros
On Saturday, October 10th, the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek hosted the 2026 Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame induction celebration. For the first time in the Hall of Fame’s 50 year history, five snowboarders were inducted in a single year: Trent Bush, Jeff Grell, brothers Tim & Tracey Canaday, and Chris Pappas. That’s a BFD! Rounding out the full 2026 class of 6 was Alan Henceroth, longtime COO of Arapahoe Basin. Guests in “mountain chic” attire gathered for the awards ceremony and largest annual fundraiser, supporting the Vail-based Colorado Snowsports Museum & Hall of Fame.
I wasn’t expecting to tear up during this celebration, but it was impossible not to. Each gentleman who received the highest honors of the evening delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech after a thoughtful video reel highlighted each new Hall of Famer. Their impact runs deep. For SLUSH, we’ll focus on the five snowboarders who were presented with custom plaques made of marble quarried in Colorado and etched with the Colorado State symbol. The snowboarding community showed up for the new Hall of Famers, with many heavy hitters in attendance. Congrats and thank you Trent, Jeff, Tim, Tracey, and Chris; you are all officially snowboarding legends.
Trent Bush fell in love with snowboarding in the ’80s and was a teenager when he started working at Wave Rave’s shop in Colorado. At Wave Rave he created their first pair of branded snowboard pants. In 1989 he co-founded the cult classic clothing and outerwear brand Twist with his brother, Troy Bush, and partners Amani King, Justin Hostynek, and Evan Hecox. Snowboarding, art, design, music, and travel influenced the Twist label and Trent had a hand in bringing many tech outerwear features to life. He also created the first women’s specific snowboard brand, Tuesday, with Shannon Dunn-Downing and Tina Basich.
In 1996, Trent sat alongside Jake Burton Carpenter as the first snowboard industry Directors of SIA. Trent, sought-after for his vision for cool outerwear & apparel, was soon recruited by Burton where he co-created Analog. He co-founded Section Clothing Co., which later acquired Technine Snowboards, followed by Grenade Gloves for a second. Trent was a founding partner of Brandbase, parent company of the brands Nomis, Technine and SOUND; moved on to leadership roles at Mountain Hardwear, Black Diamond Equipment and Dakine, started ARTILECT studio, and currently is the VP of Product Creation for YETI apparel.
Trent is a steward of snowboarding, and goes above and beyond to ensure our sport’s roots, artifacts, and history is accurately on display, while also caring deeply for people. Trent is the reason snowboarding has a place in Colorado’s Snowsports Museum. He not only serves as a board member for the Colorado Snowsports Museum & Hall of Fame; Trent founded the Colorado Snowboard Archive’s inclusion into the museum, and recruited David Alden and Kurt Oleseko to help bring the vision to life in 2009.
Jeff Grell arrived at the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame induction celebration with classic man in the hat mystique and a stickered briefcase. An appropriate look for the man who invented the “Hybak” binding in 1983, a design he later patented. Jeff was also pivotal in encouraging mountains to let snowboarders ride at a time when many resorts banned anyone riding sideways. In the late ‘80s he was the first Director of Snowboarding at Aspen Highlands and Aspen Ski Co. He created and produced countless events, while fighting the good fight for snowboarding’s acceptance. Jeff developed the ESPN Freeride Snowboard Series in Aspen, Killington, and Sierra-at-Tahoe, among countless other events and series like the Aspen Grand Prix of Snowboarding in 1987, the Professional Snowboarding Tour of America (PSTA), and the American Pro Snowboard Series (APSS).
I caught up with Jeff before the awards ceremony. He never got a big payout for his invention of or naming rights of the highback. “I never expected it to blow up the way it did,” he says. “I'd rather be known as the inventor than all the other stuff or trying to chase down a fortune that doesn't necessarily exist. Also, it allowed the industry to have the latitude to go and create. It wasn't like, ‘oh, if we make this, we got to pay this guy.’ I never cared about it.
Asked what the induction means to him, Jeff credits others. “It's been fun. I was fortunate to be in a lot of the right places in a lot of interesting times in history,” he says. “I get to thank all the people that helped me along the way. It's a little daunting to be honored in this format, but at the same time, it's a tribute to all the people who helped me get where I am. I'm still doing it; I love the sport.”
Tim & Tracey Canaday, brothers, started snowboarding in 1982 and launched Never Summer Snowboards in 1991. Never Summer has built their boards in Denver since the company began.
In his acceptance speech, Tim Canaday remembers spending nights in the Mary Jane parking lot to catch first chair. By the early ’80s, he and Tracey were building snowboards in their parents’ garage and a high school woodshop. In 1983, Tracey and a friend started Swift Snowboards in Fort Collins, when most ski areas still banned the sport. The brothers returned to Colorado in 1990, built boards at the Summit Snowboards factory, and launched Never Summer in 1991. They moved to Denver in 1993, where the company still builds its boards today. While other brands shipped production overseas, the Canadays bet on Colorado craftsmanship, premium materials, and durability over volume. Tim was the design mind and Tracey turned his ideas into boards. The company went on to patent a rocker-camber profile and helped popularize P-Tex sidewalls. “Who would have thought that those days on the mountain would have led to a career in the snowsports industry that’s lasted 35 years?” Tim said.
Tracey busted out some impressive retention numbers,“Of the 65 employees that we have, roughly 37 of them have been with us for over ten years. Fifteen of the 37 have been with us for 20 years, and some of the 15 have been with us for 30 years.” Keeping a factory like that running in Colorado isn’t easy, he added: “We figured out a way to do it. There’s another family that we have to thank, and that’s the family down at the factory,” he added. “Tim and I would not be up here if it wasn’t for that teamwork, that cohesion. This is such an honor for my brother and me, our families, and everybody who supported us over the years.” He closed with a tribute to Tim, who he said kept doing his job at the highest level through 13 years of his son’s cancer fight. “Zach is looking down on us and he’s very proud of his dad,” Tracey said.
A Country Boy Can Survive by Hank Williams Jr., their Hall Of Fame induction walk-up song, played again as Tim, Tracey and crew exited the stage.
Chris Pappas opened up many of Colorado’s backcountry zones in the ‘80s including Berthoud Pass and Loveland Pass at a time when snowboarders weren’t allowed at most resorts. When he did get a lift ticket, Chris became the first rider to drop into Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’’s infamous Corbet’s Couloir in 1985 and later became the mountain’s first snowboard instructor. Chris is also credited with landing the first invert in a halfpipe.
I met Chris’s sister Nicky, standing by his inductee photo. She tells her brother’s story the way the family knows it: “He went up the mountain with ski patrol and showed them what snowboarding was all about, and they embraced him. They embraced the sport and allowed so many other people to become a part of it,” she says. His legacy runs through the riders he helped, including Olympic medalists J.J. Thomas and Red Gerard, and through his own family, who got taught, too. “He’s an amazing instructor,” says Nicky, whose daughter learned from him.
Before the ceremony began, the Pappas family had already turned out in force, with ten living siblings and several nieces and nephews on hand. “He is the most humble, kind person,” says Nicky, who still calls him Christopher. Their father, she says, used to stop skateboarders on the street in California to brag: “My son Christopher, my son George, they skateboard and are amazing,” and would just go on bragging. With tears, Nicky added, “I only wish our parents could be here, because my father was so proud of Christopher.”