Mark “Deadlung” Edlund has more than three decades of snowboarding under his belt. He once told The Snowboarder’s Journal that he plans to squeeze out at least another 40. And for the past 15, “Deadlung” has been collecting snowboards and snowboard memorabilia that he keeps in his home. At this point it’s starting to look like a bonafide snowboarding museum. One can only imagine how impressive that collection will look as he moves through those next 40-plus years.
Lovers of street snowboarding know Edlund for his video parts and his standout style through the years. He got his start riding for Burton’s rep program decades ago before moving on to TechNine and other sponsorships, and he gave Burton’s Todd Kohlman a tour of his personal collection in Salt Lake City in a recent episode of Trippin’ with TK.
“It all starts with your first board,” Edlund says on repeat as he goes through everything from early ’80s Burton prototypes (valued in the thousands) to reminiscing with personal boards that were featured in some of his older video parts.
His “unicorn board” — the one that gets him geeked on collecting? Edlund doesn’t seem to have anything he’s pining to get his hands on. If he has to name one, he points out an early ’80s Backhill. It’s a board that’s been around longer than Edlund himself, who was born in 1982. It was one of Jake Burton Carpenter’s original wooden boards, with a nose-mounted rope. How much would it cost to get one’s hands on a Backhill? One listing had a 1980 Backhill at $35K.
