I 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 :).
OMG no. Please - every beginner out there - learn to fall properly before putting on a board. If you are going for instruction, they should be teaching you this as well and if they do not, pipe up and ask.
DO NOT put your arms out to break your fall. It is a good way to instead break a wrist. If you catch a toe edge, belly flop/dive. If you catch your toe edge, roll on your shoulders/upper back (try to tuck your head in a little too). It is a good idea too to disengage the edge and then gently re-engage as you are sliding to slow and stop.
When they say to tuck your head, tuck your head to the side so you roll over your shoulder. Don't just tuck forward so you roll over your neck. Think of it as putting one of your ears on the same shoulder.
Telling someone to "fall properly" is empty advice. Falls happen too fast as a beginner for them to take actions to lessen a blow. Wear protective gear. Take it slow. Expect to fall, and expect it to hurt.
It'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.).
Skiing deep powder is a ton of fun. My snowboard friends constantly worry about getting stuck in deep powder with their boots buried and no easy way to unbind. If they fall they end up doing the worm until they can bring their board to the surface.
Probably only a concern on low angle stuff, but yeah, one weekend I was repeating this traverse in the trees, trying to only lose like 20 feet over a longer distance, and it became very like, low speed technical. Take two nice powder turns, then head between those two trees, stay in existing tracks, duck branches and just try and make it so you don't have to unstrap and hike to the next incline. Skiers can definitely manage that better.
If you fall on the board you roll over and come up again and keep going. On the skis you lose the skis to the right and left and get a spiral fracture of your legs and a hip join breaks off :)
I did opposite, grew up snowboarding, and then switched to skis. Never looking back lol! Snowboarding is really rough, and honestly it was designed for the park. If you want to dominate in the park and then do some powder runs pick up the board, otherwise you arnt missing anything!! lol
Hitting a nice not too steep good condition slope on the correct board can be a lot of fun.
Once I got my first actually wide board that I could really carve like a mad man it opened a totally new world of fun for me.
Ryan Knapton on youtube has had some really nice videos about this for a long time now. For example https://youtu.be/1a-oj70PFqc
With "actually wide" I mean not what most manufacturers call "wide" but proper 31cm wide or more from the narrowest point for my mondo 29 feet making sure I will never catch my toe or heel when carving really hard.
So happy to read this. All I have ever done is snowboard... 25 years of it. I am going to try skiing next month and I am just excited to not have to strap in on every run! I don't care that I will have to walk all dumb around the restaurant, lol.
Once you get over the edge catching hump, it can be as effortless as skis, and catching an edge is not really something I worry about. That being said, there is only so much time in a life, and if the sort of "balance" aspect isn't clicking, there are a lot of fun ways to get down a snowy mountain.
I've been trying to learn telemark and parallel turns on my off-track cross country skis as someone who has basically only boarded downhill, and uh, it's an interesting challenge (and a bad season for it...). The skis have basically no sidecut, but if the conditions are right, I can struggle out a gentle telemark turn.
Freeheel is still the only way to do "complete" skiing, where you go from flat cross country, to mild uphill, to a low angle descent without changing a thing on 3 pin or NNN-BC bindings, so it's a handy technique to have in that context. But yeah, it's pretty silly, and I think just worse than a parallel turn in a lot of conditions. Maybe I wouldn't think it was silly if I felt a good one!
The first few days of snowboarding are really tough -- when you catch an edge, you don't have a second ski to regain your balance with! Wear those helmets and wrist guards! But after you get the hang of it, progress comes easily and quickly! Stick with it and you'll get there!
Like you I'm an expert skier. The most difficult thing about learning to snowboard is that I see the awesome ski trail in front of me, and if I try to go, I'll just painfully fall.
I learned to snowboard in my 20s as an expert skier, and the only reason that I did it was that I had moved to California and so was skiing with a bunch of beginners, so being a beginner with them was a lot more enjoyable. Once they got good enough to ski blacks, I put away my board and haven't taken it out since.
I basically had the opposite experience last time I tried skiing. After snowboarding at least weekly for most of my teens, just going down the slope facing it triggers my reflexes and I keep trying to lift my toes.
When 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.
When comparing skiing with snowboarding, the one thing you always hear is skiing is far easier learn than snowboarding, which is largely true. What no-one tells you is it’s far easier as a beginner to get yourself in a truely dangerous situation on skis.
The worst fall on skis was on my first day. As an experienced snowboarder, I was zooming down the beginner slopes in no time, so naturally I thought I’d punch in my lift ticket.
