17 ms·
Snowboarding for Geeks: An Ultimate Guide (2018)
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago> Snowboarders have earned a poor reputation among skiers over the years – they often see us as those who sit in the middle of the slope. Maybe you don’t care what skiers think, but for your own safety and the safety of others, try to avoid doing this. If you need to stop, stop on the side of the track where other people can clearly see you. Never stop behind the lip or in places where others cannot see you. This sounds like more general othering to me. I mean, as a snowboarder, you could swap "skiers" with "snowboarders" and vice versa in the above passage and it would still ring true. Really nicely compiled page though!
- actionfromafar 5y agoI think it's easier to sit down and stay put on a snowboard, just about everywhere. Whereas with skis, you seek out some snow naturally, probably on the sides, just to don't glide any further. (You don't want to sit down with skis. Sitting down provides more friction than standing up.)
- secretsatan 5y agoI don't think so, if anything it's improved from the days when many resorts simply banned them. I've seen plenty of skiers stop bang in the middle of slopes too, frequently older ones who should know better, to stop and chat and look at the view.
- arethuza 5y agoI'm a skier and it frequently annoys me that a lot of skiers don't check uphill before setting off from being stopped - skiers seem a lot worse for this than snowboarders.
- beezle 5y agoEven worse than the flocks (gaggles?) of skiers who stop for a chat in the middle of a run are those who repeatedly stop wherever they feel like on the moguls, often after just a few turns. Put a few groups like that on a mogul run and it is ruined for pretty much anyone on a board (and good skiers too). Boarding moguls requires keeping momentum - the time you are most likely to wipe is when going too slow or having to change lines abruptly because the person downhill decided to poop out four bumps ahead of you. Falling down is one thing but intentionally stopping anywhere other than the sides or directly behind a slow ski net is a really bad thing to do, regardless of how many planks you use. Don't do it. I'm also in favor of indicating by hand your intentions when there are multiple avenues available (such as turning into a mid-mountain lift instead of continuing downhill) to avoid potential collisions. Just because downhill has the right of way doesn't mean you will get it!
- celticninja 5y agoYeah, I saw a group of skiers stopped in the middle of a run last week and I thought that some had been hurt. They were confused as to why I thought something was wrong.
- u02sgb 5y agoI ski and board. In my opinion boarding was the really popular thing to start a while back. That meant all the newbies that didn't know slope etiquette were doing it. I think that's why it got the bad reputation. Skiing seems to be back to being cool again so things have levelled out a bit. The rivalry is still talked about though so it persists. There also probably a misunderstanding of what the "other" can see while moving.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rjsw 5y agoI am a skier. Have seen snowboarders practicing finding the worst place to sit. This was in the middle of a closed ski race course so the result of being below a lip could be bad.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoGreat. Your anecdote is not really an argument against my comment though. I have seen snowboarders sit in stupid places and cause accidents. I have seen skiers sit in stupid places and cause accidents. Both happen.
- celticninja 5y agoYup the common factor is people, not what they attach to their feet.
- rjsw 5y agoThey were not just sitting down in a stupid place, they were actively trying to work out where to sit so that they could not be seen from above.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoIt's hard to derive any more general insight from this one specific experience you have had.
- Jonas_ba 5y agoI found the community behind https://www.extremecarving.com/ https://www.extremecarving.com/ to be the most "nerdiest" of them all. Small group of people working endlessly to craft the perfect carving board, perfect the technique and advance the sport of alpine snowboarding. You can often find nerdy talks about torsion control (someone built a snowboard that has a split front to counter the board torsion during carving), board flex, technique etc. You just have to love a good old forum. That being said, this looks like an awesome resource for anyone looking to understand snowboarding :)
- beezle 5y agoHard booters are a rare breed for sure, see them every now and then. I ride a pretty narrow board but with softboots. Serious carving boards meant for plates and hardboots are generally very stiff, not the best thing to start learning snowboarding on though might work if you are coming directly from skis?
- Stevvo 5y agoAnyone who was first a skier and then learnt snowboarding, how many days did it take you until you could board the same terrain you could ski?
