Snowboarding is a dying breed? - Thoughts

stevie999 wrote:I get confused at the amount of boarders who just seem to sit in the MIDDLE of a slope all day. Is that what they hit the slopes for?

Very few of them seem to actually know what they are doing. The good ones are great, and of course we all need to learn....but why rest in dangerous places? Anyway, rant over.......

We came up with the term, a 'plant of snowboarders' for groups of them sat on the piste.

A mate used to go into 'out of control snow plough' mode and head straight for them screaming as he went. Believe me they got out of the way when 20 stone of ex-para headed towards them!
He doesn't do that anymore, he's joined the dark side and now boards.

Boarding is the best thing that's happened for ski technology in the last 20 years.

I've got a lot of time for boarders, or 'gays on trays' as we like to rib them.

I regularly go end of January with a group of 20 mixed ability skiers. This year in westondorf there were 10 of us (including some of the not so confident skiers) when we came across a very icy red and I noticed even the Austrians wobbled for a second!

My friend avoided a skier and went over the edge and down a pure ice ravine towards the wood she tumbled for a minute at least and lay still in the distance. Another friend was about to go the same way when a snowboarder came in front of her to slow her down then his mate took over and stopped her dead when he dug in.

My view on snowboarders changed that day - btw the first faller was very lucky with just bruises and got up to ski to the end of the slope she got balls that girl.

:shock:

andyhull wrote:

We came up with the term, a 'plant of snowboarders' for groups of them sat on the piste.

Anymore than 6 in a group was often referred to as a tw@t of boarders in my day.

Having returned from the dark side, I can see both sides of the story, I'm much happier on skis now and for the first time in 5 years I didn't say 'I might hire a board this week' when I was on holiday - I never do, I enjoy my skiing too much now.

A lot of the staff in our hotel were young trendy little things, and they were all skiiers which surprised me. I think a lot of it's down to the technology changing and the introduction of twin tips and snow parks no longer just being a boarders only park.

Everyone can enjoy the mountain as they want, funnily enough I saw the return of quite a few scooters in La Plagne :shock:

It's an ever evolving sport I guess.

andyhull wrote:
A mate used to go into 'out of control snow plough' mode and head straight for them screaming as he went. Believe me they got out of the way when 20 stone of ex-para headed towards them!
He doesn't do that anymore, he's joined the dark side and now boards.

I've been known to do that when I see people taking a leak on the piste.
Scares the cra* out of them.

The problem with boards is it gets flat in places!

Snow boards certainly changed the ethos of ski making and transformed skiing. Mind you, if we had mountains in England you wonder what some of the F1 teams would do to ski design.

There are definitely more skiers than snowboarders now than it was 6-7 years ago. Some boarders in our group switched back to skiing. I think it's due to advances in ski technology. Main advantage of snowboards was in powder, but modern skis made powder skiing easier. Main disadvantage of snowboards are not even flats, but bumpy narrow traverses that are often inevitable if you want to get to an interesting terrain and powder stashes. And this disadvantage remains. We skied Col des Mines over the busy period and traffic on a traverse meant that boarders (and they are all of a very good standard) just couldn't make it and had to drop in to Vallon d'Arby side. For skiers the traverse is a lesser problem, even when it's so busy so that you can't get to a good speed to clear all dips and rises, you can always side step. As for sitting in the middle of the piste skiers do it too, they just stand, not sit, but I guess many of them would if they could - it's just easier on a board:)

Is there a website called J2snowboard?

Just a thought

"Board Sunday"?

:roll: