Skiing with Tunes -- Good or Bad? - Page 3

I don't ski with a music box, tho I do play tunes in my head a lot.

And I don't care at all if other people ski wired up to their pods or whatever.

But I don't want to hear them.

If you're standing, sitting or skiing next to me and I can hear your music, you are inconsiderate.

We should not, however, indiscriminately kill inconsiderate people.

1. It's messy

2. It interrupts the ski day

3. It creates reams of paperwork, costing us more of our tree population

Eventually, the inconsiderate will die without any effort on our part, after which they will spend an eternity being tortured by demons with dull, rusty scissors and blowtorches while rabid vermin gnaw at their innards. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

"TO YOUR LEFT",     person in front swivels head around and abruptly stops in front of you, why? because they could hear but couldn't hear what you said,,,, headphones... That is the problem with head phones, even when they are turned down, or one is in, you can hear but often can't hear what people are saying or the direction that they are behind you.       I will say that I did ski with a walkman for a couple of years and it was the day that I caused a huge avalanche up on Vasquez ridge (berthoud) that helped me make a decision NOT to wear music anymore.      I popped a cornice and simply could not hear the loud crack and thunderous noise that my friend described.       After that day I decided that LIFE was more important than music. :) 

 

 

^^^Gosh, maybe you shouldda read the whole thread or at least the whole page before confirming my position on the topic then spending all that time carefully crafting such an original argument against it

Thats what happens when the music is not loud enough. Unexpected shouting from the rear is rarely understood. The normal  response is "What?" even in cases where the person being shouted at is not wearing a helmet, not in a noisy environment, and not engaged in a complex activity that requires attention.

 

When one hears a voice from behind and to the left, the natural instinct is to turn one's head to the left to see who is yelling and why. When my head turns, the rest of me tends to veer in the same direction. Therefore, being able to detect the direction of a voice increase the risk of collision. So music in one ear is preferable to none at all.

 

Better yet, loud music in both ears will eliminate the problem of me reacting to your shouting at me. If you cannot safely overtake, please follow at a safe distance.

Telerod, you make a good point.  

Wired in tunes can be a detractor, but then..........

Some people are clueless whether or not they have outside distractions.  

 

Some people are keenly aware of their surroundings whether or not they have wired in tunes. 

Situation Awareness

I ski witth tunes and voted as such.  However I do try to be smart about it.  I do not use in ear monitors as they would block out too much ambient noise that you might need to hear like, "Hey watch out for that cliff!"   I use one of the Tune Up kits for my Giro Omen helmet that puts speakers in the ear pieces.  I keep the volume to a moderate level so I can still converse on the chair lift or on the hill.  Music has been a big part of my life (as a fan not musician) since I was an early teen.  I have used music through out the years to help me when stressed or to help calm me when anxious, like when I am about ready to push off into a double black diamond rock exposed slope or to explode out of the gates in one of my races in the adult league I ski race with.  To be honest once I am skiing at speed, the wind noise drowns out most of the music but the beat still helps me stay in rhythem.  I learned to ski bumps better that way back in the day with a Sony Walkman in my fannypack and headphones over my ball cap.

 

Just like listening to music in a car, on on my motorcycle you have to be smart and safe about it by not listening at levels that might be damaging to your ears or to your well being.

 

Ski on!

 

Rick G

I like to hear my edges on the snow, not having that feedback, well, I am not as happy skiing.

I prefer "snow" that doesn't make noise when I ski through it. Hearing my edges detracts from the experience in my opinion. 

In all reality a ski day is a wonderful time for me no matter what.

 

I forgive those who make mistakes and help those who need it when possible. As in every part of life some people are just not going to fit in your world. You can either laugh it off or let it turn you into some fire breathing monster. I come up to the hill to enjoy life, not bring the same competitive "get in the front of the line and win the race" attitude that I have to deal with in the flatlands. I have never been in such a rush that I can't just mellow out and maybe get to the bottom a few minutes later than I might have.

 

With or without music, I hope everyone always has a ski (or board) day that is forever a great time in your memory.

 

Chillax, Dudely-Bro!  I was baffled by the above rejoinder, because my post wasn't aimed at you specifically.

I wanted to make an observation regarding the goofy CA law you cited, tho, so I quoted just that link.  I was commenting on the law, not your post.

 

As to the rest, I was simply taking mild exception to a few previous posts throughout the thread that seemed to liken skiing with earbuds to skiing while hearing-impaired or driving with loud music.  I honestly didn't pay attention to who submitted the said posts, however.  T'was late, after all.  I suppose I could go back through the thread and I.D the posts in question, but it's insufficiently important enough to me to overcome my default laziness regarding doing so.  Furthermore, I must get back to the Kardashians marathon on T.V.!

