First Tracks goes back to snowboarding’s earliest days. As Dave Hatchett puts it, “snowboards had been invented, but snowboard boots hadn’t.” Riders made do with what they had, and most of them laced up in Sorels.

First launched in Canada in 1962, the iconic Caribou™ was a wardrobe staple for thousands of Americans living in the colder states. By the time snowboarding came along, a boot built for shoveling driveways had become the natural choice for skate kids who wanted to bone out grabs and bring their own style to the snow.

Warm enough for the mountain and soft enough to tweak, Sorels came to define the look and feel of this brand new scene. When Nidecker started pressing boards in 1984, its first boots took their cues from the same design.

Shot around Lake Tahoe – the spiritual home of freestyle – the film tracks down some of the riders who were there at the start. Chris Roach, Dave Hatchett, Tina Basich, Mike Basich, Dale Rehberg, Jim Zellers and Andy Hetzel recall duct-tape fixes, lift bans, and the tricks they borrowed from skateboarding and never gave back.

Current team riders Cooper Branham, Jed Sky and Sebby K join the legends on the hill to rediscover the boot that birthed snowboarding.