- l33tman 5y agoThe learning curve is different for a snowboard, it's hell the first 2 days as it's all based on balance and without balance you'll just fall. With skis you can basically go down most slopes the first day just by plowing and advancing from there. This is not going to work with a snowboard, you can't really take the lift to the top of the hill and proceed learning on your way down. In my experience most people learn the snowboard after 3-4 days, but it takes a bit more to feel confident. For me, I was just an average skier but I felt much more confident on the board than on the skis after the first week or maybe second week. So in my experience the learning curve for the board was slower at first but after a week I increased in skill much faster than I had on the skis previously. I dislike snowboarding the less steep "transportation" routes though, they are usually narrow, heavily bumpy and you have skiers to the right and left of you who don't understand that on a snowboard you can't speed check or fix your balance without turning the board..
- _trampeltier 5y agoI'm very good with skiing and started with age 35 to snowboard. I learned the basics quick, but now even some years later, I'm pretty good on the board, I just don't have the same safe feeling like on my skies. Now on perfect slopes, I prefer my (slalom) ski, if the weather is a bit snowy or the snow is not perfect, I prefer the snowboard.
- l33tman 5y agoI actually tried to get back to skis last year, rented a pair and went up on the red slope, but damn I had forgotten how to do it :) Felt so strange, it was definitely not any "like riding a bike" feeling of motor memory. I guess my cache was flushed. Kind of froze on the slope and couldn't get myself to go down :) Eventually I did and I didn't fall but it was really scary. I think I need to try again for a day on a green or blue slope...
- secretsatan 5y agoI noticed they put wrist guards in there, better to learn to fall properly. While learning I fell awkwardly once, and maybe the wrist guards I was wearing saved my wrist, but the reinforcing bar inside them cracked a rib instead
- meheleventyone 5y agoA cracked rib is significantly less bad than some of the wrist/hand injuries I’ve seen from snowboarding. One of my friends pushed the radius and ulna either side of his wrist.
- dereg 5y agoI can type without my ribs, but not without my wrists.
- totetsu 5y agoThe first thing I was taught was not to put my hands out when falling. So I didn't and I broke my shoulder instead.
- kelnos 5y agoRelated: if your jacket has chest-level pockets, never put anything hard in them. On two separate occasions I have broken ribs by doing that. The first time it was my phone (which amazingly came away unscathed), and the second time was a chapstick.
- cupofinsane 5y agoWhat is the safest location for phone? While jibbing, specifically.
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoIn the glove box
- celticninja 5y agoOuter arm pocket, upper sleeve
- forestjc 5y agoyou should have mentioned freeboarding for off season training. It is the closest replica of a snowboard.
- danuker 5y agoI have met two people who snowboarded. Both of them broke one of their collarbones. I do not fancy sports at such high speeds.
- jiggawatts 5y agoYou don't have to go fast. I rather enjoy going slow through deep powder off-piste, especially on a day with good views. It's like driving cars. You can race cars through suburban roads, or take a scenic drive and have a picnic.
- jonatron 5y agoA skiing instructor once said to me: "Anyone can go fast, that's easy. Being in control with good technique is hard."
- dejw 5y agoI've bruised my rib 2nd time this season. All my injuries happen in the snowpark though and I suspect it's the same for the people you mentioned.
- choletentent 5y agoI’m 33 yo. I’ve tried snowboarding for the first time last year. I’m pretty athletic. I had some basis from skateboarding. My heel edge was perfect by my toe edge not so much. While practicing my toe edge, my board got stuck in the snow. I fell on my back and hit the back of my head on the packed snow. I had a mild concussion. Never doing that again. I wonder if skyiing is safer with respect to head injures.
- popotamonga 5y agoFirst time i snowboarded fell so hard so many times i got permanent tendinitis on my arms, some movements i can not do anymore, been 15 years now.
- yodsanklai 5y agoWhat you describe is a very common beginner mistake (I used to teach snowboarding for years). I'd say it happens to everybody at some point. The first few days of snowboarding, people fall a lot. I'd recommend learning on days when the snow is fresh and soft.
