Posts tagged snowboard
Favorite ski or snowboard memory from growing up.
04 months ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
As the fall colors have come out in full force and the countdown to the coming winter season opening drops from months to weeks, it’s a great feeling of anticipation, but also one of remembering winter’s past. In particular those memories of sliding on snow in the valleys and hills on Minnesota…
- Some of my first recollections of sliding on snow are cross-country skiing on trails around my childhood home of Rochester, Minnesota in under bitter cold gray skies. But, I got the downhill bug on a little molehill which was called the Rochester Ski Hill and consisted of a warming hut, a Poma lift and two trails which I remember (not as fondly) side stepping to help groom them out. I also recall a lift ticket was something like a buck, but that little slice of fun closed many, many years ago.
- I loved school ski trips to the little resort in the Mississippi River valley called Mt Frontenac, now just a golf course, where I learned to make turns with tips from my elementary school teachers and figured out how to ride a tow rope and a t-bar (after plenty of trial and error).
- Finally, I have lots of great memories of making turns down the slopes of Welch Village (also in the Mississippi River bluffs) with the Rochester Ski Team and learning how to rip turns around bamboo stuck in the snow – I also learned that it’s not a good idea to straddle a flush (thank goodness I watched someone do this). But we also learned a lot of other great skills, like how to time our breaks in the lodge on sub-zero days so that someone was always coming down the course with the rest of us shivering in front of the heaters to warm up again. Of course, this is also where I had my first powder day, a 6 inch ‘dump’ that we skied all evening, even though we had no clue about what we were doing.
Ah, those memories are enough to get me revved up for the coming season…what about you, drop a ski or snowboard memory in the comments!
Photo credit: Welch Village Twitter backgound
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Sidecountry
010 months ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
A recent article about sidecountry access from ski resorts titled, “Sidecountry Ski Deaths Spur Safety Debate” focuses on the fact that deaths and rescues of skiers and riders in the out of bounds, but readily accessed terrain at many ski resorts called “sidecountry”, are increasing. It’s interesting that this article focuses on the fact that these incidents are increasing but on the “why”. I know this has been hashed through before, but I do think that this phenomenon is related to the rampant promotion of big mountain skiing and riding as well as the fact that equipment advances have made the “steep and deep” terrain that is accessible through many backcountry access gates more readily rideable. These factors, along with the push by resorts to open terrain the past decade that has never been open to the public before are all contributing, in my opinion, to the increase in accidents and deaths.
‘d like to pose the question, should resorts that offer sidecountry access be addressing these safety concerns more directly in their marketing efforts, or are the on-hill educational and signage that they are providing enough? As a skier I do think that most resorts I’ve seen do a rather admirable job of signing and trying to educate their customers on the risks of accessing the sidecountry from their boundaries. That noted, it could be said that some of these resorts’ marketing departments are doing an equally good job of selling that sidecountry access to their customers, many of whom should not venture anywhere near to the sidecountry due to their lack of appropriate knowledge, equipment and/or both. Are we walking a dangerous line between the freedom to experience what the backcountry has to offer us (with a little lift assist), and giving perhaps to easy access to potentially deadly terrain which we are in some ways encouraging them to experience? I don’t think so, but what do you think?
Photo credit: Flickr user dvs
Snow Sports Sales – Some Good News
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
SIA (SnowSports Industries America) recently released retail sales number (Word document download) for Snow Sports from the 2009-2010 Winter Season and it looks encouraging. While numbers didn’t quite rebound to 2007-2008′s record setting level, last season was a good bounce back from a disappointing previous season:
Another interesting set of numbers from this report can be found in the sales statistics numbers:
Two segments stand out in posting year to year declines in sales – telemark and snowboard. Telemark isn’t a huge surprise as I personally know a number of people who are moving on from telemark to randonee/AT, as well as the fact that this segment is quite small to begin with. Snowboarding on the other hand is something that could be a concern to the winter snow sports industry. The snowboard category is much larger and has been a huge boost in filling the declining numbers of ’baby boomers’ who ski. The NSAA’s ‘Model for Growth’ is evidence of how the winter resort industry clearly recognizes the challenge of replacing these participants. As it’s an integral component to the future in winter snow sports, I plan on looking into the NSAA’s Model for Growth concept in a future post, but I’d love to know what you think about these retail number, please let me know in the comments!
