What do you dislike about skiing? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by COSkiGirl 

The drive.  I live in Denver, 'nough said. 

I live in Co Spgs,  so it takes me an hour to get to I-70.  See,  it can always be worse

AM.

Weather dependence

Seasonal

Very expensive (I need to go on holiday abroad to ski)

boarders.

The cost and the shortness of our season.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whiteroom 

I have friends who are surfers, they travel to cool tropical places that cost next to nothing. I have a friend who spent 6 months in Indonesia on $1000... said he lived like a king. All you need is surf trunks and a pair of sandles. I wish ski travel were so easy (and cheap).

 

So I 'dislike' the expense and gear requirements.

How much is a good board?

When the lifts stop spinning and there is snow still on the Mt. Freezing Rain comes in second.

I don't like the way my memory of perfect skiing moments fails to jibe with the reality of my actual in-the-moment experience.

This is particularly prone to happen on a dark, blustery afternoon in December, when the thermometer says +2 degrees F., and the light is so bad over the blue linoleum of man-made snow that I might as well just close my eyes, and the drive home is going to be a black hell, and - after the weeks of anticipation leading up to my first day of the season - for some reason my skill level has dropped about two points, and it sure is hard to see and hear and breathe past my full facemask and neck warmer and beanie and helmet and glasses and goggles, and my turns just don't feel anything like I remember them feeling on that sunny April day eight months ago when all was right with the world and I was so sad that the season was ending.

Plenty I dislike about resort skiing (in that order)

1) The expense! I swear I'll skin up eventually. No more lift tickets. I don't care for the grooming anyway.

2) Too many people, on the lift or on the mountain.

3) The grooming and lift spoil the natural scenary.

Back country skiing, which I already do using x-c gear on low angle terrain. It's much more of what I like, if only there's more snow to make the season long enough to be worthwile, that is.

Parking.

Ugly weather - only sometimes, but enough of the time to be unavoidable.

Other people.  

- MISter ANTHROPE

Boarders sitting in a 10 wide line across the trail just over the crest of a hill.   

Boarders dragging and slamming their boards into my brand new $1400 skis in the lift line.   

People that bounce the lift when it stops.

Cigarette/weed smoke clouds on the lift.

Lift riders that feel the need to drop snow/trash/spit on skiers that ski under the lift.  I got a bloody nose from this once.

People who can't seem to understand the concept of staying off the back of other people's skis in the liftline.

Rain in winter.

Grooming on the relatiavely rare powder days we get here in upstate NY.

All the young ladies who constantly flirt with me in the lift line as if my wife wasn't even there. I hate that.

I dislike:

- getting up early

- racing other drivers up the hill

- jockeying for table space at lunch

- waiting in lift lines

- the fact that the lifts stop spinning at the end of the day and I have to go home

No one of you has experienced a bus trip in a bus full of the average Italian.

Whether two- or single-planker is totally irrilevant.

1) Boarding and Loading the cargo area :

    Everyone wants to be the first. First to load its stuff and first tto board so to take the "better" seats (whatever they think "better" it means) but

2)Everyone wants to have his/her stuff in the cargo bay in front and on top of everybody's else. So, once

   the stuff is positioned and they've boarded and reserved the seat, back again to the cargo area, to dig their own stuff (thrown in as entropically as it gets) out from the pile and position it on top and right there where they can grab it

3)Once reached the destination, everyone wants to get hteyr stuff first, those who weren't able to put it right in front, dig their own throwing everything else around. The concept of collaborating to unload is alien

4) Same as 1/2 applies to the suff left in the bus while on the slopes and 1/2 and 3 applies again to the return trip

I went night skiing in February, because in the 07-08 season I experienced it for the first time and liked it.

But I guess I removed the bus ride experience. This year it was prepotently brought back to my memory

and I promised myself  "never again a "day" trip on a bus, with people I do not know".

Cost.

Too short a season here.

Cost.

Long lift lines; though I usually luck out, sometimes I don't.

Cost.

The difficulty of getting good boots that perform and fit.

Cost.

Worrying about frost bite.

Cost.

Unnecessary restrictions on my freedom, such as no skiing in the woods between the trails, closing terrain for no good reason, not allowing people to ski nearby off-piste side country or back country, not being allowed to ski in a "racing tuck" (J-peak), not allowing people to ski wherever they want (e.g. permanently closed cliff bands, etcetera).

Cost.

Never enough room in the 'bring your own lunch' area of the lodge.

Cost.

Needing a taxi to get from your parking spot to the ski hill if you arrive late.

Cost.

People who don't know, understand or care about the skiing responsibility code.

Cost.

Glasses fogging up.

That's about it.  Oh, did I mention Cost?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghost 

not being allowed to ski in a "racing tuck" (J-peak)

At Jay Peak you're not allowed to ski in a racing tuck!? Do they actually enforce this because what if someone who doesn't know this goes into a racing tuck? I'm curious about this as if they enforce it, many people would probably get their ticket pulled for accidentally breaking this rule.

Skiers and snowboarders out of control.

The constant need for more.

It just keeps going. I thought it peaked when I was skiing 100+ days a year and scoring heli time.

Then I left the industry because skiing seemed like a cover for life. Skiing seemed like it became something to maintain, a drive to never let go, a drive to allow ignoring all other options. It reached a point where it became its own cycle and I felt like that wasn't enough anymore. Skiing for skiing wasn't enough. 