The thing with skiing is you feel like you have great control, but when you hit a slope that’s a little too steep, or a little too icy and you start to rocket down the hill with no way to turn out of it, that’s when it gets dicey. It’s terrifying losing control, going way to fast to stop, and you can’t just fall backwards out of it. Your strapped in for the ride.
I had to fall sideways at decent speed, which feels like having the wind knocked out of you, not fun. And my skis when rocketing down to the bottom of the hill to add insult to injury.
The thing with snowboarding is it’s nearly impossible to find yourself in that kind of situation as a beginner. If your out of your depth, you can always fallback to skidding down the hill sideways and leafing it down. You never go that fast starting out, because going fast requires edge control that you won’t have. If you do happen to flat board down a hill, you’ll quickly find yourself catching an edge and eating snow, a swift reminder to never try that again.
The first week of snowboarding where you are constantly falling over sets you up well for preparing to ball out safely. By the time you can carve a slope, you’ll have no trouble balling out of any sketchy situation.
>the one thing you always hear is skiing is far easier learn than snowboarding, which is largely true.
What people usually say is skiing is far easier to learn than snowboarding, but harder to master. I think what people generally mean by this is that on day 1, you'll pizza-ing your way down the bunny hill/green slope and maybe even easy blues if you're fairly athletic. But pizza/french fry technique only takes you so far. At a certain point, you'll need to learn how to carve, ski parallel, hockey stop etc. to truly feel in control on steeper slopes.
The fact that you can go down almost any slope with basic snowboarding skills is also a double edged sword as you don't really have to learn how to carve. This also means a lot of snowboarders can't carve properly.
I know people who have been hitting the park for 15+ years 2 or 3 times per week but can't really carve properly as they never had any reason to learn to.
edit: Also as a snowboarder who sometimes rents skis when bored carving, keeping keeping skis parallel and hockey stops are way easier for me than trying to pizza/french fry.
Only truly "difficult" way of moving around on snow I have found is telemark skiing. That stuff is just terrifying on the steep slopes or soft snow.
"It’s terrifying losing control, going way to fast to stop, and you can’t just fall backwards out of it. Your strapped in for the ride."
You shouldn't try to fall backward on skis. You should fall to the uphill side.
As a beginner, if you get in to a situation where you start going too fast to confidently stop without falling, you should immediately force yourself to fall to the uphill side.
You only really get in trouble when you go past that point and let yourself get way too much speed to even fall safely. So don't do that.
Slow down often, force yourself to fall if you have to, and stay off slopes you're not ready for. They are color coded for this purpose. Stay on the greens until you're super confident on them, then go with an instructor on the blues.
Worth mentioning here: If you are falling, let go of your poles. The most common ski injury is the thumb, caused when you keep a death-grip on your pole as you go down. You can easily generate enough torque on the pole to dislocate or even break your thumb. Children are often not given poles at all, and this is one of a few reasons for that (the other main one being that it's thought a child can learn better balance that way).
Plus the fact that both feet are connected to the same piece of equipment via non-release bindings eliminates a whole class of injuries.
In theory if the ski turns into a lever rotating your knee the bindings are supposed to release. That doesn't always happen.
I don't know if skiing is easier to learn, but the learning phase is certainly more enjoyable. Less time sitting on your butt, and poles take less effort than clicking out one foot and skating.
> The thing with skiing is you feel like you have great control, but when you hit a slope that’s a little too steep, or a little too icy and you start to rocket down the hill with no way to turn out of it
I'd always fall sideways, like you mentioned later in your comment. Like I said, I practiced it beforehand. Other than that, this quote rings really true to me.
Interesting comparison, I've never snowboarded, good to know it's not as crazy as skiing. From a beginner perspective that is.
The first couple of days snowboarding are really really rough. While you can learn how to ski down easy tracks without falling once, the first couple of days snowboarding you'll be tumbling down the mountain more often than not so expect lots of bruising. However once you learn how to brake and leaf down, which happens at day 2 or 3 you're suddenly able to go down every single track, including reds and blacks safely. The whole mountain opens up and you'll have enough control to be able to fall back to breaking in most situations so stuff stops being scary. Plus at that time you still don't have enough control to be able to carve so you won't be able to get up to scary speeds yet.
Other than the first couple of days, the mechanics of snowboarding do make for a pretty good learning environment.
I went snowboarding last weekend with my brother-in-law and niece, she was asking about the differences between skiing and snowboarding and my brother-in-law said “Skiing is easy to learn but hard to master, snowboarding is hard to learn but easy to master.” I thought that was aptly put.