- beezle 5y agoFurthering this - before heading up to any slope as a beginner you should be tracking the conditions for at least the week prior. Has it snowed? Has it rained? Did it rain and then go down to -15F? Knowing that they got 2" the day before you go up is nice but not indicative of what you'll find when you get there, especially on a busy mountain where fresh powder and courdory get skiied off very quickly. You don't want to learn on boiler plate!
- once_inc 5y agoSchumacher says: nothing much for a couple of years now.
- hnaccy 5y agoDid you have a helmet?
- jiggawatts 5y ago
- m4tthumphrey 5y agoI'm 36 in 4 months and started snowboarding in 2019 and have been every year since. I always wanted to try it and finally got the chance when my brother did it for his stag (Borovets, Bulgaria). It was very tough to start with but once you have a few lessons and get the basics it is so much easier. My biggest issue is going straight, or fast if you will! Lessons lessons lessons would be my one big of advice to anyone struggling.
- larodi 5y agoBorovets, Bulgaria is incredible place both for starting with snowboard, and for intermediate and expert off-piste activities also. Lots of very nice runs - popular, and not so obvious also. The Rila mountain in general is very accessible and bears snow for 4 mounts each year - global warming or not. Highly recommended.
- secretsatan 5y agoI learned to snowboard at thirty having never really been on snow before (apart from non mountainous snow) we took a five day activity holiday as a group to learn. It's tough going first few days as you fall over a lot. And learning your first turns off the baby slopes can be a bit terrifying at first. I also thoroughly recommend it. Luckily for me I ended up living in Switzerland several years later and get to go weekends on a regular basis. I don't reckon I'll ever be as good as some of the people who grew up here doing it, but I'm competent enough to get down most slopes with proper technique and getting into a nice flow is incredibly satisfying.
- beezle 5y agoWithout being age specific, I've been boarding 20 years and also started later than most. No trips to the mountains as a 7yr old in my sedate family! The most important thing you can do is get more time out on the mountain. When I was first learning I used some of my vacation time to take Friday's off from work to get to a relatively nearby slope (2+hours drive). Remember as much as you want to go straight, do not ride completely flat - it is a good way to catch an unexpected edge and get tossed. Try to find a relatively wide blue run that is not a zoo and practice making and linking your giant "S" turns. As you get nearer the bottom you'll find that you naturally elongate them to maintain speed. Also be aware there are two types of riding/turning - cross over and cross under, you can find examples on youtube. Cross under is used a lot by park rats and by those who never really learned or like making big turns. It can also be situational, ie if it is crowded. You should learn both methods.
- skibz 5y agoCan anybody recommend some affordable snowboarding destinations for beginners?
- yakshaving_jgt 5y agoThat entirely depends where you're travelling from. Where are you?
- ronyeh 5y agoIf Bay Area California, try Boreal. It's open til 8pm. You'll get in a lot of practice runs for your money.
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoBut once you know what you’re doing, nothing in Tahoe comes close to Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley.
- unixhero 5y agoI was impressed by Squaw Valley. Had a lot of fun there. For instance there is a line called "Broken Arrow". I have never had so little hand holding on a piste. You get dumped on the top of a peak. Good luck, only one way down.
- beezle 5y agoSquallywood the one time I was there seemed to either be completely boring or completely gnarly, not much in between. Much preferred Alpine Meadows. And Homewood has some stupendous views and would be beginner friendly.
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoYeah Alpine Meadows is the default spot for me when I go to Tahoe. I’ll only go to Squaw on a non-holiday weekday with new snow.
- mettamage 5y agoWhen I was learning how to ski there was one helpful advice from computer science that became the most important advice I'd ever told myself (when it comes to learning how to ski). I was thinking about finite state machines at the time. The advice is: you need to know whether you are in a: good state, acceptable failure state, unacceptable failure state. The rule: never ever ever ever get into an unacceptable failure state. Moreover, define an unacceptable failure state as such. In my case, an unacceptable failure state had anything to do with potential chances to get irreversible damage. I am athletic in a few ways (e.g. running) but skiing hits all my bad points (balance, flexibility and reaction time). Learning how to ski was quite hellish for me, but my GF pushed me and I basically had little choice. On the one hand I'm grateful, on the other hand I still remember the pain too well. So, how to get in an acceptable failure state all the time? I realized I needed to learn how to fall. The irony was that my ski-instructor never told me this, he simply taught me some very basic skiing skills but that's it. Once you learn how to fail, you can get into an acceptable failure state :) You'll be bruised, but it's better than skiing of a cliff. For a long while (2 years), falling was the only way reliable way for me to break. Yes I could do a snowplough but it simply slowed my acceleration in the beginning and later it slowed my speed up to a point. I had to learn the hockey stop in order to find another way to reliably break. Your mileage may vary though ;-) Good state, acceptable failure state, unacceptable failure state. Combine that with some basic ski lessons and a helpful skiing partner and you'll learn how to ski. I started at 27 against my will and can ski okay-ish on a red piste a few years later.
