Spark R&D turns 20 and opens the archives for a look-back film

Twenty years after the first prototype splitboard binding pictures went up on splitboard.com, Spark R&D is marking the anniversary with a season of events and a retrospective film, with a teaser out now.

Spark R&D is 20 years old. The company dates the start to the moment it posted prototype pictures of its first binding on splitboard.com, which it describes as a passion project rather than a business plan: a few bindings built at weekends for friends and other split nerds, and that would be that.

The response was bigger than expected. As Spark tells it, snowboarders wanted a backcountry experience beyond snowshoe slogging and splitboarding on binding adapters, and were ready for a splitboard-specific binding. The two decades since have been spent building a company alongside the bindings, with, in the brand’s own words, plenty of wins and plenty of fails along the way.

The anniversary is being marked across the whole season with events and projects. First out is a 20-year look-back film pulled from the company’s own archives, telling the story of Spark R&D from those early prototypes onwards. The teaser is live now; no release date has been given for the full film.

Spark also says the crew will be out at tradeshows and splitfests through the winter.