As a non-athletic native Floridian who made some adventurous friends, I started skiing at 38 by tagging along when some went on a ski trip (Utah.) Knowing my deficits, I signed up for lessons all six days of the trip, and could hockey stop by the end of the trip. For the next five years, I made sure to take at least one lesson day on every ski trip. I agree with the notion of staying out of unacceptable failure states. I managed that by having experienced guides with me at all times. My favorite piece of advice came from the instructor on day 1: 'Skiing is like dancing with gravity, and the mountain always leads.'
My skiing tip is that your natural reflex to lean back if you feel unsafe is the most dangerous habit beginners have. Your skis are more stable and easier controlled with your weight forward 100% of the time, and it is less work too.
I 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.
Recently I saw kids on the slopes learning to ski with like a braking parachute attached to torso and hands - if they spread out the hands it would open a 2sqm "wing" and they would slow down a lot, genius
I took a private lesson the first time I went cross country skiing and 2 or 3 minutes into it, after getting on the skis, the instructor said something like "the only thing you are probably thinking about right now is falling, so lets get that over with" and then rapidly pushed me sideways and I fell. That worked remarkably well to help me focus on the content of the rest of the lesson.
This reminds me of my elder son who didn't walk until when he was 18 months old. Before he finally learned he spent several months repeatedly 'practising' falling over. Eventually he seemed to decide that he could fall over happily and was then happy to try walking.
I 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.
I see a lot of snowboarders get into an identity crisis as they get older. Should I still snowboard if I'm not sending jumps and jibs all the time? Yes. Yes you absolutely should.
The truth is that there is just no feeling like laying down a sick carve on a snowboard. Nothing compares.
As I got older I switched my focus to riding switch. While I'm not as solid riding switch I can keep up and often pass most I ride with.
Along with building up my switch skills I worked on frontside and backside 180s. Basically being able to flip from one to the other and back. Sometimes I forget which is my natural stance and which it switch.
I was progressing up to 360s from either stance but haven't been out enough the that couple of years.
I'm in my 50s. I do most of my riding in Vermont (mostly Killington) so my skills are almost legit ;)
Thank you, your comment back brought warm memories for me! I grew up in the Canadian rockies, but my family moved to Ontario in my teens. The skiing was terrible there so I switched to snowboarding to keep it interesting. But, we used to come down to Killington in the winter to get some real mountain time in. Thankfully I'm in California now so I've got some good mountains nearby. Thanks again and I hope Killington is still as great, or maybe even better, than it once was.
100%! Just got back from a week in the Zillertal and it was incredible and all I can think of is how to go back. Finally did it on my own gear this time too, what a massive difference a good board, binding, boot combo makes. I'm a late convert, so not a park rat at all, but just hitting reds all day (Europe, so just Blue, Red, Black grades) along with the mountain culture makes for my absolute favourite holidays.
Hucking 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.
I came to this same conclusion two weekends ago in Flagstaff. I am 43 and have only snowboarded my entire life. Lots and lots when I was younger, not as much anymore with kids, their club soccer and demanding schools. I am a professional firefighter and get paid to workout at work... so I am not elite athletic, but I am fit.
My hips just don't have the same mobility they once did. Sitting down at the top every single run is tiring and I am beginning to dislike that one aspect the most. My wife skis and she just stands there peacefully while the kids and I strap in. I never paid much attention to this until this last trip... "I am a snowboarder and this is part of the deal." Well, I am not much into that part of the deal any longer.
Walking around the resort or restaurants in ski boots doesn't look like it feels as good as snowboard boots. However, I think I am willing to give that up for convenience on the runs... which is why I am there spending a fortune after all.
So, I decided that I am going to rent skis and just send it over spring break for a two day trip. My kids say they are going to disown me... that's ok, I can cruze with their mom (lol)! Watching them strap in without grunting and twisting due to their far superior flexibility is awesome... I remember that, its just time to move on and just enjoy the time on the mountain; COMFORTABLY.
I'm 48, been skiing since I was 3 and switched to mainly snowboard at 17 (and living less then 30min from a lot of ski resorts). I ski from time to time, mainly when with the kids and when the snow is hard. But as soon as there is powder, nothing is better than my snowboard. Just today, I'm back from a day of freeriding with friends and the kids. This will always remain an incredible feeling that I will never get on my skis. Modern carving skis are also fun, but different.
There is never a too old to ride. I know snowboarders in their 70s. Modern binding takes seconds to tie and nothing will beat softboots (especially in stairs), and the pain you can get with some ski boots. And at the end of the day I will always feel less tired when snowboarding than skiing.
