Snow that is. Two questions:

1 - I didn't take an actual count, but easily the simple majority of the boarders on the hill at any one time are stopped and sitting or lying in the snow. When I'm on the lift, I think somewhere near 75% of the boards I see are not moving. It seems boarders are more into watching others board as they are into boarding. Why is this?

2 - From people who've done both, is boarding easier or more difficult? Being a skier, how easy or difficult would it be for me to board?

I've often thought about trying it, but the fact that they fall so often, and spend so much time laying around makes me wonder what it's all about.

BTW, my 8 year old did her 1st black diamond run this weekend. Also had her 1st serious wipeout. I kept telling her to slow down a bit. Glad she learned that little lesson without serious injury.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

i learned some serious lessons this weekend as well... and promptly forgot them! of course, my thumb is black at the joint, though getting better.

i'm a skier as well, and cannot comment regarding your second question. as a former surfer, i have heard that i should be able to pick it up quickly, but that's not necessarily true, nor necessarily applicable to your circumstances.

as to the first, i do notice that boarders spend a lot of time sitting, but that's mostly because they cannot remain standing for long without cramping their calves. skiers, on the other hand, spend a whole lot of time standing around so i think it is a wash on time spent lollygagging, it just looks worse for boarders as they have to sit down in order to do it.

as to my specifics, however, i do not spend much time stopped till later in the day. we (there's normally two of us) tend to ski the entire run with only a pause in the middle, sometimes failing even that. fast is the way to go, IMO. later in the day, however, my thighs are starting to burn after 15 runs or so (at breckenridge, most runs are well over a mile, some as long as two miles or more). stopping is required once you can no longer turn!

taks

PS: kudos to the 8-year old. my son will begin learning in a couple months (he turns three in april) as well.

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

Only skiing here, no boarding. One comment though. Boarding strikes me as being closely related to skateboarding. With skateboarding hazardous stunts are what builds prestige. The stunts last only a short while and then lots of time is spent discussing, bragging, and dissing. The same thing might be going on on the slopes.

Of course extreme skiers do the same kind of thing. Heck, we used to have a running commentary going at Tuckerman Ravine, NH (the birthplace of X skiing) back in the 1960s, evaluating runs down the headwall, etc.

One highlight was waiting for the first run of the day. No one wanted to be the first to fall. My first time up there I got to Lunch Rocks just after sunrise and wondered aloud why no one was carving turns yet. A few guys responded, "Feel free!" and I got the message. About a quarter hour later a rather nerdy looking guy showed up with wooden skis and leather boots and asked the same question. However he took up the challenge of the response. Up the right side of the headwall he went, got to just under the north lip, snapped into his bindings, and started his run.

While carving his first turn on the 45 degree slope, he caught an inner edge, fell, and didn't stop sliding until he reached the bottom of the ravine. All this was to warm applause and cheers from those of us who were waiting for someone to "break in" the ravine for that day's skiing. Then the slopes were rapidly covered with skiers.

Wow! Congrats to your daughter! Glad she's OK, and hope she's a bit wiser too.

BTW, there are black diamond trails in Wisconsin? Must be steep, but short.

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Exactly right. Steep enough to scare me, but it only takes about 30 seconds to get down. Heck, I freefall for twice as long as that! (Of course it's a 2 1/4 mile trip from the plane to deployment altitude).

Skiing around here is interesting. About a 3 to 5 minute lift ride, then a 30 second to 1 minute run. And all the runs end right at a chair. You just go over and over and over. Lots and lots of very short runs. The better resorts are situated along the river bluffs. The Upper Mississippi and St Croix River valleys are kind of like a mini Grand Canyon. Lots of deeply cut bluffs surrounding the flood plain of the rivers.

The steepest run where we went Saturday (Welch MN) is called Chicken. About a 400' vertical drop and quite steep. It was the only run where my daughter actually paused at the top. By the end of the day she was bombing everything - except Chicken.

I've only been skiing in the mountains once. As soon as the younger daughter is ready, we'll be coming that way. YEEHAA!

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I think Mak is sorta right about the talking/bragging, although I see lots of beginners doing the same. I think it might be that mostly the younger kids (teens) are all boarding so they just do what they normally do.


I haven't done both, but know people that do. Anecdotally, its fairly easy to learn, but if you wipe-out there is a greater risk of injury (but feel free to prove me wrong)


Not sure what a serious wipeout means, but its a great way to learn. My wife is mortally afraid of falling while skiing which ends up holding her back. Fundamentally she's a good skier.

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Earth First! We'll mine the rest later.

