I see a lot of snowboarders get into an identity crisis as they get older. Should I still snowboard if I'm not sending jumps and jibs all the time? Yes. Yes you absolutely should.

The truth is that there is just no feeling like laying down a sick carve on a snowboard. Nothing compares.

As I got older I switched my focus to riding switch. While I'm not as solid riding switch I can keep up and often pass most I ride with.

Along with building up my switch skills I worked on frontside and backside 180s. Basically being able to flip from one to the other and back. Sometimes I forget which is my natural stance and which it switch.

I was progressing up to 360s from either stance but haven't been out enough the that couple of years.

I'm in my 50s. I do most of my riding in Vermont (mostly Killington) so my skills are almost legit ;)

Thank you, your comment back brought warm memories for me! I grew up in the Canadian rockies, but my family moved to Ontario in my teens. The skiing was terrible there so I switched to snowboarding to keep it interesting. But, we used to come down to Killington in the winter to get some real mountain time in. Thankfully I'm in California now so I've got some good mountains nearby. Thanks again and I hope Killington is still as great, or maybe even better, than it once was.

I am goofy on skateboard and regular on the snowboard for some odd reason.

This of course meant riding switch on both came easier to me than to most people.

100%! Just got back from a week in the Zillertal and it was incredible and all I can think of is how to go back. Finally did it on my own gear this time too, what a massive difference a good board, binding, boot combo makes. I'm a late convert, so not a park rat at all, but just hitting reds all day (Europe, so just Blue, Red, Black grades) along with the mountain culture makes for my absolute favourite holidays.

Hucking 30 footers is cool but there's nothing like a fresh powder run on a longboard just floating. Going fast and floating like I'm surfing has been my thing while snowboarding for the past thirty years and it still holds up in my middle age.

Agreed. I also hung up my skateboard tricks in favor of a longboard for the same reason.

I came to this same conclusion two weekends ago in Flagstaff. I am 43 and have only snowboarded my entire life. Lots and lots when I was younger, not as much anymore with kids, their club soccer and demanding schools. I am a professional firefighter and get paid to workout at work... so I am not elite athletic, but I am fit.

My hips just don't have the same mobility they once did. Sitting down at the top every single run is tiring and I am beginning to dislike that one aspect the most. My wife skis and she just stands there peacefully while the kids and I strap in. I never paid much attention to this until this last trip... "I am a snowboarder and this is part of the deal." Well, I am not much into that part of the deal any longer.

Walking around the resort or restaurants in ski boots doesn't look like it feels as good as snowboard boots. However, I think I am willing to give that up for convenience on the runs... which is why I am there spending a fortune after all.

So, I decided that I am going to rent skis and just send it over spring break for a two day trip. My kids say they are going to disown me... that's ok, I can cruze with their mom (lol)! Watching them strap in without grunting and twisting due to their far superior flexibility is awesome... I remember that, its just time to move on and just enjoy the time on the mountain; COMFORTABLY.

I'm 48, been skiing since I was 3 and switched to mainly snowboard at 17 (and living less then 30min from a lot of ski resorts). I ski from time to time, mainly when with the kids and when the snow is hard. But as soon as there is powder, nothing is better than my snowboard. Just today, I'm back from a day of freeriding with friends and the kids. This will always remain an incredible feeling that I will never get on my skis. Modern carving skis are also fun, but different. There is never a too old to ride. I know snowboarders in their 70s. Modern binding takes seconds to tie and nothing will beat softboots (especially in stairs), and the pain you can get with some ski boots. And at the end of the day I will always feel less tired when snowboarding than skiing.

Burton has some new step in bindings that seem to resolve a lot of the issues people had with older styles.

Can confirm. 49 and got the step ins this year. Magic. No difference in control.

I do both pretty well but much prefer to snowboard than ski. Of course I'm into my 40s and still playing in the park so maybe that's something to do with it.

for whatever it's worth, my wife and I are in our 40s and love to snowboard together.

It's true that I'm not hucking 20 footers any longer, but I still have a blast on the steeps and in the trees, and don't see any reason I'd need to return to skiing.

>I concussed myself so many times when I was 17 on hard falls, just completely out of it sitting on the hill. It’s a very dangerous sport. Probably as dangerous as football in terms of TBI risk.

This is why, honestly, I will never suggest someone to bother learning it as an adult. Unless you are extremely athletic and completely set on it, it's just going to be an afternoon of pain and frustration. I've seen it happen over and over again. Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times. Which isn't a big deal when you're 12, but at 32 it's a whole different story.

