Chimera Snowboards is a ski and snowboard brand founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2009.
Chimera Backcountry Snowboards was formed in 2009 to be the first company that made nothing but splitboards, boards that come apart into skis for the climb and lock back together for the ride down. Most splits then were clones of resort boards. Alister Horn and a small crew started in a shop in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and the company is now based in Salt Lake City.
At Chimera, a shape that doesn't work goes in the recycle pile, and an improved version should be under your feet within days. That habit produced BUHMPER, an edge design that breaks with the convention of a prominent steel edge. The splitboard-only company will also sell you a board that doesn't split. Unsplitboards are solid versions of its shapes, for riders who never plan to take one apart.
Specialty models are hand-built in Salt Lake, and a factory makes the designs at scale. According to the site of Pallas, the sister brand that shares the workshop, both have always been an after-hours side project, worked on in a backyard garage by people home from 9-to-5 jobs. The company that set out to build nothing but splitboards still builds them after dinner.
Most of the topsheet art for Chimera and its sister brand Pallas comes from Willy Nevins, a Salt Lake skateboarder and artist.
