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Picture this: You’re flying down a glittering snow-covered mountain with the wind in your hair. The crisp air brushes across your face and fills you with a feeling of freedom and joy. Then, out of nowhere, an obstacle crashes down in front of you! You swerve, narrowly avoiding certain doom, and when you look back you see the culprit: a snowboarder sitting right in the middle of the slope.
To most skiers, this scenario is all too familiar. So this year, think carefully when choosing your winter sports. Would you rather be an elegant skier or just another oblivious obstacle?
Student skiers at AHS seem to agree that snowboarders are a major inconvenience. From constantly having to unclip and reclip their bindings, to plopping down in the middle of the mountain, they always seem to be in the way.
“I think that snowboarders spend more time sitting on their butts than they do actually [going down] the slopes,” junior Sabine John said.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever tried getting off a ski lift next to a snowboarder? It’s nearly impossible! They’re incredibly uncoordinated with only one free leg and the other dangling uselessly, trapped in their bindings. They swing their boards everywhere with a terrible lack of control and often fall while getting off, causing a pile-up at the top of the lift.
“They are a lot less conscious about sharing the space,” John said.
Skiers have to weave through a sea of snowboarders reclipping their bindings at the top of each run. And in terms of accidents on the slope, it seems that snowboarders are often the cause. With their big egos and apparent lack of spatial awareness, they constantly cut people off or even run directly into them.
“I’ve gotten hit by a few snowboarders,” John said. “Never skiers.”
But what is it that makes snowboarders act so recklessly? Well, according to some student skiers, the reason may be linked to their egos.
Many people seem to view snowboarding as the “cooler” sport. This may be due to its similarities to skateboarding, because it’s a newer, more modern sport, or because it’s generally easier to do jumps and other tricks on a snowboard. But whatever the reason, this snowboarding stereotype is causing major issues on the slopes. Because many snowboarders believe themselves to be “cooler” than their skiing counterparts, they tend to pay less attention to the needs of others and act with only themselves in mind.
Even when they aren’t directly getting in the way, snowboarders still manage to ruin the snow for innocent skiers.
“[Snowboarders] shred up the entire hill,” an anonymous junior said.
They’re constantly carving their way across the mountain and digging the edge of their board into the snow, creating ridges and potholes that completely ruin other peoples’ runs.
And beyond the clear problems that snowboarders present, skiing is simply more accessible for a wider variety of skill levels. Beginning skiers can cruise down the easier slopes with only a fall or two, while snowboarders spend more time on the ground than not. This isn’t to say that skiing is simple, only that it’s a more beginner-friendly sport.
Those who participate in both winter sports often say that skiing is easier to learn but harder to master. This means that skiing is fun from the start but you can always learn new skills, so it never gets boring. Because it’s fairly easy to pick up the basics, you can start working on technique building much more quickly than you could with a snowboard, instead of putting all your energy into making it down the hill alive. Plus you can spend your time on the slopes instead of just undoing and redoing your bindings.
Skiing is fun and exciting without ruining others’ experiences, which makes it far superior to snowboarding. Don’t waste your time sitting in the snow this winter, put on a pair of skis and get the most out of the mountains!