Chart credit: SIA End of Season Summary Report
Airline baggage fees and the ski industry
21 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
This post languished as a short draft through the whole winter. Then I took a trip to Colorado about two weeks ago on Delta, brought my own ski equipment with and realized that if I hadn’t been able to pack lightly (3 day spring trip), that I would have had to check an additional bag, putting my checked bag fee up from a not so awful $50 to $120 extra (round-trip), almost as much as the Salt Lake City to Denver fare itself! I ski with an NTN telemark setup, which isn’t available for rent in many locations, so if I want to ski on gear I’m used to, I have to bring mine with. With that, here’s what I had written back in December:
There’s an interesting article regarding the airlines’ baggage fees and their effect on ski retailers in the Dec. 1, 2008 issue of Newsweek magazine. While it was neat to see my colleague quoted in the article (Krista), what really struck me about the article was the fact that it just concentrated on the bring the skis/rent the skis question and didn’t even touch on the fact that some people might decide to not even take a ski or snowboard trip this winter season.
Based upon early numbers from the 2009-2010 season, people took more ski vacations this year than last year. But, as airlines continue to add fees upon fees, will this become an obstacle to further increasing destination ski visitors in 2010-2011? I know I would think twice about booking a ski vacation on any airline except for Southwest thanks to their being the only airline to still include two checked bags in every fare!
Photo credit:
Week of Recovery
02 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in video
Nope, I’m not referring to the mini-rally on Wall Street. I’m referring to the fact that I’m ‘recovering’ from helping to put on one of the biggest events of our season, the IDPC (Intelligent Design at Park City). After spending most of Thursday through Saturday away from my desk, I’m just about to caught up, so I thought that I’d post a video showing highlights from the event (it really was quite cool – jumps, to jibs, to superpipe, to quarterpipe):
Another day at the office
22 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in photos
I spent practically the entire afternoon today in back-to-back meetings and felt as if I were going backwards instead of forwards. However, it’s awfully hard to even think about complaining about a day that starts off like this:
I guess it just goes to say that working for a ski resort is not without some benefits! 
To Tune or not to Tune?
03 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
I enjoy listening to music while I’m skiing on my own. I make sure my Ipod is tuned to a level where I can still take part in a conversation on a chairlift, select a play list that fits my mood, and off I go. I don’t always plug in when I’m riding alone, but I do find that myself skiing with tunes more often than not as I find it can help pass the time on the lift and also add some much needed rhythm to my skiing.
Because I do like to ride with my music, I do often think about the potential downside: is it going to distract someone from hearing another person overtaking them or is it going to make so someone doesn’t hear a snowmobile coming along a trail? I imagine it probably will someday (if it hasn’t already) and that makes me wonder if having music on while skiing and riding is something that resorts will try to limit or is this just something that we all need to be aware of and ski and ride appropriately? Anyone have any positive or negative personal experiences to add to this?
Photo Credit: maxf
(I love this photo because the gondola icons look like little Ipods to me!)
What's the matter here?
43 years ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
The title of this post doesn’t much relate to the topic I have in mind, but I really like that 10,000 Maniacs song. Anyway, my topic is an issue that is currently percolating in the winter resort/snowboard community. To point, Burton created graphics for two of their current snowboard lines that some consider ‘controversial’. Their Love and Primo lines have graphics that feature suggestively, scantily clad Playboy models and line drawings of self-mutilation. I’m not attracted to either of the graphics personally and while I’m not personally offended by either set of graphics I wouldn’t spend over $400 for them either. Neither am I concerned by the fact that young teenage boys might get their hands on these boards, because I think that it’s a parents’ responsibility to manage what their children buy and possess. The issue I do have is if employees of a resort are using these boards while on the job which to me is a simple case of employee standards and conduct.
To sum up, I think this is a case where a large corporate company is attempting to create shock value in order to try to stay ‘core’ in their industry. This is a tough line to walk in the action sports industry where many companies have enjoyed great success only to crash just as quickly because their customers decided that their products were no longer ‘cool’. Burton knows how the game works and have been on top for a long time – I don’t think there’s any reason to think they’re going anywhere now.
