Jump to content

Recommended Posts

How about being sensibly attired?

 

What's the opinions for:

 

Skiers: wearing very serious mountain wear i.e. mountaineering duds and tech. jackets - are these seen as cool, sensible, professional or dorky?

 

Snowboarders: wearing trousers that have the crutch near their knees and aluminium foil type jackets topped off with a helmet?

 

Telemarkers: a moving hazard, graceful and agile, professional, or just too damn hard?

 

SZ

Link to post
Share on other sites

"cool" is in the eye of the beholder but I find most people that THINK they are cool, are actually not, and most people that don't think they are cool, really are...

 

Reference SZ's questions on opinions

 

Skiers (japanese as I haven't seen many gaijin skiers) - Not cool though they think they are, speeding down the mountain like they own it, turning right next to you even though the "gelende" is 50 meters wide, or skiing in groups of 10 or more, right behind each other and taking up the entire slope side to side making it difficult to pass, then skiing to the front of the line at the lift even though there are 30 people already waiting in a nice orderly line, or if they do go to the back of the line, don't think anything of touching your board with the tips of their skis over and over from behind in the lift line until you turn around and polite say "stop it". Bladers are pretty cool. If I had to give up snowboarding, I think I'd learn to blade before resorting to long ski's.

 

Boarders - Wish I had some baggy pants - mine are size O but still barely fit.

 

Tele's - I like them - usually very polite skiers and pretty predictable in their path so its easy to avoid them - also, they don't create mogul bumps which are the boarders nightmare.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The least cool guys out there are the jump suit wearing, unformed cap sporting mogul skiers. Especially at the 47 terrain park. Always entertaining to ride up on the lift and watch these guys methodically swishing their hips back and forth.

Link to post
Share on other sites
 Quote:
Originally posted by RayInJapan:
Tele's - I like them - usually very polite skiers and pretty predictable in their path so its easy to avoid them - also, they don't create mogul bumps which are the boarders nightmare.
Not a Tele'er, but I will take this remark as a slip of the thought and consideration process. This has been done before, but boarders are just as much to blame for moguls as skiers.

As far as looking cool goes, I don't need to look to be cool cool.gif \:D
Link to post
Share on other sites

First for the moguls - I have been to resorts that are mostly boarders (Geto, Hachimantai, and Hakkoda) where fresh powder gets chopped up, but doesn't turn into big carving bumps like the slopes at Appi, Shizukuishi, Tazawako, Amihari where it seems 70 percent of the folks are skiers. Skiers take the same line down the slope, and the end result is the mogul bumps. If you're a skier, its no big deal, and I suspect quite the challenge to try and turn in the exact same spot as the person in front of you.

 

If you're a boarder though, trying to take that line can be more effort that its worth as most boarders can't (or don't want to) swish their board back and forth every 3 feet like a skier does. So we end up carving bigger turns which inevitably lead you over the mogul bumps. In the AM, they're a good challenge to try and avoid but by the afternoon, there are so many of the bumps there's no way to avoid them.

 

About the "slip" part - no slip at all - based on my experience, which is all here in Japan, and mostly Japanese skiers for obviouse reasons, Telemarkers don't go speeding down the mountain with a very "uncaring" attitude. Someone else mentioned "mountain manners"...I think Tele's have the best manners of everyone on the mountain. When I said "avoid them", I meant in the sense of knowing their intended path so I can give them a wide berth without having to worry about getting to close where a last second move by either results in a collision. I don't have that same confidence when I'm passing a regular skier. Just this past sunday - I was at Amihari, a small resort next to Shizukuishi and the slope opened to about 75 meters wide. There were lots on skiers on the right side, so I went all the way to the left side and this one young lady comes zooming by on the right and then turns in front of me and stops right in front of me so I had to stop to avoid hitting her. She could have easily skied in behind me and then but I guess that would have inconvienced her so instead she chose to inconvience me.

 

Don't get me wrong - I've seen some inconsiderate boarders too, and I'm sure skiers have plenty of stories about what "punks" we are too...

 

The bottom line I guess is "different strokes for different strokes", and there are inconsiderate people everywhere you look no matter where you're at, but here in Japan sometimes it seems as though some people really take advantage of the Japanese custom of not saying anything instead of speaking up when they see an indiscretion.

 

This is probably a topic for another thread, but i wonder how it would go if a couple of resorts in each region went "skier only" and "Boarder Only"....

Link to post
Share on other sites

some my friends back home r 'very cool' and as the years pass they r getting less and less interesting. whereas the guys that never cared have retained their appeal.

 

i can feel any coolness i had dripping away.

 

but the boardin will keep me hip!

cool.gif

right, ladies?

Link to post
Share on other sites
×
×
  • Create New...