Snowboarding

Skiers seem like nice people. They might walk down stairs like Tick Tock from Return to Oz with a crescendo of clonking boots, but they seem friendly and approachable. Sometimes they are frustrated when your snowboard gets caught between their skis on a chairlift, but that’s nothing a warm smile cannot fix. Even when a dandily-dressed family of four stops dead so they can bask in their own mediocrity on the gradual uphill slope at the bottom of a run, for which you desperately need to maintain speed to avoid having to stop and unclip your binding before being glared at by a pretentious matriarch for having the gall to point out such alpine practicalities to her dawdling children and…actually, I hate bloody skiers.

This is not a problem of my own making, but stems from a thirty-year conflict involving only two sides. As fate would have it, by purchasing my own gear yesterday I officially became a snowboarder. It is not a war of set battles and uniforms, but a mercenary skirmish in which combatants supply their own arms and armour. Anybody who has made this financial commitment understands that – apart from being reduced to two-minute noodles for next month – at least another ten snow trips will be required in order to reconcile the cost. Oh well!

Having never tried skiing, the only reasonable option is to fear and distrust what I do not understand. After just one day of snowboarding, you can utilise plenty of aging stereotypes to label skiers as retarded, help you revive old feuds and to pat yourself on the back for making the right choice. Even though 40% of ski-riders are now snowboarders, you can still class yourself as a struggling minority, thwart with oppression from the conservative bi-pedal alpine elite. Put simply, snowboarding can turn you into a bitter teenager from the nineties overnight.

Origins of the modern snowboard.

There is a certain level of nostalgia employed by snowboarders. When Michigan father, Sherman Poppen, fastened two skis together and attached a rope to the front for his daughter in the mid-sixties, a new sport was born. Thankfully, people thought ‘snurfing’ was a silly name and by 1977 insurance agencies recognised snowboarding as an activity deserving cover. Despite this, only 7% of ski resorts allowed snowboarders in 1985 and it wasn’t until the nineties that they were more common. Arguably, this piste-shredding, grungy, riff-raff helped many US ski resorts stay in business – much to the disgust of the onesie-clad Old Guard.

Like all things rad, mass adoption by bandwagon-jumping thirty year olds with a new found desire to hurt themselves like they used to has confused the term extreme with foolhardy. Combined with the growing desire among skiers to tackle terrain parks and powdery chasms, the line between the two eternal foes of the slopes has all but faded. Thankfully, being a snowboarder still makes you feel like you’re in with the cool kids at primary school, even if it’s because they’re using you for your Mega Drive.

Now, all that is left is the eternal torment waiting for that next snow excursion. Soon you’ll be leaning into your turns while riding the bus and standing sideways with your knees bent going down an escalator; all the while praying for the weekend. Before long, you will be looking completely awesome in your new clothes, bracing yourself as you climb that first mountain and - with utmost dignity - taking out three skiers when you stack it coming off the chairlift.