 

Besides, CR, I like to limit my debates to one topic per person, and you're my go-to sparring partner for gun control, which hasn't been addressed in this thread yet....  

 

I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow at this one.  Our ski area has very long, winding, and flattish "Cat-Track from Hell" leading from our back bowl to the base area..  If I'm on it at the ned of the day, someone will invariably come up upon me from behind at some point and give an "On your left/right" warning.  It's so common I expect it, and I've heard it countless times.  I've yet to panic at the sudden noise, veer into the path of the overtaking skier, and create carnage on the cat-track.  I actually appreciate the heads-up, and I maintain my line until the skier has passed, which is the desired result of the warning.

 

Likewise, I've given the same warning on occasion when coming upon a slow skier/boarder ahead of me, and have yet to provoke collision-inducing panic.  It's true there have been the rare instances when the person may not have heard me, but I've never seen what is essentially viewed here as a courtesy warning cause someone to whip around in confusion and cut off the overtaking skier.  I'll concede it's a possibility, but my experience tells me it's just not that likely.

 

Of course, different locales often have different standards of acceptable practice, so I suppose what's cool here may not be so much elsewhere. 

When skiing alone in close to empty slopes I like to listen to music.

There's some interesting stuff coming out about awareness meditation that checks with what I learned in competitive athletics: Anything that redirects awareness from the immediate sensory inputs of your body - everything from snow underfoot to how your trunk is feeling during a turn - will degrade performance. You don't see elite athletes using headphones.

 

That said, a lot of folks like tunes. Personally, the few times I've tried it, certain tunes may make me feel like a superhero when I ski. Major limbic system rush. Not sure that has much to do with how I'd look in a video, though, especially when the terrain doesn't cooperate with the beat. 

 

As far as the safety angle, can't say. But I note the number of pedestrians wearing headphones or bluetooths who are stepping out in front of cars - or colliding with others on sidewalks. Hmmm. 

Not true.  tons of elite athletes use headphones and play music.  

Perhaps not when they they're in peak competition, but definitely during practice sessions for their sport.  

 

But anyway personal choice-whatever makes thing fun and exhilirating.   We're at the recreational level so it's all compromise, otherwise you could also say, nobody should have any alcohol on the slopes or other "recreational enhancers".   If we want to be just in competition mode: We should all be wearing racing suits and aero helmets instead of goofy jester hats, and retune our skis before every run, and beat ourselves up for every mistake we make on the slopes.

 

Since we don't live in the wild anymore and don't have large critters feeding on us, we need this to weed them out

 

How long before we see people texting while skiing.

If you're a committed, decent skier, then you should know your limits and what interferes with your concentration, awareness, and so forth.  I listen to music when I'm by myself, night skiing, and/or taking it easy out there.....I find the tunes give me a good rhythm.  If I'm with someone, need to concentrate on more challenging runs, or it's really busy out there, the tunes go off so I can be very aware.

 

Can't say there's a right or wrong answer, only what's right or wrong for you.  Know your limits, be safe out there.

I have to admit, I love to ski with headphones when the trail I'm on is fairly underpopulated.  But I also find sometimes it detracts from my enjoyment.  On a super easy trail without too many people, music can work well.  But I've also noticed that I can pretty well tune it out if I'm concentrating on something.  And there are days when I don't want music to interfere with the silence or nature.

It all depends.  When I ski by myself I prefer tunes but when with company I don't....for the most part.  If I do they are just turned down as background noise.

Exactly.  Use your brain and your accumulated skills to overtake and pass with room to spare.  Reading some of the worry-wart hand-wringing here about sensory acuity, stereo-hearing-essential-for-directional-information, and distraction in general, I have to guess that some of you ski relatively slowly and when and where it's crowded.  I can't identify with any of those three as being quality skiing.  Velocity is why we ski, and if you're stuck with weekends and holidays, you're stuck; deal with it.  Skiing in traffic takes a lot of looking around and making judgments that are similar to what we do on multi-lane freeways, but without the lanes: calculating speeds and vectors for lots of other actors and adjusting your speed and lines accordingly.  It really doesn't make a difference to me whether I have silence, talk radio, or music while driving, and music or not while skiing is the same, for me.

 

Someone mentioned head swivels; yes, and often, especially where trails merge.  One quick glance can let you get back to building and releasing G-forces with confidence.