I can comment on snowboarding. But I did take up skiing as an adult and my experience doesn't line up with this.

My kid graduated high school, so I moved to a small town in Colorado to learn how to ski and ice climb. I am somewhat athletic, but not competitively so.

I started skiing at 42, and I am now in my 3rd year of doing it.

I do wear a helmet.

But I don't fall, and certainly not thousands of times. I'm old enough that I'm very conservative... but I fall infrequently enough that I can remember the 3 times I've done it this season.

Skiing really isn't that dangerous or even physically demanding.

> My kid graduated high school, so I moved to a small town in Colorado to learn how to ski and ice climb. I am somewhat athletic, but not competitively so.

You're definitely the outlier that proves my point though. Skiing is not something you can just go "do" a few times and have fun at it like tennis or golf. You have to, as you did, live in close proximity to a hill and get out there day after day and put in the time and effort of falling on your face over and over again to do it. People can absolutely do it as adults, but you have to really really want it. It can't be a casual thing.

>Skiing really isn't that dangerous or even physically demanding.

It's what you make it. To a lot of people, "skiing" means hopping on the lift and cruising some blue/black groomers for a few hours. For others, it means hiking 3k vertical to ski 6 feet of powder on a 50 degree face, or blasting the drop line on a huge mogul field at full speed.

> You're definitely the outlier that proves my point though. Skiing is not something you can just go "do" a few times and have fun at it like tennis or golf.

Again, this doesn't match my experience as somebody who actually did learn to ski in my 40s while living in Phoenix, AZ. It's fine to say that you yourself couldn't do something, but you shouldn't speak for others. I'm very far from an elite athlete, I wouldn't consider myself an athlete at all. I'm largely sedentary.

>It's fine to say that you yourself couldn't do something, but you shouldn't speak for others.

I'm saying this as someone who has skiied from the age of five, and spent a solid decade skiing over 180 days/season while working at various resorts, with a majority of those days being backcountry steeps above 10k feet. When people say you can "learn to ski" with little effort it just irks me a bit. Yes, anyone who can walk can become competent enough to cruise down some blue groomers at a resort. But actual skiing, actually getting to the expert level where you can truly enjoy the sport, is a completely different thing. And getting to that level from beginner as an adult is incredibly difficult.

That's some pretty high-end gatekeeping;

you might consider that your context is getting in the way of a fundamental point:

you can't say what it means for other people to "truly enjoy something".

And that irks me.

Like, how do you know you're really enjoying your skiing i you're not hiking up 8000M peaks to do your skiing? If you're not hopping out of a helicopter and getting filmed by Warren Miller, is it really worth it? Are you truly enjoying the sport if you're not skiing couloirs?

I mean, I play music and I do some hard stuff. I don't think a lot of it is easy. But I am confident that someone can pick up a guitar and play it well enough to enjoy it (themselves) after not much practice. I personally wouldn't be satisfied doing the exact same thing... I have been doing it a long time and have high expectations. But those expectations are -for myself-, and that has nothing to do with what other people might enjoy.

I'm gonna go enjoy some powder, I ain't a great skiier, but I can get down anything on my local hill. And for what it's worth, I am literally the only person who gets to say if I "truely enjoy" playing in the snow.

Me cruising the blue groomers very much feels like skiing.

At least to me.

Similar to you, I started skiing at 45, the same time as my almost 4yr old did. That first season, I remember falling a few times, but absolutely not more than 20 for the whole season.

Four years later, I have a ski crazy 7yr old who rips down blacks full tilt. I fall in very choppy or icy conditions somehow trying to keep him in sight. Didn’t fall at all today, fell once yesterday in chop. In decent conditions, I rarely fall, but as I’m the designated driver, I really don’t push things too hard.

Also firmly in the wear a helmet camp. A lot of US ski and snowboard films show athletes who forgo this, and I generally try to avoid letting the kid watch them.

Favourite ski films are Supervention and Supervention 2. Both are generally free online (try Redbull TV).

> Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times

This is not the case for skiing at least. My young kids (who are are not exceptional) have been skiing for the last few years. They rarely fall. It might happen once during the day or not at all. And they didn't fall much on their first few days of ski either. (I also don't remember falling much when learning how to ski as a kid.)

In fact I'd say the same for biking. There is a myth that you have to fall to learn how to bike. Yes, you might fall once or twice and learn a lesson but that's it. Most of the learning process doesn't require actually falling to the ground.

