jaywbigred
Active member
From my own personal observation and perspective. Kids these days, bot male and female, generally speaking like terrain parks. While a snowboard may be a bit easier/quicker to pick up the general technique of turning and getting down the hill on than a pair of skis. In the park setting, having both feet able to move independently of each other for balance purposes has to be a plus for someone learning and using a park.
Purely speaking from the perspective of seeing kids (I'll call kids say age 15/16 and under) who are the future of our downhill snowsliding sport, what I see first hand over in the parks at Carinthia at Mount Snow these days is a mix of say 2/3rds -3/4ths skiers to 1/3rd - 1/4ths boarders. Just yesterday that had a age 12 and under comp at Mount Snow called the Grommet Jam. They had 57 participants - 40+ were on skis.
Now if you look at the "20 something" generation in the same location, the ratio is flipped most days (although not as wide a gap as it used to be a few years ago). I feel that as the terrain park era has evolved over the last decade or so, what used to be almost an exclusively snowboard environment has now become one where for the average park user, it's a bit easier (and hence more "fun" for them) on 2 skis vs. on a board.
Also as an observation, I rarely see any boarder on a true carving board in hard boots anymore. Used to see those on a much more frequent basis, and as someone who really enjoys and appreciate some serious carved "trenches" that some folks can lay down, I miss seeing those in greater numbers on the hill these days
I think you can still ride an edge and carve on "regular" snowboards with normal snowboard boots. This weekend, at Campgaw Mountain, of all places (a county-owned NJ hill with ~250 vertical feet), there was a kids snowboard slalom race going on, and they were laying down absolute rails. I saw maybe two or three sets of carving boards with hard boots, but most were on more normal gear and were riding awesome arcs, even at age groups 7-8. So fun to watch.
As a 33 year old skier who grew to love skiing even during its uncool period, I think the only explanation that makes sense is the twin-tip, park ski evolution, which itself is a product of snowboarding! But I concur DrJeff's earlier comments re: Carinthia and so forth.
I think there is much more crossover and unity between the formerly very distinct skiing and snowboarding cultures. Much more blending. Which I like so much, it makes the mountain experience so much better, more brotherly (sisterly).
That being said, my 13 year old cousin just switched to snowboarding and did make some "skier" jokes when he and I were riding together at Shawnee (PA) this weekend. It saddened me; I thought his generation might have missed that.
