 Poster: A snowHead
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My Dad certainly fancied himself on a pair of planks (he began in his teens in the 1930s) but struggled beyond the skis-locked-together 'Arlberg reverse-shoulder position' of 1963. It was actually difficult for him to elevate his technique when plastic boots replaced leather, and skis were revolutionised, because his technique had formed to control equipment that was difficult to control. He'd notch up all the black runs, though.
My late Mum, though, always feared slippery slopes of any sort.
Family skiing is very much a phenomenon of the post-1960s world (at least as far as British skiing is concerned), and largely a result of user-friendly hardware and skilifts. Did/do your parents ski, and did they introduce you to the sport?
Were they rubbish, or do they put you to shame?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I was from the first generation in my family to do many things that parents and grandparents never had the opportunity to do. These included skiing, holidaying abroad, going to university, etc, etc. If it wasn't for school skiing trips and cheap , purpose-built accommodation in the Alps I would never have had the opportunity to try skiing. I will be forever grateful to those few teachers who were generous with their time, and for my parents who bent over backwards to be able to afford to send me skiing.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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It would have been prohibitively expensive for my parents. Would never have crossed their minds. Apart from the Middle East during WW2 they didn't venture abroad until their 60s when I persuaded them on a trip to France.
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rob, certainly in the 60s, 70s and 80s school trips became a hugely significant catalyst. I guess the growth of family travel, coupled with the liability/time restrictions on school travel, have made the direct parental factor stronger again.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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rob@rar.org.uk, I am in the exact same boat as yourself. Big thanks to my parents and those teachers. I have even hinted to my ma and pa that they should consider coming on a ski-ing trip with me one day. I think they are missing out massivley on the whole experience. Especially my dad who has a passion for the outdoors.
Snowden just doesn't compare to the towering alps!! 
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Hmm, my mother started skiing in the early 50's probably with a civil service club or group of some sort, I think she first went to Zermatt (possibly the year after the epedimic) but also to Wengen in 1954, she stopped skiing I think in 1980 when she was told she had to have new skis (and also boots) up until then she'd had leather ski boots and just could not get used to the plastic ones, I'd say she was a good competant skier capable of all terrain with good to excellent style but not a particularly fast skier.
My father I think must have learn't to ski in the pre war years, by the time he met my mother in the very late 50's or early 60's he was already an excellent skier (yes they met in Wengen) he was a really good skier, both on an off piste, good enough in fact for the head of the ski school to offer him a ski instructors job there in the mid 60's, if he'd accepted he would have been the first non Swiss instructor in the Wengen ski school, sadly he didn't or I might have been a much better skier, he was a technically very good skier capable of all terain both on and off piste at all speeds though never really interested in racing he would on occasion enter a race for the hell of it, sadly he passed away in 1979.
I first went to Wengen at 3 months old, somewhere I have some pics of me on a tobbogan with a sheepskin blanket from that time, I went again at 3 years and 3 months when I started skiing, by the time I was 8 or 9 I was in the top ski school class for kids and capable of doing any run at high speed, jumps, tricks and off piste bought no fear, sadly maturity (and about 10 years of not skiing due to exams, college and university) has taken its toil and I now get thoughts of my own mortality, I'm somewhat heavier now than I was then and on the rare occasions that I fall it hurts more. Instead I prefer to ski at my own pace, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, more often as a gentle cruise taking in the sights and sounds on the slope. I'm addicted to Wengen and hope one day to be able to sell up and move out there permanently, of course if I ever do so I'm sure that there will be a spare room or two for any fellow snowHeads who might want to visit 
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My dad would never go skiing and my parents could never afford it (until recently) either. They've never discouraged me from trying skiing myself although I think they're now a little worried after breaking a bone on my first skiing holiday!
So I guess I'm a better skier than them by default!
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D G Orf, wow. You come from a dynasty of skiers!
There are photos of my mum and her brother sledging down the side of Ruapehu - as children of NZ sheep farmer they were "rich" enough (and living proximally close enough) to have a few long weekends in the snow. However wealth is relative and the photos clearly show that my Mum's wearing PJs under her overcoat and wellies ....Can't imagine where they stayed as there wasn't a ski industry in NZ then, but I suspect they stayed at a local lodge owned by my Grandpa's photography club, hence the photos.
I suspect my Nan & Grandpa knew how to strap on skis but, despite an early taste for snow, my Mum never made it onto planks of any kind. However she was the one who dragged me round the country, thru snow & ice, thinking it good to build both my character & my understanding of the great outdoors. Bless 'er, it worked.
