I guess it all started back in 2010. My buddy Kyle took me out to Northstar for the first turns of the season on opening weekend. I snowboarded religiously that year, praying to the gods to give Tahoe more snow so that I could get a good turn or two in on the weekends.
I watched hours and hours of snowboarding movies and edits before finally stumbling upon this gem,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzRfMKEY144
which was my first real exposure to freeskiing. Eventually I came across Newschoolers, and my life took an immediate and uncorrectable turn. Summer NSG was undeniably sweet and it got me through the offseason all right. I kept snowboarding that next year, until the edit I credit to changing my life was released.
To this day, it's still my favorite edit around, and it's ultimately what made me decide I wanted to ski. So I did what any self-respecting broke NS'er does, and I saved up enough money to buy the cheapest set up I could find on B/S/T. It was a pair of beat up ar7's with sth 16's, and some old dalbello boots. All of this was mine for a whopping 200 bucks or so.
Flash forward to this year, and my skiing hasn't improved in the slightest, but I'm interning at Newschoolers now and I'm the most stoked I've ever been. Seeing countless threads and articles on the debate between snowboarding and skiing, I've decided to weigh in on the topic as a guy who has done both in hopes of resolving the debate once and for all.
COMPARISONS
Starting up:
Snowboarding- When I was learning I fell. A lot. My body was covered in bruises at the end of the day. The boots are a whole lot comfier though
Skiing- Known as being easier to pick up initially, which is true as I was very uncoordinated as a kid and I did it alright.
Getting Good:
Snowboarding- From experience, once you get the hang of snowboarding, it just clicks. Progressing is much easier and a whole lot faster. Going through the park and trees and powder even seems natural to some extent.
Skiing- In my opinion, skiing's much harder to actually get good at (In terms of park I mean, I don't have much experience in the backcountry with either)
Mastering the sport:
Equally difficult. I mean, has anyone actually truly mastered the sports as a whole? As BWalmer put it, "Add in park and big mountain, then it's pretty much equal...they're both limitless."
Injuries/Going through the years:
Going down a groomer, if a snowboarder falls, people usually don't bat an eye, but when a skier takes a hard bail, even to a snowboarder it looks brutal. No matter how hard it is, a yard sale is a yard sale and it looks gnarly. However in that case, skiing is a bit more forgiving in that the equipment does come off to prevent super serious injuries sometimes. I'd say that skiing takes more of a toll on your body than snowboarding does in your later years though.
Why do these comparisons matter?
They don't. There shouldn't even be a comparison because I'd even go as far as to say it's the same sport; after all, if alpine skiing, telemark skiing, monoskiing, snowblading, etc. all fall under the same blanket category of skiing, then why can't snowboarding too? At the end of the day, when the boots come off, we all look back at the mountain and agree on the same thing: we'll be enjoying the snow capped peaks for life. So again, skiing: it's just snowboarding. Or vice versa, whatever floats your boat. In the wise words of WankerTanker and division.bell, "Fuck anyone who hates on either sport, shit gets old."
*quotes were pulled from http://www.newschoolers.com/ns/forums/readthread/thread_id/756251/
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