 Poster: A snowHead
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Fellow skiers
I've boarded twice a year for the last 8 years and got to a reasonable standard of freeriding. Am comfortable all over the mountain/any conditions(apart from whiteouts!!). So I'm a bit bored with piste cruising when the snows not so good.
I just went out and bought two planks and boots(!) so intend on learning to ski this year. Although I will board of there's a big dump!
Anyone else done this and what was it like for you?
thanks
G
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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geofferson, im giving it a go in Jan. gonna buy some boots and bring them out to practice on the easystuff if the weathers a bit ropey
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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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Im doing the same thing myself. Ive done 2 lessons and one recreational at the local dry slope and immediately noticed how much easier sking is.
Also falling over is far less painful. In the space of 2 hours I could link turns on the dry slope.
Im only doing it to skid around on really hardpack days... basically days when boarding is downright dangerous.
Tux
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| tuxpoo wrote: |
Im doing the same thing myself. Ive done 2 lessons and one recreational at the local dry slope and immediately noticed how much easier sking is.
Also falling over is far less painful. In the space of 2 hours I could link turns on the dry slope.
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Interesting you say that - I ski and have boarded only once. Was linking turns by lunchtime, if without any elegance and with boots too big for me ...
Thinking of giving it another go, just for interest's sake and I wonder if people switching find it easier than what they normally do, just because they understand the basics of how to get down a hill.
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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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that was my thinking.....you know how the snow slidy thing works.....and shouldn't have too much fear of falling
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zammo,
I never learnt to link turns on the dry slope on a snowboard before going away. I got them in the space of a hour or so on the first day on snow. I then did a week of boarding including eventually turning confidently on steeps.
I came back and STILL could not turn on a dry slope!!!
Took me about 2 sessions to get turning ... I still cant turn well on the dryslope even after 9 weeks in the mountain.
My local slope is permasnow (horrible).
Tux
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I'm the same. Need to learn to ski so I can ski when the snow is rubbish or perhaps when I am in a group with virtually all skiers..
I've found it hard going to be frank, but I did have a bit of an esf nightmare which destroyed my confidence so jacked it in for about 3-4 years, and stayed boarding so that I could keep up with / be tour guide as appropriate.
now aiming to get back on it this winter.
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It's quite funny how skiers and boarders regard the other discipline. I'm a skier who's learnt a bit of boarding and my feeling is pretty much 'ski, unless there's a massive powder dump'. People coming from the other direction seem to be of the opinion 'board, unless there's nothing more than a 1mm coating of sheet ice'.
My hunch is that both approaches are incredibly stupid 
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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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Both are great fun . . but Telemark and Teleboarding are way cooler 
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| Masque wrote: |
| but Telemark and Teleboarding are way cooler |
Is that because you spend a lot of time digging yourself out of the snow?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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G, I think the one advantage you have over total newbies is that you can focus your efforts on practice rather than trying to travel places. THis is what I found when I learnt to ski (similar amount of experience on a snowboard as you), I was lucky though as I was working as a lifty and would use my breaks and quiet days to practice and then go down the bunny hill at end of the day.
Paulio makes a good point about only doing your weaker sport when the conditions are poor frankly anything rocks on a powder day and there is much more to both than carving on icy pistes for a beginner.
My only other obsveration is that you can go uphill and skate on skis which is very useful at times
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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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| Masque wrote: |
| When you want to experience the real and visceral pleasure of riding powder on a board . . . and you don't mind slightly cramped but highly mobile accommodation, I'll be happy to share the bus with you . . . |
That's the nicest offer I've had all day
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
good point about only doing your weaker sport when the conditions are poor
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Seems like a poor strategy to me - why make it more difficult to do something you're learning to do/not very good at? I generally ski when the conditions are too hard/lumpy for boarding. This is probably doing my skiing no end of good, when I think about it.
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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've tried the other way round having always been a skier and decided boarding wasn't for me. Maybe it's the 'old dog, new tricks' thing or maybe it's just that now I'm old I can't be doing with falling over every few minutes! I also found getting on and off lifts rather cumbersome and embarassing (we'll say no more about that one eh?)...
Stick with it if you can. It would be very cool to be able to do both, although two sets of gear might damage your bank balance somewhat...
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Poster: A snowHead
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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 think skiers tend to find boarding easy to learn and vice versa. However I believe it takes relatively much longer to get to look like a decent skier.
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I'm open to persuasion on what's best in powder. What I do think is that if there's an epic day available you don't want to waste it on a green slope learning when you could be hiking off to have an epic time. There aren't enough good powder days around for that business.