Now that I'm away from the industry, buy my gear, have ample pow (and I mean ample) to my disposal during the season, I still wish I had bigger lines at my disposal. And I know that if I had bigger lines, I'd need more of something else. 

I currently have 4 gondolas that access untouched snow in tight/techical trees to my private use. Literally. And for some reason, I still need bigger lines. More fear. I get caught in avies, duck branches at 40mph, and literally have a pow-skier's heaven of a ski life. Untracked snow from 8 (yes 8) to 4:30.

But I need more. It's not enough. And that sucks. It's my crux.

I have gone entire seasons without touching snow and still haven't figured out a way to be happy with what I have in my skiing life. 

I'm not convinced that rehab or quitting would solve the problem. I think the only way the problem will dissipate is if I fully accept that it won't. And- that is a tough lesson to wrap my mind around. 

Skiking4,

About 20 years ago I got pulled over at Jay Peak by a patroler  below me waving frantically.  I was not skiing close to anybody.  I was simply arcing SG turns down the steepest longest runs I could find while in true Crazy Canuck style " tucking all the way", as was my habit back in the day.

When I pointed out that I was in control as proven by my instant emergency braking maneuver pulled off in response to his waving, hadn't broken any part of the skier's code, and couldn't understand what the problem was, he replied that I was in a tuck, and that wasn't allowed.  I asked for clarification, as I thought all I had to do was follow the skier's code and I didn't want to get my pass pulled.  As he explained it, I could ski as fast as I wanted, just not in a racer's tuck. . 

EDIT: I suspect that accidentally breaking the rule will net you a warning.

We live and die by snowmaking in the mid-Atlantic.  I thank God for it every time I'm out there skiing.  But I must admit it is pretty nasty to round a bend for a nice view and see pole-mounted snowguns lining both sides of a trail as far as the eye can see.  Maybe someday they'll figure out a way to have the sauce squirt out tree branches or ooze up through the ground??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jamesj 

We live and die by snowmaking in the mid-Atlantic.  I thank God for it every time I'm out there skiing.  But I must admit it is pretty nasty to round a bend for a nice view and see pole-mounted snowguns lining both sides of a trail as far as the eye can see.  Maybe someday they'll figure out a way to have the sauce squirt out tree branches or ooze up through the ground??

Like those cellphone "trees"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by epic 

 

Like those cellphone "trees"?

LOL!  They only put the cell towers that look like fake trees in the middle of downtown with factories and stuff. In the country they use the ugly eifel tower looking ones.  They should do it the other way around..

 Uh, you're paying WAY TOO MUCH for your skis!!!!  I max out at $475 for my skis and $100 for my bindings.  Any more is too much.  It's a good thing you joined us so you can learn how to get your stuff cheaper!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cypress 

 

Boarders dragging and slamming their boards into my brand new $1400 skis in the lift line.   

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sibhusky 

 Uh, you're paying WAY TOO MUCH for your skis!!!!  I max out at $475 for my skis and $100 for my bindings.  Any more is too much.  It's a good thing you joined us so you can learn how to get your stuff cheaper!

 

You pay way too much for your skis. $350 or less w/clamps and shipping.

 

$1400 MSRP.    I wouldn't pay anywhere NEAR MSRP.

...or wholesale for that matter 

1. carrying skis

2. carrying family and friends skis, especially all the kids

3. the cost, its downright brutal ... worth it but still nuts even at the small hills in upstate NY 

I really can't stand it when my face gets cold, it makes me want to cry like a little girl, so I wear a neopreme mask, and a full face helmet (with built in stereo to protect me from hearing other skiers while I'm racing strangers on blue groomers).

Oh, and I hate when wax gets on the sides of my skis, it is SO gauche, and makes me seem less dashing when I am posing in lift lines.

 Fixed it for ya.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volantaddict 

I really can't stand it when my face gets cold, it makes me want to cry like a little girl, so I wear a neopreme mask, and a full face helmet (with built in stereo to protect me from hearing other skiers while I'm racing strangers on blue groomers).

 

Oh, and I hate when wax gets on the sides of my HEAD skis, it is SO gauche, and makes me seem less dashing when I am posing in lift lines.

 

 

I hate "jibbers" lining up to block a trail, too...that's what we called the snowboarders who did that when I snowboarded with an alpine setup. I still dislike them but it's easier to maneuver around them with skis.

Riding over the top of your gear in the lift line seems to happen with equal frequency in the lift line, whether I was on a board or on skis. I usually look at the person behind me doing it and say "Hey, I didn't rent this stuff, so back off, please". That usually does the trick. There doesn't seem  to be a predilection that boarders do it more than skiers, at least, to me.

I hate straightliners, too....There's nothing that screams "I can't control myself" than a bomber. Before flaming, I realize that there are people here that like pointing down the fall line and letting it rip and I mean no offense, but realize that there are people not as skilled as you that can only bomb the hill.

A note to the guy stopped for the GS style skiing. That was a common complaint on the alpine message board. These guys ride the narrow, squaretailed snowboards in hard boots and lean way over on their carving. The image is one of speed and, invariably, they complain someone stops them and tells them they are going too fast. You have to realize, you fall outside the middle 70% of the bell curve when it comes to skill level. The bottom 15% is snowplowing their turns. Ski patrol is used to seeing people either in the bell curve of skill or below. If you are at the top end, sure you maybe going faster but you're in control...they may not keep that in consideration.

I live in Dallas, driving to any skiing is 13-14 hours at least. I would drive every weekend with no complaints if I lived in Denver.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by COSkiGirl 

The drive.  I live in Denver, 'nough said.