I spend a bit of time reading other blogs on skiing and snowboarding. I haven't found too many of interest though. I'm picky. I'm not looking for one talking about the latest tricks, sponsors, or whatever. I'm much more interested in the mountain lifestyle and commentary there within. Justin Blackburn keeps an interesting blog over at ski-blog.com about his attempts at keeping his family on the snow for the season. Mixed in are a few commentaries on the snowsport industry as a whole sometimes.
Which brings us to this post he made a little while back. Initially I read this post and thought "yep that sounds about right", snowboard theft on the mountain is high while ski theft has dropped dramatically, with a few automatic assumptions of the cool factor to snowboarding. It wasn't until this weekend that I really re-thought my stance on it. This season the staff is short ski instructors (many didn't return), and over the past few weekends we've had more snowboard instructors working as ski instructors than snowboarders. In this weekend case, we had 5 boarders teaching skiing, leaving 3 to teach snowboarding.
Taking this one step further, this season I've taught a total of 5 snowboarding lessons. Five. In past seasons that number has been significantly closer to 40 by this time of year, and it's not that we have a gluttony of snowboard instructors either. More of my lessons this season have been towards skiing. Reading through the blog posts I've clearly been more ski oriented even.
Could it be that snowboarding has reached a saturation point? No, I don't think that is it at all. Could it be cost of starting? Less likely. The lure of boots that flex is too great. Plus snowboarding is enjoyable once you get past the falling.
My guess, snowboarding has become stuck in a rut. It's exactly what the spotlighted snowboarders in this seasons' Burton film (Right Or Wrong) were worried about. Snowboarding has been marketed as needing to go bigger, crazier, and further then anyone before. Let's face it, most of us aren't getting any younger, our bodies enjoy the impact less, and there are only so many people talented enough to actually do some of these tricks. It's rare that you see a snowboard video full of big mountain riding without a cut scene to build a ramp.
How does the industry right itself? Does the industry even see this shift happening?
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I'll tell you honestly that the snowboard manufacturers have done great things for skiers. I own Burton gloves and some Burton pants because they have features that I want.
It is saturation. There are only so many people that can afford to ski or snowboard and live near enough to a resort of can travel and do it. So now that we have is existing participants that are either skiers or snowboarders and for the most part don't change and then we have new entrants that are typically teens just getting started. Now, skiing is making a comeback.
Therein lies the problem for me, and that is that there are so few new entrants to the sport. Most folks just can't afford it, so the rut is only going to get deeper. And now twins and the hip new freestyle skiing is catching on and skiing finally can compete to get these new kids into it instead of snowboarding.
My son Jake and brother Jackson are 10 and 12 (dad had a midlife crisis) and they are jibbers. Still most of their friends that casually take their week trip over Christmas snowboard for the most part, but as my kids start throwing down 360's and hitting rails with their snowboarder friends, the wow factor comes back and skiing gets cool again.
Read my post: http://www.ski-blog.com/2006/06/where_did_the_rebel_factor_in.html and it is the fact that 60 year old grandparents want to snowboard to be cool like their grandkids that is another main reason why snowboarding is stuck in a rut.
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