Now it could be different for snowboarding but I don't have experience with that. It could also be a little different for adults learning how to ski but even there I'd think it can be done quite safely.

Of course I agree that for adults (and especially older adults) falls will have worse outcomes than for kids on average.

Everyone falls a ton when learning to snowboard IME. Myself, 25 years ago, was miserable for two days with a destroyed coccyx and thought I had permanently damaged my butt. My kids who are both very athletic fell like crazy when learning... and they basically plowed the runs for the first year or so until they were brave enough to go toe side.

I am going to try skiing for the first time next month. I am excited to get off the ground.

Yeah you'll fall, but just learn how to fall, especially don't break the fall with your hands! I broke by wrist first time I tried, at age 12. Since then I've never hurt myself badly while snowboarding.

As other have said, you won't fall skiing, and also, 32 is not old at all. There is no physical reason to be in worse shape when you're 32 than when you're 18. If you are, it's because you don't spend enough time doing sports, it's not because your body is too old.

I picked up kitesurfing in my 30s, and skateboarding in ramps in my 40s and it was no different from learning snowboarding in high school. Except that I'm in better shape now, and I also benefit from knowing other sports. It just gets easier. I think the turning point, physically speaking, is around 50.

Neal Unger is 65 and recently picked up skateboarding. Obviously he's past his prime, but there's absolutely no reason to avoid having fun just because you're not a teenager. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM4FQ_FqEhQ

Here's a kitesurfer that I think started in his 70s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouheMnmjx9U

And there was a kitesurfer here in Denmark that surfed into his 90s or something.

Downhill ski is much easier and safer to learn. I did it in one hour together with an instructor when I was 25. I felt only couple of times. And I was with another novice, so not all attention was on me. This was a common experience among my friends.

Then I tried snowboarding couple of years later. But even after 2 training painful sessions with different instructors I could not get it. The last instructor encouraged me to try one more lesson. He suspected as I was tall, it will just take more time for my body to learn to balance properly. But I realized that snowboard just did not click with me. And only few of people I know who tried snowboarding in the late twenties continued with it.

> Learning to ski or snowboard requires falling thousands of times.

I learned to ski in my early 40sc over the last 5 years and I would count my falls in the tens. Certainly fewer than 50. That's counting every time I ended up on the ground, most of those could probably be classified as sitting more than falling. I'm far from extremely athletic, maybe even below average.

If you learn from an instructor and don't try to ski terrain you're not ready for then there's no reason somebody of even below-average athletic ability couldn't learn to ski without getting hurt.

> I will never suggest someone to bother learning it as an adult

I disagree. It's not dangerous, and anyone in good health can learn it. You just need to learn at your pace and take an instructor. Conditions and gear are also very important, it can make all the difference between a great time and an horrible experience.

I think not living near mountains makes it harder because you usually can't pick the days with the best conditions, and you try to cram as much practice as you can, which is often over-ambitious and lead to injuries.

> You just need to learn at your pace and take an instructor.

I think this is right. I had friends drag me to Whistler for a weekend. I had never snowboarded. We went to the top of the mountain and they put me on a blue run and left me. I fell down the whole mountain that morning. We had lunch and then it clicked the afternoon. And then for the second day I was fine. My elbow and hip was destroyed but I stopped falling.

So I thought it was easily and I advised my novice friend to do the same next year. He fell down the mountain for the morning session and quit entirely.

I think I was just more coordinated than him (he later broke his arm after tripping during a run). I think if he had taken instruction and just cruised greens until he stopped falling he might have learned to love it.

I would never advise someone to learn like I did after watching my friends interest get snuffed out by my bad advice.

Usually, the first few hours of learning, you find a very gentle 30m slope that stops naturally, and you just learn to go straight with only one foot bound. Then you learn to initiate front-end and back-end turn by rotating your shoulder, still with one foot. Normally, you wouldn't even fall at that stage.

Only then you take a lift, bind two feet, and then you learn to skid facing the slope, then the other direction. After that, there are a several exercises of gradual difficulty that takes you to the full skidded turn. It usually takes one or two days for most people to be able to turn frontside and backside.

There will be a lot of falling, much more than with skis, but if the snow is soft, no risk of injury and it's pretty fun. I taught snowboarding for a few years and my experience was that beginners had the most fun.

I learned how to snowboard when i was 35 never having been on skis. i'm in my 50's now and love carving in some fresh powder, it's orgasmic! i will never stop till i'm dead.