I 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.
for 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.
>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.
This is why, honestly, I will never suggest someone to bother learning it as an adult. Unless you are extremely athletic and completely set on it, it's just going to be an afternoon of pain and frustration. I've seen it happen over and over again. Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times. Which isn't a big deal when you're 12, but at 32 it's a whole different story.
I can comment on snowboarding. But I did take up skiing as an adult and my experience doesn't line up with this.
My kid graduated high school, so I moved to a small town in Colorado to learn how to ski and ice climb. I am somewhat athletic, but not competitively so.
I started skiing at 42, and I am now in my 3rd year of doing it.
I do wear a helmet.
But I don't fall, and certainly not thousands of times. I'm old enough that I'm very conservative... but I fall infrequently enough that I can remember the 3 times I've done it this season.
Skiing really isn't that dangerous or even physically demanding.
> My kid graduated high school, so I moved to a small town in Colorado to learn how to ski and ice climb. I am somewhat athletic, but not competitively so.
You're definitely the outlier that proves my point though. Skiing is not something you can just go "do" a few times and have fun at it like tennis or golf. You have to, as you did, live in close proximity to a hill and get out there day after day and put in the time and effort of falling on your face over and over again to do it. People can absolutely do it as adults, but you have to really really want it. It can't be a casual thing.
>Skiing really isn't that dangerous or even physically demanding.
It's what you make it. To a lot of people, "skiing" means hopping on the lift and cruising some blue/black groomers for a few hours. For others, it means hiking 3k vertical to ski 6 feet of powder on a 50 degree face, or blasting the drop line on a huge mogul field at full speed.
> You're definitely the outlier that proves my point though. Skiing is not something you can just go "do" a few times and have fun at it like tennis or golf.
Again, this doesn't match my experience as somebody who actually did learn to ski in my 40s while living in Phoenix, AZ. It's fine to say that you yourself couldn't do something, but you shouldn't speak for others. I'm very far from an elite athlete, I wouldn't consider myself an athlete at all. I'm largely sedentary.
>It's fine to say that you yourself couldn't do something, but you shouldn't speak for others.
I'm saying this as someone who has skiied from the age of five, and spent a solid decade skiing over 180 days/season while working at various resorts, with a majority of those days being backcountry steeps above 10k feet. When people say you can "learn to ski" with little effort it just irks me a bit. Yes, anyone who can walk can become competent enough to cruise down some blue groomers at a resort. But actual skiing, actually getting to the expert level where you can truly enjoy the sport, is a completely different thing. And getting to that level from beginner as an adult is incredibly difficult.
you might consider that your context is getting in the way of a fundamental point:
you can't say what it means for other people to "truly enjoy something".
And that irks me.
Like, how do you know you're really enjoying your skiing i you're not hiking up 8000M peaks to do your skiing? If you're not hopping out of a helicopter and getting filmed by Warren Miller, is it really worth it? Are you truly enjoying the sport if you're not skiing couloirs?
I mean, I play music and I do some hard stuff. I don't think a lot of it is easy. But I am confident that someone can pick up a guitar and play it well enough to enjoy it (themselves) after not much practice. I personally wouldn't be satisfied doing the exact same thing... I have been doing it a long time and have high expectations. But those expectations are -for myself-, and that has nothing to do with what other people might enjoy.
I'm gonna go enjoy some powder, I ain't a great skiier, but I can get down anything on my local hill. And for what it's worth, I am literally the only person who gets to say if I "truely enjoy" playing in the snow.
Similar to you, I started skiing at 45, the same time as my almost 4yr old did. That first season, I remember falling a few times, but absolutely not more than 20 for the whole season.
Four years later, I have a ski crazy 7yr old who rips down blacks full tilt. I fall in very choppy or icy conditions somehow trying to keep him in sight. Didn’t fall at all today, fell once yesterday in chop. In decent conditions, I rarely fall, but as I’m the designated driver, I really don’t push things too hard.
Also firmly in the wear a helmet camp. A lot of US ski and snowboard films show athletes who forgo this, and I generally try to avoid letting the kid watch them.
Favourite ski films are Supervention and Supervention 2. Both are generally free online (try Redbull TV).
> Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times
This is not the case for skiing at least. My young kids (who are are not exceptional) have been skiing for the last few years. They rarely fall. It might happen once during the day or not at all. And they didn't fall much on their first few days of ski either. (I also don't remember falling much when learning how to ski as a kid.)