- dncornholio 5y agoI took another advice from computer science: Don't be afraid to break things. If you're afraid to fall, you will fall awkward and painful. But if you're prepared to fall, it will have less consequences. Also: always wear goggles and helmet.
- mettamage 5y agoYea, I agree with don't be afraid to fall. When I say fall, I mean: falling sideways.
- 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- can16358p 5y agoFor anyone reading this, I don't know what exactly but there's something between being geeky and loving to snowboard. Writing this as a senior dev: if you ever find a possibility to snowboard, DO IT. My best works always come out after a hardcore day of snowboarding (approaching 3000 kcals) then working on my computer sipping some espresso. I firmly believe there is something neurologically triggering between snowboarding and creative/engineer-mindset thinking. I know this is anectodal and definitely not scientific, but worth giving a shot.
- maccard 5y agoI've had the same experience with most forms of rigorous exercise. I used to row in college, and I was by far the most productive during the winter on the days where we did our long sessions (20-25km, 2-3 hours of hard work), seconded only by days where I was weight training in the mornings. This is coming from someone who is definitely an evening person rather than a morning person
- can16358p 5y agoI'm on the same boat regarding being a winter and an evening person. Both in physical and mental activity, I feel MUCH better in winter and evening, so I'm naturally more inclined towards winter activities and night shifts.
- wink 5y agoI don't think there's any correlation at all. I grew up kinda near the Alps and my parents and basically every single one of their friends was skiing as long as their age and physical fitness allowed. I learned to ski as a kid and most of my peers also did (went for a week of skiing at school in 6th grade as well) - so of course when it was "kinda new" in the late 90s I also tried snowboarding - and I liked it even more, so I've been doing that sparingly since then. All the people I know who do that kind of stuff prefer snowboarding, except a few die hard ski fans. Maybe it's different if going to a mountain is a huge expensive weekend or week-long vacation for you, then I can see the relation. People in tech = money to go snowboarding.
- larodi 5y agoSnowboarding helps develop several very important traits that come handy when you do geek-stuff: * increase focus (otherwise you fall) * learn to be aware of body and mind * do not stay too long down when u happen to fall (because u freeze, but the message is the same on abstract level) * falling/being down is part of the get-going (in snowboard more than other winter sports, in engineering this is to try again and to accept failures as part of the process) * be in the moment, be in the flow * never look back when you move forward (do not regret, do not ruminate) I can tell this, because I've been doing snowboarding - both free-ride and some freestyle (park) since 2004 and it never ceased to amaze how beautiful this sport and everything about it is. my degree is in computer science, but I also took some three years in the sports academy, for the love of it. one thing that sports teach you in general, that most engineering academic institutions do not, is team-play (even though ski/snowboard is solo sport). for the record - I also do skis, and appreciate them a lot, but snowboarding have always been much more fun tbh.
- blunte 5y agoI need this. But I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk. After a season of enjoying black and double black diamond runs on skis (including my favorite, 65cm short skis), I tried snowboarding. Never in my life of sports have I subjected myself to so many hard contacts as I did in my first few days of snowboarding. Day one I cracked my helmet. Maybe it's a matter of environment. Fresh powder is like butter, and the board is a fat knife. But on packed or groomed runs, the slightest balance mistake, putting your back edge down inappropriately, result in a whiplash-like fall with nothing you can do but absorb with tailbone, wrists, and head. Falling on skis is so different since you have control over your legs (even if the skis don't snap off). I've done accidental front flips on short skis and recovered. But on a board, once you lose control of it your feet are barely useful. Part of me wants to try again, but part of me would rather take risks doing new interesting things (like hang gliding). If you like skiing, try boarding. If you hate it, go back to skis and be happy. Just because you _could_ do it doesn't mean you have to :).
