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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: February 2008
Rollin’ Down the Mountain
How snowboarding saved the slopes
Story by Bob Burns
Not so long ago, there was a clear line drawn in the snow, separating skiers from snowboarders.
Today, there’s hardly a trace left, due in part to another line — the bottom line.
Once derided as ruffians in baggy pants and hooded sweatshirts, snowboarders are now as commonplace as snow-making equipment. The animosity between snowboarders and downhill skiers that roiled resorts nationwide in the 1990s has largely given way to acceptance and accommodation.
Perhaps snowboarders best resemble shaggy St. Bernards, rescuing a frozen industry with a shot of medicinal brandy.
“Everybody would tell you that if it weren’t for snowboarding, the ski industry would be in a lot worse shape than it is now,” says Tim Cohee, the former president of Kirkwood Mountain who now heads the Alpine County resort’s real estate division. “Snowboarding created life for the industry.”
According to SnowSport Industries America, a trade association representing the winter sports industry, 6.4 million Americans skied at least two times in 2006. The number for snowboarders was 5.2 million.
In 1996, when the Tahoe City resort Alpine Meadows lifted its ban on snowboarding, about 10 million Americans skied at least two times compared to 3 million snowboarders.
“It’s hard to imagine standing in a lift line and not seeing a snowboard,” Cohee says. “We’ve gone way beyond the bandit years.”
Sierra-at-Tahoe, an El Dorado County resort located off Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe, features six terrain parks designed specifically for snowboarders, who now account for 62 percent of the resort’s lift ticket sales.
Donna Vano competes for the snowboarding team at Sierra-at-Tahoe. The 54-year-old South Lake Tahoe resident has won numerous national titles in snowboarding and is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest professional inline skater.
“I never had an ‘I hate skiers’ attitude,” Vano says. “We all got along and rode together. The line was drawn in the sand — or the snow — by the public.”
When snowboarding began catching on in the 1980s, many skiers resented sharing paradise with unwashed invaders. The newcomers were considered reckless. Snowboarders seemed to revel in the renegade image, further widening the divide.
“When snowboarding came on the scene, it attracted a group of people who didn’t come up through the normal ranks,” says Dave Ross, director of Alpine Adventures, a Sacramento institution that shepherded generations of skiers into the sport. “They didn’t understand the rules of the road, so to speak. That created a lot of trouble.”
But it was the ski industry that was really in trouble. The sport has always been expensive, relying on a passionate and generally high-end clientele with an insatiable fix for moguls and powder.
“The ski industry hit a wall in the late 1970s,” Cohee says. “We knew it would happen, but it was still a shock. Baby boomers weren’t skiing 50 days a year anymore.”
Snowboarding struck an immediate chord with young people, many of them non-skiers. The equipment is much more basic than skiing: wide board, comfortable boots and no poles.
In children’s eyes, snowboarding looks like a cool thing to do, and it’s relatively easy to learn once the newcomer gets past the first bruising attempts. The success of the televised X Games also played a role in advancing snowboarding’s appeal.
Skiing, by contrast, is probably easier the first time out, but it’s much more difficult to do proficiently. But most skiers wind up being “terminal intermediates” — good enough to stay upright on moderately difficult runs but unable to clear the final jump to expert status.
“The learning curve for snowboarders is much easier than it is for skiers,” says Bill Proffit, longtime owner of Land Park Ski & Sports in Sacramento.
To accommodate snowboarding’s growing popularity, resorts spent millions of dollars building terrain parks with multiple thrills and great terminology — fun boxes, rails, half-pipes, wedge jumps, tabletops, rollers, jibs and kinks.
It’s a language Vano speaks fluently. But she sees the bigger picture, too, having started out as a skier. An adrenaline junkie from an early age, she enjoyed skiing moguls more than 20 years ago at Kirkwood before injuring her knee. While rehabilitating, she became interested in rollerblading and skateboarding.
“I was actually forced into snowboarding because of my injury,” Vano says. “I couldn’t wear a ski boot anymore, and most of my friends were snowboarders, so I gave it a try.”She and her husband, Alan, direct South Tahoe Snowboard Series for the United States of America Snowboard Association. That’s not the couple’s only commitment to extreme sports — Donna and Alan were married in Hawaii on their skates. As they said “I do,” they dropped into a half-pipe.
Vano says the animosity that once existed between skiers and snowboarders is mostly a thing of the past. She speaks enthusiastically of the “crossover” parties she occasionally attends at Sierra.
“We’ll be at the top of the mountain and say, ‘Does this boot fit you?’ We’ll switch over and ski or board down the mountain,” Vano says.
Kevin Cooper, the director of rentals at Kirkwood Meadows, also enjoys both activities. Cooper began as a skier, switching to snowboarding, then returning to skiing when he relocated to Kirkwood in 1993.
