Snowboard & Skiing Urns

Mountain life is organized around a season that is short and never guaranteed. People who love the snow watch the forecast starting in October, ready to take the days exactly as they come. There is a particular quiet that exists on the slopes during the first run of the day, early and cold, before the lifts get busy and the world wakes up.

This reflects the rhythm of a life lived in the cold. They knew the value of those mornings, and they carried the memory of that early, untouched stillness with them.

Working the mountain brings a different perspective on the snow. Instructors and patrollers were there during the weather that others avoided, navigating the terrain and knowing every rock hidden under the cover. For families, the mountain is a site of annual migration, a place where children grow up in stages alongside the same lodge and the same runs, documented through photographs from twenty consecutive winters in the same spot.

These designs speak to the person who was most alive on the slopes. It is for the lifelong skier or the snowboarder who found their rhythm in the turns, and for the instructor who taught many without ever needing to be known. It is for the family that shared those slopes together, year after year, making memories in the same place.

These pieces are cast aluminum, featuring designs engraved into the metal of a snowboard or a pair of snow goggles. They are available in a range of painted colors or in a hand-applied enamel finish with hand-detailed silver bands. To ensure the tribute can be kept close, the collection includes full-size, sharing, and keepsake sizes, allowing a family to choose one piece or several.

Each urn is finished with a threaded screw-top lid and a felt base. For those who wish to make the tribute more personal, we offer the option to have a name and dates engraved directly into the surface in two-tone lettering.

Snowboarding began as a Christmas gift. On Christmas Day of 1965, Sherman Poppen crafted a board for his children to ride standing up, featuring a rope at the front and a foot rest for grip but no bindings. His wife, Nancy, named it the Snurfer, inspired by surfing on snow.

In 1977, Jake Burton Carpenter, who had competed on one, took the rope off and added rigid bindings. Poppen was still snowboarding at age sixty-seven. For a family, the design on the urn is the mountain the person kept going back to, and the first run of the morning.

Source: Wikipedia, Snurfer

If the person was someone who found a rhythm in the turns or taught others without needing to be known, then these designs will recall those qualities. A sibling or a friend will recognize the mountain in the engraving, seeing the place where they were most themselves.

Families choose these designs because the slopes are a place they still visit together. When you look at these pieces, you will see the mountain. You will picture them out there on the first run of the morning, moving through the quiet snow.

Our guide to selecting the right size urn