In fact I'd say the same for biking. There is a myth that you have to fall to learn how to bike. Yes, you might fall once or twice and learn a lesson but that's it. Most of the learning process doesn't require actually falling to the ground.
Now it could be different for snowboarding but I don't have experience with that. It could also be a little different for adults learning how to ski but even there I'd think it can be done quite safely.
Of course I agree that for adults (and especially older adults) falls will have worse outcomes than for kids on average.
Everyone falls a ton when learning to snowboard IME. Myself, 25 years ago, was miserable for two days with a destroyed coccyx and thought I had permanently damaged my butt. My kids who are both very athletic fell like crazy when learning... and they basically plowed the runs for the first year or so until they were brave enough to go toe side.
I am going to try skiing for the first time next month. I am excited to get off the ground.
Yeah you'll fall, but just learn how to fall, especially don't break the fall with your hands! I broke by wrist first time I tried, at age 12. Since then I've never hurt myself badly while snowboarding.
As other have said, you won't fall skiing, and also, 32 is not old at all. There is no physical reason to be in worse shape when you're 32 than when you're 18. If you are, it's because you don't spend enough time doing sports, it's not because your body is too old.
I picked up kitesurfing in my 30s, and skateboarding in ramps in my 40s and it was no different from learning snowboarding in high school. Except that I'm in better shape now, and I also benefit from knowing other sports. It just gets easier. I think the turning point, physically speaking, is around 50.
Neal Unger is 65 and recently picked up skateboarding. Obviously he's past his prime, but there's absolutely no reason to avoid having fun just because you're not a teenager. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM4FQ_FqEhQ
Downhill ski is much easier and safer to learn. I did it in one hour together with an instructor when I was 25. I felt only couple of times. And I was with another novice, so not all attention was on me. This was a common experience among my friends.
Then I tried snowboarding couple of years later. But even after 2 training painful sessions with different instructors I could not get it. The last instructor encouraged me to try one more lesson. He suspected as I was tall, it will just take more time for my body to learn to balance properly. But I realized that snowboard just did not click with me. And only few of people I know who tried snowboarding in the late twenties continued with it.
> Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times.
I learned to ski in my early 40sc over the last 5 years and I would count my falls in the tens. Certainly fewer than 50. That's counting every time I ended up on the ground, most of those could probably be classified as sitting more than falling. I'm far from extremely athletic, maybe even below average.
If you learn from an instructor and don't try to ski terrain you're not ready for then there's no reason somebody of even below-average athletic ability couldn't learn to ski without getting hurt.
> I will never suggest someone to bother learning it as an adult
I disagree. It's not dangerous, and anyone in good health can learn it. You just need to learn at your pace and take an instructor. Conditions and gear are also very important, it can make all the difference between a great time and an horrible experience.
I think not living near mountains makes it harder because you usually can't pick the days with the best conditions, and you try to cram as much practice as you can, which is often over-ambitious and lead to injuries.
> You just need to learn at your pace and take an instructor.
I think this is right. I had friends drag me to Whistler for a weekend. I had never snowboarded. We went to the top of the mountain and they put me on a blue run and left me. I fell down the whole mountain that morning. We had lunch and then it clicked the afternoon. And then for the second day I was fine. My elbow and hip was destroyed but I stopped falling.
So I thought it was easily and I advised my novice friend to do the same next year. He fell down the mountain for the morning session and quit entirely.
I think I was just more coordinated than him (he later broke his arm after tripping during a run). I think if he had taken instruction and just cruised greens until he stopped falling he might have learned to love it.
I would never advise someone to learn like I did after watching my friends interest get snuffed out by my bad advice.
Usually, the first few hours of learning, you find a very gentle 30m slope that stops naturally, and you just learn to go straight with only one foot bound. Then you learn to initiate front-end and back-end turn by rotating your shoulder, still with one foot. Normally, you wouldn't even fall at that stage.
Only then you take a lift, bind two feet, and then you learn to skid facing the slope, then the other direction. After that, there are a several exercises of gradual difficulty that takes you to the full skidded turn. It usually takes one or two days for most people to be able to turn frontside and backside.
There will be a lot of falling, much more than with skis, but if the snow is soft, no risk of injury and it's pretty fun. I taught snowboarding for a few years and my experience was that beginners had the most fun.
I learned how to snowboard when i was 35 never having been on skis. i'm in my 50's now and love carving in some fresh powder, it's orgasmic! i will never stop till i'm dead.
I'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.
I 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.
Without 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.