“If it’s powder, it’s a board,” Cooper says. “If it’s hard-packed, it’s skis. And it also depends on who I’m dating at the time.”
For the most part, however, snowboarders and skiers don’t cross over. Where the two cultures have drawn closer together is in equipment. With equipment sales declining steadily, ski manufacturers began creating skis that borrowed some of the features of snowboard design.
Skis have gotten much shorter in recent years, for one thing. Shaped skis are much easier to turn. Twin tips allow skiers to go forward and backward, encouraging more skiers to join snowboarders on the half-pipes and in the terrain parks.
“The experienced skier was able to go to the next step with the help of shaped skis,” Proffit says. “Some say those skis came from snowboards. Mountains have changed because of the prevalence of half-pipes and terrain parks. There’s a good interplay between riders and skiers.”
Cohee compares the technological innovations with those in other sports: surfing, waterskiing, tennis and golf.
“The new tennis rackets, it’s almost impossible to miss the ball,” Cohee says. “Look at the drivers they’re using in golf. The guy who used to drive the ball 220 yards is now driving it 280 yards. The same thing has happened in skiing.
“There are more skis that will perform in any conditions,” Cohee adds. “I grew up on racing skis that had to be constantly tuned. I’m 52, and I’m a better skier now than I ever was, and I’m enjoying it more. There’s a spectacular array of skis out there now.”
At Land Park Ski & Sports, Proffit takes a visitor through his chalet-style shop, comparing the prices of skiing and snowboarding equipment. He picks out equipment that would be best for beginners, intermediate and advanced skiers and boarders. The ski equipment is slightly more expensive, but not significantly so.
But sales of both ski and snowboard equipment were down in 2006, according to SnowSport Industries America. Sales of alpine equipment dropped roughly $20 million to $355 million, and snowboard equipment sales fell $26 million to $181 million. Weather plays a prominent role in sales, and 2006 wasn’t the best year for snow across the U.S.
The industry would be breathing much easier if there were more Eric Dadmehrs around. Dadmehr began skiing as a boy in his father’s native Iran. When the family moved to Sacramento, Eric was close to ski heaven.
Now in his mid-40s, working for the state in the Department of Public Health and married to a woman who doesn’t ski because she can’t stand the cold, Dadmehr still finds the time and money to ski 40 to 50 times a year.
He makes at least one winter pilgrimage each year to Whistler, the world-class Canadian resort located outside Vancouver. How much does he spend on skiing?
“It’s a secret,” he says. “A lot.”
Dadmehr dabbles in snowboarding and cross-country skiing, but he spends the bulk of his time on skis. He’s witnessed firsthand the changing landscape at Tahoe-area resorts.
“I’ve been involved with the ski swap at Sacramento State for years,” he says. “Before, we had one rack of snowboards. It seems like we add another rack every year, to the point where it’s now about half the merchandise we sell. Snowboarding has caught up with skiing.”
His only gripe with snowboarders is when they go down the mountain sideways, creating ice patches for skiers.
“You have to respect the snow, and leave it in good condition,” Dadmehr says.
What about the future? The business always depends on the weather, and ski resorts are concerned about the effects of climate change. One thing is certain, however: Snowboarding is not a passing fancy.
“As snowboarders age, I think they’ll stick with it,” Kirkwood’s Cohee says. “Ask a 20-year-old surfer whether he thinks he’ll be surfing when he’s 60. He’ll say yes.
Snowboarding has the same quality as surfing. I don’t think the 45-year-old snowboarder is all of a sudden going to say, ‘I look silly doing this.’”
Proffit believes his business is still paying the price for resisting snowboarding when it first arrived on the scene.
“When snowboarding started to take off in the mid-’80s, we were a little reluctant to change,” Proffit says. “Some ski areas forced families to split up. We have to make sure that we keep whole families involved.”
Kristin Cattell, the communications manager for Sierra-at-Tahoe, says participation among skiers will rise as they take greater advantage of the man-made amenities that make snowboarding so attractive: the half-pipes and jumps.
“Skiing is really coming back,” Cattell says. “You go to a terrain park, and you see almost as many skiers as snowboarders.”
But the ski industry can still learn from its boarding counterparts. To help snowboarders get over the difficult hump of their first few attempts, Burton Snowboards sponsors a Learn to Ride program in which novices receive individual attention from the minute they arrive at the resort. The feeling in snowboarding circles is that if a novice gives the sport two or three tries, they’ll be hooked.
“Snowboarding is way more progressive than skiing,” Cooper says, citing the Learn to Ride program at Kirkwood as a prime example. “They want to bring more people into the sport.”
Vano says there’s plenty of room on the mountain for both activities, though she disputes the notion that snowboarders are prone to being out of control.
“I’ve seen more people run over by skiers than snowboarders,” she says. “It’s a big world. We’re all out there to have fun and be safe.”
As Dadmehr puts it: “It’s the same God. They’re both religious experiences.”
