Our roots go all the way back to 1951 when Warren Porter opened a small clothing store in Tahoe City, CA less than 100 yards from Lake Tahoe. The more official beginning, though, is 1960. That’s when the Olympics came to Squaw Valley. It’s also when the Kahn family bought the business and introduced winter snow ski products to the mix. 1982 saw the addition of snowboards – making us one of the older snowboard dealers in the country. It was also the year we opened our Truckee store. The “Dam Outlet” and the Incline Village stores came about in the next decade.
In 2002 – after 42 years of ownership – Porters changed hands to the Chapman family. Under the direction of our new fearless leader “Chappy”, Porters has gone through a transformation of sorts. In short, as a consumer you’ve got other great snow / surf / skate specialty shops to choose from in Nor Cal that we highly respect like Boards ‘n Motion, Wave Rave, etc. And there are numerous others if you search across the rest of California and the country.
None of those shops, though, carry snow skis – and we wouldn’t blame them for most of skiing’s lame fashion existence and completely stupid anti-snowboard stance. Unfortunately any decent “traditional” ski shop that we might equally respect that has tried to carry snowboards over the years has generally fallen on their face – you won’t find passionate, core, 100+ day/year riders shopping there. So in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen skiing in the X-Games or haven’t seen a decent ski movie lately or don’t have a cool ski scene at your local mountain, we’re here to help educate you. In Tahoe, at least, the opening bell at KT-22 on a bluebird powder day is littered with skiers and snowboarders alike – all drooling in unison for that natural high a pow turn gives you. They also drool together in the pipe. In the park. In the backcountry. At Le Chamois with July for a beer. At Zenbu late night getting’ their groove on.
Andy Finch and Kent Kreitler? Jeremy Jones and Jamie Burge? Nate Holland and CR Johnson? Sure we’ll poke fun at one of our friends from the “other side” occasionally, but ultimately we’re all part of this bigger community where snowboarders and skiers alike all down for riding, for progressing, and for sharing killer times together. That’s Tahoe. That’s Porters. And that’s us and all of our friends in a nutshell. So as we like to say, “whether you’re 50 or 15, ski or snowboard, guy or girl, you can finally get it all under one roof – or one website – ours!” We’re Tahoe’s premier specialty action-sports shop.
Welcome...and never stop praying for pow!!