- yodsanklai 5y agoIt's really only the first days/weeks of snowboarding that you're likely to fall often. Mostly, you need to have an instructor and pick the suitable terrain and snow conditions for a beginner. Really, it's not that hard. I've also noticed that for an intermediate snowboarder, it's quite easy to go through steep/bumpy slopes or powder where intermediate skiers struggle. But you're usually faster on skis. That being said, if I could go back in time and learn skiing instead of snowboarding, I would. It's more versatile, and I think less demanding on the body overall (in particular, snowboarding is asymmetrical which I think puts extra burden on your neck.).
- voidmain0001 5y agoAs someone that has been riding for 25 years the best advice I can give is what I was taught; put all your weight on your foot. You will avoid all of the painful falls from mistakenly catching edges.
- consumer451 5y agoThe old Gnu[0] tagline which was printed on their boards was also a succinct gem: Stay Low, Be Powerful. [0] Googling this, maybe it wasn't Gnu itself, advice still stands.
- zild3d 5y agoSince we have 2 feet, I'll clarify - weight on front foot. Also bend your knees, most beginners stand up too straight
- voidmain0001 5y agoThanks for that as I thought I wrote "front foot" but I see that I didn't.
- sealthedeal 5y agopersonally ive seen a major trend going against snowboarding. More and more people have moved back to skiing over the years. Used to snowboarding was sort of "alternative" or punk rock in a way. You had baggy ski clothes, and looked thug AF on the mountain. Over the past 10 years or so, skiing culture has caught up and adopted that style as well. I think if you watch the Olympics this year its very telling as well. Where was the US in snowboarding (other than 35 year old Shawn White, who is a LEGEND)? But we were competing really strong in skiing, etc. I started snowboarding and switched to skiing. I had the realization in my 20's that snowboarding was for pow pow and the park. I never really had fun on groomers, and cat walks, etc etc. Now that im on Skis, the entire mountain is open to me and I can shred. I still always have a board with me, and love snowboarding, but ultimately I think Skiing is bees knees and i think mountain culture is beginning to go back to skiing, less snowboarding :).
- postsantum 5y agoTrue. Another thing that I noticed is that, outside of special places like parks, the skill level of the average snowboarder is very low. It's rare to meet someone who started snowboarding 15 years ago and still doing this, while it's pretty common for a skier. I switched to backcountry, bought a splitboard set and pretty happy with it. But I'd have chosen skis if I was starting now
- jermaustin1 5y agoI've always wanted to learn to snowboard. I grew up in Houston skateboarding and some light surfing, but I only saw snow a couple of times before I was an adult, and never any type of winter sport. Now that I'm old enough and have enough money to afford it, I'm too scared to really do any extreme sports anymore. One wrong bonk to the head and there goes everything I've worked for. I know it is probably irrational, but it feels very real to me anytime I get close to buying a lessons package.
- celticninja 5y agoWear a helmet. If you have the money get a Rubric. Best helmet I have ever had and very comfortable. https://www.ruroc.com/en_gb/ski-and-snowboard-helmets/full-face-helmets-with-goggles.html https://www.ruroc.com/en_gb/ski-and-snowboard-helmets/full-f...
- GrumpiNerd 5y agoWhat do you call a snowboarder wearing a suit? The defendant.
- nickysielicki 5y agoI spent hundreds of hours as a park rat on a tiny hill in Wisconsin when I was a teenager. Sometimes I regret not using that time to be more productive and work on my future. On the other hand, it makes me happy to strap into a snowboard for the first time in over 2 years and still be in the 95th percentile on the slope after a few warm up runs. All that being said, I’d learn to ski instead. Snowboarding is a ton of fun in the park if you have the time and money to invest into it, but you can’t be hucking 30 footers into your 40s in good conscience when people depend on you to be healthy. I concussed myself so many times when I was 17 on hard falls, just completely out of it sitting on the hill. It’s a very dangerous sport. Probably as dangerous as football in terms of TBI risk. If you’re only going to be able to get out a few weekends a year, skiing has better returns.