As for expense of buying gear I've had my board for coming up to 7 years and it's still as good as newish(neversummer premier....fibreglass topsheet which laughs in the face of skiers running over it.....and still has as much flex in it as the day I bought it).....I got my new skis/bindings(head monster 78s) for 300 euros and boots(tecnica magnesium) for £200 so I reckon I only need to do a month on them and they've paid for themselves vs. hiring. 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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| slikedges wrote: |
| I think skiers tend to find boarding easy to learn and vice versa. However I believe it takes relatively much longer to get to look like a decent skier. |
for me, being the anti ski and despising the bloody "sport" with a vengeance I have to give it some credit and say skiing is a lot harder than I thought it was. Getting the feeling of tiny hills being steep again was weird. Bit of humble pie for me, I always assumed it was a case of stand up, go slide. I got to that reasoning by the average state of joe public on a ski holiday.
Agreed about the taking longer to be a decent skier.
edit: whoops, BZK, moving on.
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stab, do you really despise it? Why?
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paulio, to tell the truth people who can actually ski and have moved on from screaming at red poles and wearing jester hats I'm ok with, I dont want to do what they are doing but appreciate what they do is the same thing I'm doing, going up and down a mountain all day for fun.
But the whole ski holiday, ski classes, apres ski, world cup race, tight trousers, tarquin emily and charly, old empire attitudes and snobbery drives me up the wall. I have to be honest and say I've never been anywhere else other than where I live and zermatt so I dont know what the rest of the world is like, I only base it on where I live.
My forum signature changes every so often, every sig I use here is an actual quote someone has said to me in real life and has been deadly serious when made. My favorite was the old english rascist xenophobic woman last winter who told me where I'm originally from is a dump, it has far too many ethnics there and pakis are the worst, how do people expect me to be when that is standard mindset of most people I run into where I live?
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stab, if all skiers were like that I might play chess instead, but happily they aren't and I'd say they are in the minority. I'm just a working class boy from the Welsh valleys and I seem to get on OK with skis
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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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stab, my experience is that those berks are pretty much confined to the Tarentaise, so if you stay out of there you never see them. They certainly wouldn't stoop to skiing down here in the south. Thank God.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| stab, if all skiers were like that I might play chess instead, but happily they aren't and I'd say they are in the minority. I'm just a working class boy from the Welsh valleys and I seem to get on OK with skis |
I was born in pontypool 
Lizzard, where I live seems to attract the "the british invented this place" types. I dont know the whole history thing though, I only started boarding properly 5 years ago when I moved here, didnt even know what a ski resort was until 2000.
My standard test when giving out skis to customers is 1st offer them a board, some give a friendly "no thanks, I'm too old to kill myself on one of those but try getting my kids to have one" while others really let rip what they think of boarders, they assume I ski. Infact when I tell people I dont ski they reply "goodness me, why do you live here then?". 
There are some decent ski people I've met though, especially the ones from this forum who bring me cakes to work 
Anyway, it all gets policed and regulated when I have lunch break and put the disguise kit on
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| stab wrote: |
| where I live seems to attract the "the british invented this place" types. |
Wengen or Meribel?
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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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Wengen but is meribel the same, must make a note never to go there.
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stab, if you're in Switzerland, the 'we invented it' brigade are probably historically correct, though this is no excuse for their terminal bad manners. It's not like they are personally responsible for climbing the Matterhorn and then and inventing downhill skiing when they got tired of tobogganing.
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You know it makes sense.
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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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stab, I know a lot of skiers. Hardly any of the skiers I know who are engaged with the sport as opposed to the ones for whom it's just an annual holiday are upper middle class or above.
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Poster: A snowHead
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slikedges, I dont know if it's a class thing or not, I found the ones with the real money are friendly and down to earth and up for some banter, it's the ones desparatley trying to be seen as having money that generally dont respond well to banter, I'm sure there are those types everywhere, talking as loud as they can on the mobile "can you fax it through to the chalet, I'm not in the office this week"
I seem to have hijacked the original thread, which was about going mad and learning to ski.
Don't do it
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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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Lizzard, and that is the one thing that is keeping me going this year. Last year was a record year apparantley, I can't see it being like that this year with the swiss franc being so strong/everyone else being weak.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Masque, you gonna ski a teleboard in New England? Excellent. I think I want to see this.
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Masque, isn't that just a skwall with telemark bindings on it? What for?
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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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wtf  my brain says mono ski, my eyes say race board stance, and I see poles. I can't cope.
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Alastair Pink, I saw that. Not convinced, still think it's a skwall with funny bindings.
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FAQ