Yes, for you though tried to make it a bit more general.
It is all about learning edge control - how much pressure to apply and when. Beginners tend to put too much pressure on the edge and worse, lean back when they are scared. They also tend to look down too much - look where you want to go (it won't seem as fast that way either).
Gradually elongating your turns as you go down the slope builds your confidence/comfort level in going straighter at faster speeds - your mind/muscles learn to apply consistent gentle edge pressure. When it really flattens out, you'll ride mostly toe or heel with very, very slight edge, changing more because of tiredness than anything else.
Borovets, 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.
personally 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 :).
True. 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
For 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.
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.
You grew up in the Alps and "had always access to right away" in a rough sense.
I grew up away and it was a planned event to schedule a vacation/trip to the Alps abroad, making it relatively more valuable (regardless of the financial aspects).
No disagreement here, but my point was mainly on the demographics. I'm pretty sure there are just as many 'typically well-off' groups that would do skiing OR snowboarding, like lawyers, doctors, or engineers.
Then again lawyers have this stuffy aura to them, maybe they prefer skiing? ;)
About the demographics I'd love to see some statistics about different professions and their skiing vs snowboarding preference. Might have nice sociological/psychological points of interest there.
I'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
I'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.
I've implied that there is no scientific backing and that is just anectodal more than once in my comment. Your comment doesn't add anything to the conversation other than sarcastically attacking just for the sake of it.
I found the community behind 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 :)
Hard 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?
I 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.
I 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.
I'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.
I'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.
Snowboarding 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.
Snowboarding 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.
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.)
I'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.
I 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...
I 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.
I 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
Related: 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.
A 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.
As 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.
The 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..
I'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.
I 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...
You can get to a point within a couple of days where you feel comfy falling leaf-ing down most slopes in the mountain. Some terrain, like glades, will always be a bit harder, in my experience, though I'm so comfortable skiing through glades that it might just be a personal thing.
Unless you really devote active learning effort towards it, you could easily remain mediocre at toe-edge and real carving for months. I do both, and I still feel like my skiing is miles ahead of my snowboarding because I've just never gelled with facing up the mountain half the time. YMMV though.
Not sure if that answer is in any way helpful, but I learned to ski as a kid (like the typical kids skiing course every winter, progressing one level at a time) and did one week of snowboarding when I was 15 and then not much more. Then life kinda happened and I'm 32 or 33 and while I had forgotten most things about skiing (and it hurt my legs) but snowboarding (on my basic bad? level) has been fine since then.
I guess I am not your average skier. That said, I have had a snowboard now for over a decade and there is no way I am going to (ever) snowboard the most challenging terrain I can ski. To be fair, I easily snowboard way over 90% of the terrain I ski.
When 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.
I 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.
Squallywood 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.
I 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.
I’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.
Yeah helmets are absolutely mandatory for all downhill sports regardless of if you're snowboarding or skiing. The last 10 years I haven't seen anybody in any of the mountains here without helmets (something changed in this regard about 15 years ago I think when you could see people without helmets still).
But the next most important protection for snowboarding is a wrist rail protecting your os scaphoideus, it's the larger bone in your wrist (just at the base of the thumb) and it's the most common snowboarding injury as you fall backwards and instinctively reach out with the hands behind you and the impact most often fractures the wrist bones. This happens even with you standing still!
It's true that something has changed and nowadays almost everyone wear helmets. But I don't and won't. I learned (and taught) at a time where people didn't wear helmets. I've probably spent more than 300 days snowboarding and never hurt my head. Sure, it can only be safer to wear one than not wearing one. But I don't think it's "absolutely mandatory". If you're an advanced practitioner and not doing anything crazy, the risk seems low.
I’m a decent snowboarder. Was going slowly (maybe 30kmh) on a easy wide downhill. Weather was perfect. Piste was not huge but broad and empty. Got hit from behind by a Ski instructor who was doing 60kmh+. He had a ‘weak moment’ and didn’t see me. I couldn’t catch myself and fell on the back of my head. Even though I was wearing a helmet, still had a mild concussion. Now is 5 weeks later and still dealing with the consequences. Glad a buddy who was skiing behind me caught it on his GoPro because it seemed so bizarre.
Wear a helmet. You’re protecting yourself from other things than just your own lack of skill. (not to mention it’s mandatory in many parts of the world now)
It's just a matter of how bad it can be without it. If I do hit my head without a helmet, I could suffer permanent brain damage or die. Why would I risk that, even if the risk is small, when the risk mitigation measure (wearing a helmet) is so simple and easy? (And has the side benefit of helping to keep my head warm without needing a hat or balaclava.) Without a helmet, I need to be skillful, or at least lucky, 100% of the time. A single mistake could destroy my life. With a helmet, I can absorb quite a few mistakes and walk away from them.