- wavefunction 5y agoHucking 30 footers is cool but there's nothing like a fresh powder run on a longboard just floating. Going fast and floating like I'm surfing has been my thing while snowboarding for the past thirty years and it still holds up in my middle age.
- bonestamp2 5y agoAgreed. I also hung up my skateboard tricks in favor of a longboard for the same reason.
- llimllib 5y agofor whatever it's worth, my wife and I are in our 40s and love to snowboard together. It's true that I'm not hucking 20 footers any longer, but I still have a blast on the steeps and in the trees, and don't see any reason I'd need to return to skiing.
- celticninja 5y agoI do both pretty well but much prefer to snowboard than ski. Of course I'm into my 40s and still playing in the park so maybe that's something to do with it.
- 5y ago
- reubenswartz 5y agoMy geeky tips for snowboarding: 1. Remember gravity. If your weight is towards your back (uphill) foot, gravity will try to make that the front foot and bad things will happen. The natural inclination (no pun intended) is to shift back when you get nervous, which is exactly what you don't want to do. Keep weight forward for control. 2. Keep the angle between where your board is pointing and where you are heading small. There's a temptation, especially if the slope is a little steeper than you're comfortable with, to really dig in with your edge as you go mostly downhill. This is exhausting, and makes it much more likely that you'll catch that edge and bite it. Instead, go more side to side on steeper slopes, if needed, but keep your board and your direction closer together. It will be much easier and less likely to cause wipeouts. So I'm told. (If you're really somewhere you're not comfortable, you can always leaf down.)
- leetrout 5y agoI never managed to learn how to get off the lift consistently when I was boarding a decade ago. I don't miss that embarrassment and would learn to ski if I were headed back to a mountain these days.
- bane 5y agoSnowboarding and skiing have entirely different early difficulty curves. Skiing is much easier to pick up at an early level and "get down the hill" with. But I think once you crest that initial curve it takes longer to become really good at it. Snowboarding on the other hand has a very steep initial curve and once you get over the hump you can get down the hill just as easy. Once you enter that zone it becomes much easier to start learning tricks and basically feeling and looking "cool". But that initial learning curve...ooof! It feels like you're literally wrestling all of the rocks on the mountain for a few days. The nature of how you get hurt is also entirely different in both sports. Skiers tend to get more leg and hip joint injuries while boarders tend to get more wrist and elbow. I've read somewhere that head, collar bone, and other injuries are at about the same rate. However, the first few times boarding you will definitely take hits on the butt and back. Anecdotally, I've wrecked my knees a few times skiing, but never hurt them boarding. While I've come away far more bruised from falls learning boarding than I ever did skiing. But they were just bruises and not joint damage and nothing worse than what I received doing martial arts.
- dejw 5y agoI'm in my early 30ties. I started snowboarding few years ago and immediately found it a bliss for my mental health. My job is now fully remote so I moved to Austria for winter season. I hit the mountain up to 6 days a week. AMA.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoHow can you manage work/shred balance during the workday?
- dejw 5y agoI usually snowboard in the morning. On a good day I got 3.5 hours (8-12 + shower and late breakfast). Those days I got off work at 8pm so it's not all kittens and rainbows. I do zero commuting so that helps a lot too. I try to communicate a lot with my team (3 meetings a week is enough). I don't do any client support so I leave home whenever I feel like it and get no shit for that from a manager. Saturadys/Sundays I visit one of ski resorts farther away and in Austria there are plenty...
