Snowboarding was developed in the United States in the 1960s as people across the country began to seek out new winter activities. Over the next decade, various pioneers boosted the production of boards and the sport began to gain crossover appeal. Surfers and skateboarders became involved, and by 1980, snowboarding was a nationwide activity.
In the late 1970s snowboarders started to “invade” traditional ski resorts, but faced opposition from skiers who tried to exclude the snowboarders from “their” mountains. By the 1990s, however, almost all ski resorts had accepted snowboarding, and the resorts have found the snowboarders to be an excellent source of new revenue.
Competition was the next logical step. The United States held its first national championships in 1982 and hosted the first World Championships in 1983. The International Snowboarding Federation (ISF) formed seven years later and the International Ski Federation (FIS) introduced snowboarding as a FIS discipline in 1994. This helped pave the way for snowboarding’s inclusion in the Olympic Winter Games.
Men’s and women’s snowboarding made their Olympic debuts at the Nagano Games in 1998 with giant slalom and halfpipe competitions. The discipline proved an instant success and returned to Salt Lake City four years later with parallel giant slalom and halfpipe competitions. In Turin, snowboard cross also made its debut. In this event four riders race across a course studded with jumps, bumps and huge turns.
Since snowboarding's inception as an established winter sport, it has developed various styles, each with its own specialized equipment and technique. The most common styles today are: freeride, freestyle, and freecarve/race. These styles are used for both recreational and professional snowboarding. While each style is unique, there is overlap between them. See also List of snowboard tricks.
"Jibbing" is technical riding on non-standard surfaces, which usually includes performing tricks. The word "jib" is both a noun and a verb, depending on the usage of the word. As a noun: a jib includes metal rails, boxes, benches, concrete ledges, walls, vehicles, rocks and logs. As a verb: to jib is referring to the action of jumping, sliding or riding on top of objects other than snow. It is directly influenced by grinding a skateboard. Jibbing is a freestyle snowboarding technique of riding. Typically jibbing occurs in a snowboard resort park but can also be done in urban environments.
Freeriding communicates the concept of dynamically altering various snowboarding styles in a fluid motion, such that the combination becomes a style onto itself.
Freestyle snowboarding is any riding that includes performing tricks. In freestyle, the rider utilizes natural and man-made features such as rails, jumps, boxes, and innumerable others to perform tricks. It is a popular all-inclusive concept that distinguishes the creative aspects of snowboarding, in contrast to a style like alpine snowboarding.
Sometimes called freecarving, this takes place on hard packed snow or groomed runs and focuses on carving linked turns, much like surfing or longboarding. Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline. Alpine Snowboarding consists of a small portion of the general snowboard population, that has a well connected social community and its own specific board manufacturers. Alpine Snowboard equipment is a ski-like hardshell boot and plate binding system with a true directional snowboard that is stiffer and narrower to manage linking turns with greater forces and speed. Shaped skis can thank these "freecarve" snowboards for the cutting-edge technology leading to their creation. A skilled alpine snowboarder can link numerous turns into a run placing their body very close to the ground each turn, similar to a motogp turn or waterski carve. Depending on factors including stiffness, turning radius and personality this can be done slowly or fast. Carvers make perfect half-circles out of each turn, changing edges when the snowboard is perpendicular to the fall line and starting every turn on the downhill edge. Carving on a snowboard is like riding a roller coaster, because the board will lock into a turn radius and provide what feels like multiple Gs of acceleration.
Competitors perform tricks while descending a course, moving around, over, across, up, or down terrain features. The course is full of obstacles including boxes, rails, jumps, jibs (includes anything the board or rider can slide across). Slope-style contests consists of choosing your own line in a terrain park using a variety of boxes, jibs and jumps. To win a slope-style contest one must pick the best and most difficult line in the terrain park and have a smooth flowing line of tricks performed on the obstacles. Overall impression is also a huge factor in winning a slope-style contest. The rider who lands the hardest tricks will not always win over the rider who lands easier tricks.
Big air competitions are contests where riders perform tricks after launching off a man made jump built specifically for the event. Competitors perform tricks in the air, aiming to attain sizable height and distance, all while securing a clean landing. Many competitions also require the rider to do a complex trick. But not all competitions call for a trick to win the gold; some intermittent competitions are based solely on height and distance of the launch of the snowboarder. Some competitions also require the rider to do a specific trick to win the major prize. One of the first snowboard competitions where Travis Rice attempted and landed a "double back flip backside 180" took place at the 2006 Red Bull Gap Session.
The half-pipe is a semi-circular ditch dug into the mountain or purpose built ramp made up of snow, with walls between 8 and 23 feet (7.0 m). Competitors perform tricks while going from one side to the other and while in the air above the sides of the pipe.
Snowboard cross or Boardercross, also known as "Boarder X" and "Snowboard X", is a very popular but relatively recent winter sport, starting in the 1980s and earning its place as an official Winter Olympic sport in the 2006 Turin games. In Boardercross, several riders (usually 4 to 6) race down a course similar to a motorcycle motocross track (with jumps, berms and other obstacles constructed out of snow on a downhill course). Unlike traditional head-to-head races, competitors use the same terrain, sometimes resulting in accidental collisions.
In Snowboarding Racing, riders must complete a downhill course constructed of a series of turning indicators (gates) placed in the snow at prescribed distances apart. A gate consists of a tall pole, and a short pole, connected by a triangular panel. The racer must pass around the short side of the gate. There are 3 main formats used in snowboard racing including; single person, parallel courses or multiple people on the course at the same time (SBX).
A brief brakedown of the the boards and different styles over the years. The images below will give you an idea of the different variation that are availiable when selecting a board.
I've included a link below from Forbes that shows a list of the resorts