Remembering Paul Alden: Man with Idaho ties helped get fringe sport into Olympics
Paul Prince Alden, an influential figure in the competitive snowboarding industry who later helped run the Soldier Mountain ski area near Fairfield, Idaho, died on April 9. He was 89 years old.
Alden served as general manager of Soldier Mountain through 2023 after joining Ascent Ventures, the investment group that bought the ski area in 2020, according to a news release Wednesday from his family. Before working at Soldier, he spent decades pushing for the inclusion of snowboarding at ski resorts in North America and in competitions on the world stage.
He first came to snowboarding through his son, David Alden, who worked at Burton, an industry-leading manufacturer of snowboards and snowboarding gear.
Paul Alden, born on Nov. 19, 1936, in New York City, later worked at Burton himself.
“He was one of the primary reasons ski areas opened to snowboarding in the 1980s, and he was part of the whole process leading up to it becoming an Olympic sport,” David Alden told the Idaho Statesman on Wednesday. “He is certainly considered one of the true pioneers, though his contributions were always in the background.”
In the mid-1980s, when many ski areas were still debating whether to allow snowboarders, Alden worked alongside Jake Burton, the founder of Burton, to urge insurance companies to revise their policies to cover the sport. Their work influenced ski areas around the country to open their lifts to snowboarders.
In the 1984-85 winter season, 40 resorts around the nation allowed snowboarders. By 1990, that number grew to 476, according to the release. Now, there are just three North American ski resorts that still prohibit snowboarding: Alta Ski Area and Deer Valley Resort in Utah, and Mad River Glen in Vermont.
Alden was part of the effort in 1986 to persuade Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado to host the World Snowboarding Championships, and to accept the halfpipe as a legitimate competitive format.
The following year, he gathered a group of riders and industry leaders to found the North American Snowboard Association, with the hopes of partnering with the Snowboard European Association to create an international World Cup circuit, which would eventually feed into Winter Olympics inclusion.
He later worked behind the scenes to persuade the International Olympic Committee to allow snowboarding. Snowboarding made its official debut as an Olympic sport at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
“Back then, I thought he was wasting his time,” David Alden said in the release. “Little did I know.”
Paul Alden, a rider himself, taught snowboarding for years at Grand Targhee Ski Resort in Alta, Wyoming. He was also involved in manufacturing and business development across the industry, the release said.
When his son Rick Alden founded Skullcandy, the headphones and earbuds brand, Paul managed the company’s production operations in China during its formative years, according to the release.
Alden continued working in the snowboarding industry into his final years with the group of managers and staff members at Soldier Mountain that includes David Alden and Paul’s grandson, Dan Larkin, along with longtime friends and colleagues. Alden served as general manager for the first few years after Ascent Ventures bought the ski area, and David Alden took over for him three years ago. Alden stayed on as business manager until his death, David Alden told the Statesman.
Soldier Mountain is about a two-hour drive from Boise.
“We were all very familiar with Soldier, because several people in the group were competitive snowboarders back in the day, and we had attended events at Soldier, so when it came up for sale a few years ago, we couldn’t resist,” David Alden said by email. “Ascent Ventures is ... really just a bunch of very passionate skiers and snowboarders who came together under a project we all loved.”
Paul Alden is survived by his wife, Sharon; his children Mary (Jim) Moore, Carole (Doug) Andersen, David Alden, Rick Alden and Clare Chadwick; 25 grandchildren; and 37 great-grandchildren.
This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 4:00 AM.