Your perspective just sounds like someone refusing to wear a seat belt in a car because when you were a kid they weren't mandatory or common in cars. I would hope we can agree that would be foolish.
> If you're an advanced practitioner and not doing anything crazy, the risk seems low.
It seems pretty arrogant to assume that you'll never have a bad fall just because you have a lot of experience. On top of that, you can't control other people; maybe someone less experienced than you, who is stretching their skills a little farther than they should be, collides with you and you slam your head into an icy patch. Your advanced experience might not be able to help you there.
> I learned (and taught) at a time where people didn't wear helmets.
I really hope, for the safety of your potential students, that you don't teach anymore.
> It's just a matter of how bad it can be without it.
No, it's a matter of how bad it can be without it, but also, how likely you are to fall on your head. For instance, concussions are still common in car accidents despite the safety belt. Do you wear a helmet in your car? following your reasoning, you should.
> I really hope, for the safety of your potential students, that you don't teach anymore.
Everyone is free to decide what level of risk they're willing to take. This is true of wearing a helmet while skiing, but many activities are potentially dangerous (driving, cycling, sunbathing...) and we don't accuse people doing these activities of being foolish.
I'm not advising anyone not to wear a helmet, but as long as I don't have the obligation to do so, I won't, because I feel it's more enjoyable to not wear them.
> I really hope, for the safety of your potential students, that you don't teach anymore.
You are like those government, forcing some BS like sopa/pipa/etc. Of course, helmet promoting always gets much of upvotes online - but isn't it so hard to open your eyes for looking some cons, not only pros?
Bigger inertia of a head and bigger hitbox, that's why there are lots of videos called "i love helmets" with braking helmet shown, despite the crash was not any serious. If using glasses, they always limit and distort your peripheral sight. Also it is wrong to recommend _anything_ to a man you do not know nothing about. Maybe I want to train only maneuverability, not riding fast and not riding where fast riders may be happen. Maybe I love falling-prone disciplines and have some ability to fall down correctly. Maybe my wear has kind of head-protecting options like several hoodies and a tough knot of hair. Also do not forget that head damage is not the main issue in snowboarding - if someone has not been taught to fall down correctly, snowboard is not an easy way to start that learning because of bounded legs and skill-demanding brake (if some speed has been got and slowing is needed).
> I'd rather not be one of those "he died doing what he loved" guys when it is entirely preventable.
I do know such a guy, it was my schoolmate who rode a motorcycle and somehow he has rammed a car with his head. Good helmet might have saved his scull from a crack. Not being drunk on that moment might have save him IMO more likely.
You are wearing the wrong helmets if it's not enjoyable/comfortable. I wear a helmet when I ride a bike, motorbike, snowboard etc. I'd rather not be one of those "he died doing what he loved" guys when it is entirely preventable.
Can I ask you why? To me this feels very much like: "I never used a seatbelt in my life and I'm so far unscathed after a decade of driving."
The thing is, it takes a single event to ruin your life. You get a single bad concussion and your life will always be much worse afterwards. You won't be able to concentrate, you'll have issues remembering things, your moods may change, etc. The list is very long, and very gnarly.
You have one head, and for the foreseeable future, serious injuries have lasting consequences.
To me that seems like an awfully bone-headed (no pun intended) mindset to have about such a precious item. Your head is what makes you you. It's one thing to engage in dangerous activities that are nevertheless fun. Life would be boring otherwise. But it's entirely a different thing to willfully and deliberately avoid such an obvious and low-effort risk mitigation as wearing a helmet.
I'm an avid motorbike rider with more than a hundred thousand miles under my belt. I can count the number of times a helmet saved me on one finger. But that one single case would've completely ruined my life if the helmet wasn't there.
For context, I was in my prime when helmet were not a thing, even in the professional world. Simply nobody wore a helmet at that time (look old videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpYQ4nsd8xU).
> something changed in this regard about 15 years ago
Here in Europe, I think Michael Schumacher's ski accident in 2013 changed peoples' attitudes.
When I started skiing in the mid-to-late 2000s, there was maybe a 50/50 split of helmet and non-helmet wearers on the pistes. Since the mid-2010s, it's become extremely rare to encounter anyone not wearing a helmet.