However I only learned during my final year at school when I was ambushed into a ski weekend with a group of friends. But my skiing career actually only took off after university when I made friends with someone whose own parents ran a University ski club. Since her folks were responsible for instructing a new generation on planks, they'd already adapted to the new style of skiing by the time I met them in the mid/late 1990s. Wasn't until I skied Wengen this season that I got to witness the old-style "wedlen" action.....what a hoot!!!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Neither one of my parents ski, I'm the first of my family to take up skiing, however, two cousins on my mum's side are keen snowboarders. (If that counts!)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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D G Orf, £10???  In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea. A cup o' COLD tea. Without milk or sugar. OR tea! In a filthy, cracked cup..... etc.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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PG, I can't remember the exact details with regard to prices but it was definately under a tenner, sadly my mothers reccolection is not what it once was or I'd get more details, mind you in those days you had to walk up most of the mountains before skiing down them ! No piste machines either !!
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Hotel? Luxury! we used to DREAM of staying in a hotel! Woulda' been a palace to us. We all had to stay in a small shoebox in the middle of the piste. But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe you.
And so on.....
Sorry DG.
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You know it makes sense.
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I learned to ski with my parents in the early eighties and both still ski now, in fact I have 1 family ski week with my parents, brother & his wife & kids plus various hangers on. Both parents have at least 2 and sometimes 3 or 4 weeks per year, like I do, and they're decent skiers who'll get down anything on-piste without falling, but when me & the bro take them off-piste they struggle - Mum knows all the theory and tries to do it properly but has multiple falls, and we only take her down stuff in good conditions since she ruptured her ACL in St Anton a few years ago. Dad is very safe but style is a completely foreign concept to him, and he often reverts to what he calls his battleship turns - very slow, very long radius but completely invincible!! Both still climb in the Alps for several weeks in the Summer, plus live in the Lake District so are fairly fit and keen.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I'm a first generation skier in our family, and I hope to God snowscreamer doesn't stumble across this thread.
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Poster: A snowHead
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You wouldn't get my parents near a snow covered slope with a bargepole.... But as for the next generation, Okanagan Junior is rising 4 and already pretty confident/competent, to the extent that he tackled his first black (admittedly not a difficult one, and in easy conditions) at Easter this year. But then he's been on skis (if only for a few minutes at a time initially), regularly year round since he was about 8 months old, so he's got no excuses for not being able to do it. I'm just hoping that I can keep up with him for a year or two more.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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So is the next thread to be "How does your skiing compare with your kids' skiing?"
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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My parents considered skiing was for toffs only. They never even considered a skiing holiday. My kids are better than me, but i think that is due to the fact they are brave, fit, injury free, well balanced and intelligent.
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I ski very blue reds. My mum can hardly get down (from half way down) the nursery slope in a straight run!! She had one lesson and didn't really like it. Hence when I'm in France I have to know how to order food and say 'Help' in French, cos there's no-one there to do it for me!
Julia
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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PG, er ... it's worse. Ahem, much worse. There, I said it!
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comprex, you had hands?  Talk about the good life! Our hands AND feet froze off overnight in the shoebox, and we had to WRIGGLE up to the top of the mountain.
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I have to admit that I belong to the David Goldsmith, and D G Orf, club. My parents always skied - they honeymooned in Wengen and I started ski-ing there when I was three. I progressed to Coggins and then DHO trainee as did my brother and sister. My mum gave up ski-ing ages ago after a serious fracture of her ankle (not ski-ing), but my dad continued to ski until about 1992. He doesn't anymore partly due to lack on money and partly due to multiple joint replacements (also very fat now, and looks after mum). The last time I skied with him (1990ish) I still found it difficult to keep up - he goes more or less straight down with little wiggles - I like to turn properly and control my speed. He skied for Cambridge University in the late 40's and early 50's, having started when he was 7 in the Pyrenees (he was born in France). He competed in the ski jump on Hampstead Heath in 1951 (I think - see latest DHO Journal), and once skied with Emile Allais. He was a lifelong off piste addict.
So am I better than him? - I wish I was!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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So what's your earliest memory of skiing? I remember sitting on the gate of a level crossing in Kitzbuhel in 1959, watching a train whistle past us, through vast fields of snow.
Everything seemed huge and magical. The nursery slopes looked as if they stretched forever, and I guess I skied down a bit of the Hahnenkamm at the end of the week - a very easy bit - through the woods.