 

I tried skiing with a Walkman back in the 1980s, when that was the most compact and portable device available.  Not bad, except for that yard sale on Squaw's North Bowl in a foot of pow that permanently separated me from my cheapo Radio Shack cassette player.  An iPod safely zipped into an interior pocket is close to perfect, albeit with one slender wire to keep track of.  I've skied hundreds of days without tunes and dozens with.  All were fun, but the experience of listening to one's own custom playlist while enjoying an uncrowded bluebird day is just short of Nirvana (the Buddhist kind, not grunge).  I've had it loud enough to hear easily over loud powder and soft enough to go away gently in/on the soft stuff; depends on the mood.  I got tired of pulling one earbud out for chairlift or on-slope conversations, so I put a little vinyl bumper (1/2") on the pause sector of the iPod's control wheel so I can feel it easily through my jacket pocket from the outside.  One touch stops the tunes, and two restore them if it's been a few minutes.  More tech than that I don't need.

 

Of course, as a singer-songwriter, sometimes DJ and sound guy, who got started with pro sound doing ski race announcing with upbeat music, maybe I'm more invested in having more in my ears than the wind.  I've never felt that it made my skiing less safe or enjoyable.

 

If it's so crowded that I feel like I'm dodging unguided missiles all around me, I stop skiing.  When I lived in Bend in the 1990s and had a flexible schedule that let me choose my ski times, if I happened to go up to Bachelor on a weekend or holiday day for some reason, the first collision near-miss was my cue to go home for the day...

I think I have to balance personal enjoyment with safety.

Low volume in one ear is my compromise. I figure I won't be enjoying anything if I don't hear someone yelling "on your right" and we crash.

I like skiing with my tunes.  Since I ski a LOT by myself, I like having the company that my music provides.  If I'm skiing with someone, I don't even plug my tunes in.  I have been a little concerned about the impact on my situational awareness however.

I have seen some other peoples with ear buds in and that is a little disturbing.  They have ZERO situational awareness.  It would seem like it is just as inadvisable as driving with headphones on.  Of course it's OK for me to ski with head phones 

I know for sure some of these tune lovers have the volume too high as 1) sometimes I can hear it as if the ear buds were in my own ears, and 2) I've had to YELL repeatedly to a guy that I want to pull down the bar/foot rest. Clearly those are chair situations, but one guy yelled to his friend whom I had just passed on the cat track at a volume that must have been intended to carry forty miles that I was coming up on the guy's left. Apparently it didn't have quite the intended consequence as he did a sharp right turn, headed perpendicularly up the embankment and crashed in front of me, narrowly avoided, wires quite conspicuous.

Detracts from be-here-now. Never listened to tunes when I ran competitively and never listen while skiing. In running was always coached to keep focused on my body, my form, very meditative. Lose focus, lose form, lose the race...

tunes and sativa, only way to roll
 

Since I started skiing in the 70s I have always had the tunes on if I was skiing alone and sometimes even when I was skiing in company because I found that I skiied a little better to certain music.

 

Got the rythmn going somehow. Anyone else find that. Avalon for GSing down a wide groomer and a bit of Techno for the bumps.

 

Still skiing to some of the same tunes that I started out with on a Sony Walkman. Stones, Roxy Music, Credance Clearwater Revival, ZZ Top etc.

 

Use the type of headphones and volume that allow me to hear if someone is coming up from behind. I fear the out of control skier or boarder.

I just set it to the latin jazz channel on sirius and if that dont work then the hippy jam band music it is. Nice percussion and a bright horn section all i need.
 

No tunes when I ski, run, bike, or walk, lots of things going around to afford any distraction.

Tunes all the way, I ski a lot by myself so it is nice. I also listen to them louder than I would imagine most here do. Not loudly enough for someone next to me on the chair to hear, but probably pretty close to it. I find that after I've started skiing down the fall line I lose any sign of the music anyway, don't hear it at all. I also wait for the trail to clear if I'm skiing inbounds, never had an issue all season. Like stated many times in this thread if your awareness level is advanced you should be fine. Look back up the trail before you stop on the trail, and look back up when you are ready to continue. When trails merge and they have the signs that say "Look"... actually look. Pretty simple stuff here.  The only reasons I can think of to not listen to music are if:

 

-you are skiing in a secluded area and someone is calling for help

-you are skiing in a secluded area and need to be 100% focused on the elements around you

-you are skiing with company (if with close friends I sometimes listen to tunes but not with relatives or people I am only kind of familiar with)