I've been skiing in three different countries in Europe this month and could count on two hands how many people I've seen not wearing a helmet among thousands with.
Even if the helmet never saves you in an accident it's usually warmer and more comfortable than a hat and will save you from many annoying bumps on the head on the lift. Here in Europe all boarders are wise enough to wear a helmet, but some skiers still don't, usually old men who have been skiing since long before helmets were a thing.
I strongly recommend helmets for all snowsports, both skiing and snowboarding. I've personally witnessed (and experienced) head injuries with both.
The benefit of snowboarding is that you are much less likely to have a horrific injury like a major leg bone shattering. Most injuries tend to be cracked tail bones or broken wrists. With the latter, you can learn to fall correctly and that minimises the risk. Essentially you want to fall on your arm, and then roll onto your shoulders and back instead of taking your entire weight on your hands.
I 100% agree. As a beginner skiing person 5 years ago, I once went way too fast and had a very small (natural) lamp. I made a backflip and hit the back of a rock with my helmet and landed in the snow.
How does this happen? I fell down on the button lift and was forced to ski down from the button lift in order to enter the lower part of the piste. I thought I had enough skills to do it, but instead I lost all control and went straight down and eventually was going out of bounds, flying in the air hitting the rock with my head mid-salto and flying into the far edge of the lower (blue) piste area.
That helmet saved my head that day, I had zero injuries, not even a mild pain. In hindsight, this was a really fun experience! (in hindsight)
I was a loose projectile as a beginner, and it took quite a while to learn how to become a guided projectile.
> I wonder if skyiing is safer with respect to head injures.
The answer is: it depends. Friend of mine got pretty badly concussed skiing a blue run (easy) without a helmet.
I've done both skiing and snowboarding, always wearing a helmet for both after similarly hitting my head on day 3 of snowboarding (though without the concussion). Plenty of falls on both but I've hit my head a lot less frequently skiing than snowboarding. Still, it can happen and, realistically, it only needs to happen once for you to experience life changing injuries.
Wear a helmet, always, regardless of whether you're skiing or snowboarding. And don't screw anything to it or be tempted to wear a camera attached to it (GoPro, Garmin, etc.).
I've been snowboarding for a few years and I always wear protection. Helmet, goggles, knee pads, wrist guards, etc. And as somebody already mentioned it is very important to learn how to fall to minimize the potential damage.
Is it possible to not land on your tailbone when you fall on heel edge? I feel like the board guarantees I hit exactly the same spot each time. I took my first snowboard lesson a week ago and while the morning was fine, the groomers had been scraped away to reveal the ice underneath in the afternoon and I did a number on my coccyx...
Furthering 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!
Always wear a helmet! Even if you are in very deep powder there can be unexpected obstacles if you do take a tumble (rocks, etc). People who do not do winter sports have this misguided thought that snow is not hard. Any base layer of snow is somewhere between clay court hard and cement hard depending on temps and water content.
Helmets also give a degree of protection from tree branches when riding in woods or glades.
And remember - nobody is perfect - edges catch, visual/audio distractions - and snow conditions can change unexpectedly. Not to mention there is always the risk of being hit by someone else.
One dude I met got his spine injured after landing on his back in a big pile of fresh snow. There was a branch. Fortunately he's back to snowboarding after a surgery.
here's a video of very experienced snowboarder hitting his head on a fresh snow day(!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjWrLtvs6Ic
I just got back from a great week in Vail snowboarding.
I've been more hurt skiing more than snowboarding. No head injuries, but ~15 years ago I sprained my knee pretty bad snow skiing. When that healed, I switched to snowboarding and haven't skied since.
The most hurt I've been was tearing an ACL wakeboarding. I pretty much retired from going hard on the wakeboard since it beat me up more than any other sport I've done including fights sports like BJJ.
My experience is that not having binding release on the snowboards was effective at turning my horizontal momentum into angular momentum when the edge caught; anchoring and slammed me into the ground [head and all). In skiing it was more "gentle" slide across the surface (of coarse until you hit something like a tree).
When I snowboarded for the first time, I ended up accidentally going very, very fast and when I tried to slow down just ended up travelling backwards. Then I hit a ridge of snow, flipped over and head-planted.
I had a helmet on, but I still felt pretty sick for a while after. I suspect it was a mild concussion...
A good helmet should prevent or at least mitigate any concussion from a beginner type of fall. Do you ride a bike? I would worry much more about clocking my head on a curb even with a helment.
> 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.
Even 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!
I'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.
Yeah, 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.
I 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.
I 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.
I 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.)
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 :).