First time skiing, friend was desperate to get someone to go so I went. Paid for everything like the meme says except the lessons. "I can teach you! Let's take this lift up to that ridgeline". I don't know any better so up we go. Get there and it's pretty high, oxygen is thin and a blizzard moved in. "Ok, ready?" He says. "What do I do?" I ask. "Just crouch down and twist back and forth to slow yourself. Here we go!" He replied and then off he went.
It started out fine. I'm upright, the snow is powdery so it is helping to slow me down and I kinda got the twisting movement right, for the first 50 feet. Then the ground dropped beneath me and suddenly I'm cruising at what feels like mach speed. There is no twisting anymore, just barrel rolls. I finally stop and my arm is no longer in the socket. I just lay there wondering if I had died and hell really was frozen over. Then a ski guide came up, asked me if I was ok. "Uuuuughhh" I answered him. He then asked me if I could make it down on my own which I answered with a stare of both death and fear. Another dude arrived with a sled. By that time I had regained the ability to talk and popped my arm back in place. At the bottom they offered to call an ambulance but I was largely ok, got the direction to the ski lodge bar instead.
10 hours later my friend finds me. "There you are! I was wondering where you went!" This is a story of the first and last time I went skiing.
My wife's uncle took her to a black diamond route her very first time on the mountain and abandoned her, just like your friend. She's not really willing to try skiing again because of the trauma of that experience.
"No friends on a powder day."
Lol I'm guessing this person hasn't checked lift ticket prices in 2023. Any vail-owned resort is like $250/day now
$300/day in whistler this year. Fuck Vail.
But is it worth it? Asking as a guy from a tropical country.
If you ski a shit ton and pay for the season pass, yea, probably. For a day or two? No lol. Better to just go to a local mountain where tickets are cheaper.
If you've never been skiing, and you have some friends who are of similar skill level as you, I would say yes. Commit to at least 3 days of skiing, and make sure you guys enjoy hanging out/bar hopping/clubbing/etc after the slopes close. It's a great trip.
Whaaattt? Are we talking about 1 day or 6-7 day ticket?
1 day
https://www.stormskiing.com/p/vail-beaver-creek-peak-day-2022-23
But I'm talking like peak season lol. Right now tickets are probably half off.
If the weather is so nice that you could get a sunburn, then you can at least probably see something. But the worst part about skiing, at least in Europe, is that because of Global warming we have to little Snow, so we use a lot of electricity to create artificial snow. Way to go Europeans, at least we can ski for another five years even if the future 20 generations will suffer und this (if they survive).
Hey buddy, Nuclear winter could still happen in our lifetime. So you got that going for you.
Something something patrolling the Mojave
This is how Putin wins the Nobel prize for solving global warming.
Jesus christ even in a meme thread about skiing. It's Lemmy...we all know about global warming you don't need to point it out in every fucking post.
Like, look...I know it's important to talk about. But maybe, just maybe, we don't need to make every single comment section about global warming and eating the rich. Just a thought.
Second hand cross country skis from a charity shop : 250 NOK
Second hand poles : 100 Nok
Boots: too fucking much, but I have comedy size feet so I can't get them used.
Access to Norway's extensive network of cross country trails: absolutely nothing
Risk of injury.... Still pretty high, but skiing around under the northern lights is honestly pretty amazing.
Wait, I thought downhill skiing was the risky one. What are the risks of cross country skiing? I would have expected that to be pretty safe, aside from exhaustion and tree wells.
Falling in the fjord.
There are still small hills that you can wipe out on and the bindings don't release in CC so your legs have the potential of getting pretty messed up. Same with hitting a tree (and helmets aren't really a thing in CC either).
Um, the risk is like quadrupled from a groomed slope. It depends on what you do, but I know lots of cross country skiers that hike up and ski downhill. Avalanches, exposure, wildlife, what you said etc.
There are really tame routes that ski resorts make, but you're still driving out there, parking, etc.
I suppose the idiot factor plays a lot here.
Goddamn I hate norwegians so damn much its almost unhealthy
Don't blow me up, swede!
I'll come! I own skis, and don't need lessons.
You cool with a snowboarder joining??
Heck yeah boii. Just be sure to keep it stiizy
🤟
Were I typically ski in Germany/Austria the most expensive ticket during the season is €44, but it's considerably more affordable outside the peak months and the tickets get progressively more affordable if you arrive later in the day. And let's be real, if you're skiing and aren't some sort of athlete a 12-4:30PM skiing day is long enough.
Ski rental is around €25.
You could have a skiing day for less than €60.
The cheapest ticket near me starts at $85. I used to snowboard several times a week, but the cost has just over doubled since I started. I just don't go anymore.
It's ironic, I used to live in a mountainous region and had a season pass so a day of skiing would set me back less than 30 bucks, but if I ever wanted to swim in the ocean, something that's basically free for many people, I'd have to pay easily more than the person in this post
Who charges you to use the ocean?
The ocean is free, getting there or staying there, not so much.
But same thing goes for a lot of mountains. The lift company only owns the lift, but if you wanna hike up the slope and then ski it back down your free to do so. There are even special furs that you clamp to the underside of your skies to not slide back down
I'm assuming they're factoring in travel, lodging, food, etc costs for a trip away from their area to wherever a beach is.
You usually have to pay for parking. When I lived in L.A., that was what I had to do. But apparently they have a train to the beach now.