- ben7799 5y agoI like these articles.. they harken back to the days of the web before everything was all about advertising and SEO. I've been snowboarding for 21 years.. before that I skied for about 8 or 9 as a kid. I also did a lot of XC skiing, for which I mostly shed a tear. There used to be so much more snow for that. I still have snowshoes, but that also takes a perfect convergence of a big storm + some free time to get to use them. Snowboarding has a super different learning curve than skiing. Snowboarding is much much harder the first few days. Very steep learning curve, very very easy to get hurt at the beginning. But then the learning curve gets easier in the intermediate stage. Skiing takes a long time to get to those perfect parallel turns. Snowboards offer some other stuff like riding switch that skiis don't really do. Going backwards on skis is way more niche. Snowboards suck on flat traverses compared to skis, but a good snowboard has amazing edge hold on ice compared to skis. The biggest thing that has changed that blows my mind is resorts are so anything goes. Want to do a back flip? No one cares. Jump off everything? Yah that's OK. Want stuff to do tricks off? We'll build that for you! Back in the 1990s on the east coast you could get kicked off for a little bunny hop off a mogul. Sometime in the end of the 90s the game changed dramatically. Last year I almost got hit very hard by a kid who had jumped off a jump and landed backwards and out of control. And I was in the lift line! The resort had built a jump close enough to a lift line that an uncontrolled landing could cause someone to collide with the line. Luckily I was a lot bigger than the kid and my snowboard was oriented such that I could dig my toe edge in and squat down like a football player and take the hit... neither of us got hurt.
- gnicholas 5y agoWhen I was learning to snowboard in the 90s, I was greatly helped by carefully observing the animations on 1080 Snowboarding on Dreamcast. I learned how to keep my edges up while turning and switching sides, which previously led to a lot of falls.
- heyparkerj 5y agoI learned skiing at ~8yo and did it until ~16, where I picked up snowboarding. I loved the change of pace, but now that I'm 30, I'm heavily considering switching back to skiing for a few reasons: - My hips simply can not handle being twisted asymmetrically while waiting in line and sitting on the lift. Lifting and waiting to lift is probably 2/3 of your time spent on the mountain if you go fast, and my body is starting to hate it. - A lot of my friends are picking up snow sports, and I've probably spent around half of my days in the past two years watching and helping a beginner learn. This is incredibly taxing to do on a snowboard - making your way around the bunny slopes is exhausting and requires constant booting in/out, which is a huge pain compared to skiing. - I'm falling more. As the mountains have grown understaffed, I'm starting to succumb to the classic "fell because I was riding heelside and hit a surprise jump because of an un-groomed patch of snow." I know from experience that I'd carve right through these on skis. - More mountain accessibility. As time goes on, I'm realizing how much of the mountain I simply stay away from because the conditions for snowboarding are rough. I stay away from moguls now, and un-groomed or icy runs provide a lot bigger of a challenge and risk when boarding. Further, commuting across catwalks is a lot less taxing on skis than a snowboard.
- ben7799 5y agoI'm 44 and can agree with some of what you say. I started snowboarding at 20 after skiing as a kid. My hips are mostly OK in the lift line but otherwise I get what you're saying. Adjusting your stance might help with that. Other fitness routines can help too. I want to say I had more trouble last year than this year. Totally agree with how taxing it is to wait for people. My 9 year old is learning snowboarding and it's exhausting to sit/stand/sit/stand waiting for someone. Also being in a mixed group of riders & skiers sucks for everyone. The skiers don't want to wait for anyone to buckle up off the lift. Riders don't want to stop and stand around, they want to sit if they stop. Riders can't keep up great if you have to ski/ride uphill. I don't fall any more than I used to. Frankly there is a different situation.. I expect I would fall on ice far more if I want back to skiing. Conditions where I go have never been icier.. the snowboard just has incredible edge hold across ice. Perhaps you're on the wrong board for the conditions you're riding? I rode the wrong board for a long time being stubborn not wanting to buy a new one. When I finally got a new one and had experience to guide buying the new one I ended up choosing one that was just such a huge improvement. But not for ice, my old one was exceptional over ice as well.
- a1pulley 5y agoI snowboarded as a kid but relearned how to ski at 21 because I wanted to ski tour—i.e., go hiking in the winter with skis on my feet instead of snowshoes. Specifically, I wanted to ski across the Sierra Nevada from the Whitney area to the giant groves in Sequoia (which I ended up doing twice, once in each direction!) The merits of splitboarding can be debated endlessly, but skis are IMO the best human-powered way to travel in many snowy environments. If you're interested in winter hiking—rambling, not necessarily skiing steep amazing powder—then consider starting your snow sports journey on skis instead.