Jake Burton releases his First Signature Snowboard – The Stone Hut
So if you were founder of the biggest snowboard company in the world, would you too wait 35, or so, years to design & build your own signature snowboard??? We sure as hell wouldn’t! Finally Jake Burton has caved in and designed his own signature board called ‘The Stone Hut’. Each Stone Hut snowboard was handcrafted in Burton’s high tech prototype facility Craig’s (named after the late Craig Kelly) and a very limited number are available in select stores worldwide.
“Even though a piece of me has been in so many of our boards over the past 35 years, this is the first signature board I’ve built,” said Jake. “When the boards team approached me about doing a sig board, I jumped on it and talked them into doing a really limited production run so we could make them in Vermont at Craig’s. Up until now, we’ve only made prototypes or boards for team riders there. So the Stone Hut is special for many reasons, but the one I keep coming back to is I think Craig would be stoked that it was built in his facility – I know I am.”
During this past summer, Jake spent a lot of time at Craig’s, fine-tuning each detail of the Stone Hut. His goal was to create a snowboard that was ideal for ‘a powder day in the park’ – essentially a super versatile board that can handle icy groomers as well as massive powder slashes. The Stone Hut is a twin shaped freestyle board underfoot with a powder nose and a freestyle tail. The Bend is Flat Top, so it holds an edge when riders need it, but also floats in powder. Available in two lengths, 150 and 155, the Stone Hut is downsized so that riders can select a board length that is 5 cms shorter than a traditional board.
The Stone Hut board graphic are one of a kind, featuring artwork from the Jimi Hendrix album, Valleys of Neptune. And for a finishing touch, Jake has personally signed each board. The Stone Hut also comes with a sweet little kit, all packaged in a Valleys of Neptune laptop case, that includes EST CantBEDs, a Sharpie for marking binding stances, an EST Tool for fine-tuning bindings, a credit card scraper that fits in a wallet, a code to download some of Jake’s favorite Hendrix songs and stickers from the Burton archives.
With only 100 available worldwide, the Stone Hut promises to be a collector’s item for sure. But more than anything else, Jake wants riders to get the boards on snow and send him feedback about the new shape.
“I want people to have fun riding this board, and I want to hear what they think of the unique shape,” said Jake. “I also hope everyone gets a good laugh from the stickers that come with the board – I couldn’t resist throwing in some that got us in a little trouble over the years.”
Read more about the Stone Hut (and how it got its name) in an interview with Jake where a full list of shops carrying the board is also available.