In honor of the 31st anniversary of the Burton U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships, which just got underway Wednesday in Vail, Colorado, we present a historical look back at what is called “The World’s Greatest Snowboard Event.” Burton puts together brief highlights of years past in a video collage. My, how the quality of the halfpipe has changed. Watch:

The who’s who of snowboarding will be competing this week at Golden Peak. The list includes Shaun White, Mark McMorris, Ayumu Hirano, Torstein Horgmo, Sebastien Toutant, Kelly Clark, Elena Hight, Jamie Anderson, and Torah Bright, just to name a few.

The slopestyle semifinals ran Wednesday. The halfpipe semifinals are set for Thursday with slopestyle finals Friday and halfpipe finals Saturday.

For live online coverage click here and for the full schedule and TV coverage, click here.