Serious enough for age 8. She came in to the lift area WAY too hot. Shot through a group of people, right over the top of several people's ski's, managed to scrub off some speed by winging a couple people with her arms, then went tumbling into the side of a friend of mine. We got a lot of dirty looks. We then had a serious discussion about safety, . . . and etiquette. And she is getting a helmet before we go again. I'll give her credit though, she did a good job of not hitting anybody full force until she slowed down a bunch.

My wife is also mortally fearful of speed in general, and skiing specifically. Some not so smart friends of hers goaded her into skiing with them (in Breckinridge). She had never been on a mountain, and with no lesson or training of any kind, they took her to the top. Didn't even complete a single run. Wiped out badly, torn ACL, and won't even consider getting on skis again. I knew the friend who coaxed her into it - she was a moron.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

The ultimate multiple black diamond: straight down!

Ever skied here?



It's the Chestnut Mountain Ski Resort in Galena, IL. It's one of those hills where you start at the top, ski down, and then take the lift back up. That's Dubuque County across the river.

Not bad! If she keeps it up, she will be pushing you to take her to the mountains.

Nothing like the big hills. The western mountains are wonderful for above treeline deep powder skiing. My favorites are the various famous resorts in Colorado. I have a soft spot for Crested Butte, the first area I visited in Colorado. Great skiing and the night life there is incredible too.

Growing up in Connecticut I cut my teeth on the areas in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. My two favorites there are Killington and Sugarloaf. Killington in Vermont has some killer trails, I like the Downdraft and Big Dipper the best (the latter is a double diamond in a tightly packed boreal forest). For an easy, seemingly endless run the Juggernaut has 3050 feet of vertical and is 10+ miles long. Sugarloaf in Maine has the only lift-serviced above-treeline snowfield skiing in the east and is so far away from everything that there are usually short to no lift lines.

Meanwhile I kind of miss the days when an all-day lift ticket was $5.

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I skeed Colorado once many years ago... Vail I think. Wasn't nearly as fun as Eaglecrest in Juneau AK..

now, my doc say if I skee again, she'll whoop my hindquarters and put me in the hospital herself...

I have tried both - there's a fundamental difference between boarding and skeeing. Skeeing, you steer with your toes. Boarding you don't steer at all (ok, you use your back foot), counting on obstacles to adjust your vector.

As for the 8-year old - I dunno that I'd call that a wipe out. Rude, yes (and I'm glad you addressed it - so many parents won't), but to me, a wipeout involves a lot of posterior over peckishness. Bouncing is optional.

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if it hurts, don't do it

And then there's snowscooting, which I've just started to hear about.

that gives me this vivid image of hordes of little babies skooting down the runs... looks like boarding with handlebars.

vail is a 5500 acre mountain, and the back bowls are 10+ miles from the entrance... suffice it to say, if you skied it once, you probably hit less than 10% of it.

vail is now bragging about having the highest lift ticket prices in NA. of course, their sister slope, beaver creek, has the same prices... it's all vail resorts so i'll forgive them their discrepancy.

taks

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goodbye richard pryor :(...

If they think that is something to brag about, then a pox on their snow and the yuckies that frequent it.

I sincerely hope such hubris causes them to go out of business.


[edit/typo]

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Haven't been there; but I know the area a bit. My sister lives in Mt. Carroll so I've driven most of the alternatives between home and there. It's one of those trips where there are so many ways - none too quick. I especially like all those neat 2-lane blacktops that meander thru SW Wisconsin. Lots of neat stuff tucked away down there, including a couple of Wright masterpieces.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Mrs B and I form part of a party (30 - 45 y.o.) where all the men board and the women ski. In my case it is due to knee injuries, boarding puts a lot less strain on them. We find both spend equal amounts of time stationary and are equally fast about the mountains.

I think Mak is correct for the reason most teenagers spend their days sitting around, cruising is boring and they aren't allowed off piste.

I have tried both, as have most of our party, and don't think boarding is any easier, it seems that way since a lot of the people taking it up are teenagers who would be as quick to learn how to ski.

FJD: If you try boarding, use soft boots and stand with your feet accross the board, otherwise you are just monoski-ing. Steering is by shifting your weight from edge to edge (sound familiar?) which is done by rolling forward and back on your feet. One instructor we had couldn't get forward and back and side to side straight in his head, a full and frank exchange of views was followed by a refund.

I haven't been to the Rockies but have ridden Killington, Stratton and a bunch of resorts in New Hampshire whose names escape me for the moment. Edit to add: Cranmore and Wildcat in NH, and Stowe in Vt, I assume they have moved the state border rather than my memory being faulty....

I looked up the Vail prices. Ouch. $81 US/day.

It's getting pricey everywhere, even the small hills here in Vancouver (>$40). Whistler is currently $72 CDN per day, which is actually fairly reasonable for the amount of skiing you can do in a day. Not quite that powdery Rocky Mountain snow however.

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Earth First! We'll mine the rest later.