Don't let this discourage anyone from trying. Yes it sounds absurd when put that way, and yes the costs are getting out of hand at most major resorts, but it can be an absolutely amazing sport/hobby/passion/lifestyle.
The first few times add up cost wise, hard to get around that, but once you figure out what you're doing and make the decision the sport is for you then it gets better. With a season pass and my own gear I'm <$30cad a day on the hill, and that's at a major BC resort.
Still a big wad of cash for gear and a pass up front, and definitely coming from a privileged lens to say that it's affordable, but lots of people spend way more than that on take out, coffee, booze, streaming services, etc. All about priorities!
Grew up near the mountains, learned skiing in kindergarten, went skiing so frikkin much as a teenager and young adult.
Haven't been skiing in years now, mostly because it's no longer affordable. Used to go skiing in the afternoon, just after getting out of school, but all those little lifts have closed because there's not enough snow any more. Skiing resorts used to be nearby and affordable, but they're no longer an option, either.
There was a scandal a few years ago with one of the bigger resorts because people had bought season passes, but even at higher altitude there were only a couple of weeks of good snow, and the resort refused to refund. They've since put in new water ponds and pumps and snow cannons, and they invested in new snowcats and trail groomers and all that jazz, but ultimately that just means that tickets are now incredibly expensive, while the season is still significantly shorter than it used to be.
That leaves traveling all the way to one of the big resorts high up in the mountains, and that's just not economical. The best option for going there is really going on a ski vacation for a week, buying a week pass, staying in a hotel, maybe getting some combo deal...
But essentially, the proposition has changed from "want to spend 20 bucks and go skiing for a day" to "want to spend 2,000 bucks and go skiing for a week?"
On the flip side, alpine hiking is pretty great, and it's still pretty affordable!
Good points all around. I've personally skiid (skied? Ski'id?) a few times, not my jam, but I can absolutely understand why people like it. Economics of scale quickly dampens the cost of an individual day and if someone likes it, don't let an internet meme discourage you.
I love skiing so much, but this is funny as hell
The only way it was affordable for me was as a ski instructor, but then general life became unaffordable.
And what are you going to wear? Planning to ski naked? At least I don't have appropriate skiwear at home, gloves, visor, pants, jacket, etc. I remember the one time I skied as a child, a friend of my mom invited us. It was expensive even then, and not very fun, but I remember the clothes we bought specially for that one trip.
I love Skiing!
Cheaper here—an 8ball is 150/200 for a rock of fishscale.
I went skiing with my dad last year. I snowboard all the time but it's been more than 10 years since he last went.
took him down a blue after he got his bearings again and he slam into another person from our group. the fall looked dramatic and we all laughed it off until he tried laying down in bed at night and started screaming in pain.
my dad had to have surgery on his arm and the other person from our group had a fractured rib...
Skiing has gotten absurdly expensive unfortunately. I remember when lift tickets were like $20/day. Oh well.
Vail bought every mountain and jacked the price.
That tracks.
Are injuries really that common? I'll go skiing to Zermatt in December. First timer.
They're really not, it's pretty hard to get seriously hurt with skiing. The first thing you get taught is how to stop, and if you ever feel like you're not in control you need to just throw yourself down on the ground.
Skiing at least in Austria is nowhere near as scummy as this post indicates either, and you won't get sunburn if you wear proper clothing.
If you're renting skis you probably want to rent them where you're skiing so you don't have to carry them on public transport or anywhere, which is a nightmare.
I have only ever been skiing in Switzerland, but that is probably the best place to start. They mark the rundowns ("pisten" in german) according to the difficulty they pose, with blue for easy, red for medium, and black for hard. Just stick to the blue ones until you feel confident enough to try the more difficult ones.
That's pretty common. In the US they have bunny (super basic slope for children), green, blue, black and black diamond
Yeah, my SO and I will stick to the kids rundowns, as we purchased the beginners pass. Even if we wanted to get to a more advanced rundown, our pass don't cover those lifts. Any advice on choosing gear? I wanted to try a snowboard, but I don't know if it's any more dangerous than regular ski's.
Worth it
Rent skis for 50$? It is cheaper to just buy them!
When I first started snowboarding, I was a broke college student. Just go late afternoon and buy or ask for day pass tickets from people leaving. I know its illegal, but a college student gotta do what they gotta do to enjoy the slopes.
So many sports are gate kept by money.
If you want to meet privileged people just pick a sport that requires expensive equipment to participate in.
I've met some of my closest friends and business partners on my horseback man hunting trips. It's not really that much more expensive than normal hunting and horseback riding.
Skill issue
I do some pretty reckless shit for fun, but skiing has never appealed to me in any way.
If spending a few hundred bucks sounds like a big deal to you then maybe skiing (or pretty much any hobby) just isn’t for you. This is a luxury activity after all.
Like any hobby it takes time, money, gear, and sometimes even training if you want to succeed.
As for injuries, anything is possible when participating in a physical sport. However most injuries are going to come from doing reckless shit. Start slow on easy hills and work your way up. Experience is what keeps you safe. There’s no reason to get injured unless you’re not using good judgment.
No, there are plenty hobbies that do not cost much or any money at all. People nowadays just tend to not see those as real hobbies because a real hobby has to be about always having the best and newest stuff and being instagrammable. Thats what advertisement does.
Right, it’s a luxury activity. Of course it’s going to be expensive. Just like speed boat racing.
It’s not a hobby for people that can’t afford it. That’s life tho my man.