Even a school playground seems enormous when you're six!
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David Goldsmith, I have some recollections from age 3 or 4 of snowploughing along the woodpath in Wengen
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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You know it makes sense.
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slikedges, he's not from Yorkshire by any chance?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Mine's great, they've never been.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Kramer, No, but he may as well have been 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I wish I could ski as well as my step-dad, david@traxvax I won't say how old he is but he's pretty ancient. He can still keep up with his sons, ones 28 and an instructor and the others 24 and a competitor in extreme ski and snowboard events but he can't snowboard like us and I'm a better diver.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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IncogSkiSno, no doubt someone will quote facts and figure, but I'm sure that skis are faster than snowboards (flat out), presumably because they're longer, and the heavier you are, the faster you go, as I know to my cost (being 17 stone). I'm not sure why heavy=fast; it's not a simple gravitational affect, as Gallileo showed us. Friction, probably.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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richmond, here's a long thread about that. In a nutshell, you're right about friction. Specifically, it's the air resistance as opposed to friction between the ski and snow.
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richmond, Thanks for confirming that one  I've always said my speed 40mph ish (clocked on speed run in Chatel) which was slightly lower than the others, was due to my weight 9.5 st compared to husband 13 st. Although on the piste I am probably a little faster than my 13 st husband - not that going faster makes you a better skier!
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I learnt to ski(and got totally hooked) aged 19, it was something I had always wanted to do but had never had the opportunity. Lack of family £££.
My father never skied, well not downhill style anyway. He grew up in Poland, and came to the UK with nothing more than the uniform on his back at the end of WW2.
My mother had skied a lot in her youth, an annual family trip to Celerina (near St Moritz) where they always had the same guide/instructor year after year. She was in the British Army Ski Team in 1945. I have some medals and a set of her skis, poles and boots.
My Grandmother was from Australia and was a member of a ski club there that built the world's first dedicated mechanised ski lift (a rope tow off a tractor). I have photos of her and her family skiing in full length Edwardian era skirts. My Grandfather was given no choice...learn to ski. So he did, but only eventually at the age of 67.
Both my parents are long since dead but two years ago my aunt went back to Celerina and found the son of their old ski guide/instructor. He still remembered our family as my aunt did his.
I don't know why I never got my Mother to take up skiing again after I had started. It's too late to ski with her now and I deeply regret it.
My kids are great skiers (aged 14 and 11). Lucky them...
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laundryman, thanks. Without reading that entire thread, I doubt that wind resistance can be the whole story. The increased pressure on the planks will have a friction effect, I'm sure and will certainly accelerate melting of the snow under them, which will speed things up a bit.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Well, I expect most of you already saw my thread (with photos) about my father skiing in the early 1930s.
Obviously he was very good when he won that race, but by the time I was getting good enough to appreciate it his ballance and co-ordination were already deteriorating due to Frederick's Ataxia (like MS) and he finally had to give up when I was about 14 (1962). We went twice more with him not skiing (the first time he tried a ski-bike with very short skis on each foot - much the same as ones you can get now.
He took my mother skiing for the first time (when he had recovered from the Typhus he caught in Belsen)in the winter of 1945/6. She was a keen skier, though never an expert. I remember her with the first metal Head skis. They had no damping and vibrated badly.
She hasn't skied since those family holidays, though once in the mid 80s I took her and my wife to Wengen. Cathy doesn't ski (she has a weak left leg from Polio, but can walk normally) so they walked and went on a trip and my mother looked wistfully out over the slopes from mountaintop restaurants (she must have been over 70 then).
After skiing with my parents I skied briefly once at a traumatic time with an early girlfriend, and then lapsed till I took it up again in 1983. Since then I've skied every year for 3 weeks (except one year when I damaged a knee ligament on the second day).
Since I now ski almost exclusively off-piste, looking for the steep and deep and sometimes climbing up on skins to find untouched snow far from the lifts, I suppose I've returned to something nearer to the skiing he did before the war. Though of course the equipment is much easier now. I hope he would have approved.
(I still have my old wooden skis and 2-layer lace-up leather boots from the late 50s when I was a boy. Perhaps I should photograph them and put the photos on snowheads).
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FAQ
(I am grateful really.)
He's mellowed a bit now! 
I didn't learn to ski until I was 40 but was hooked from the start. I do wish I had the opportunity to ski when I was younger as it must be great to ski with the abilities of 