Snowboarding was going to be the savior of skiing. Back in the late 1990s it was on a trajectory to meet and then pass skiing participation numbers. And then the bottom fell out. By 2005 snowboarding peaked at about 30 percent of resort traffic and has fallen back down to about a quarter of total visits. What happened? One indicator in a study commissioned by the National Ski Areas Association is that a lot fewer women snowboarders ever get beyond the beginner stage; at “expert” level a scant 19 percent of snowboarders are female. One huge problem is a failure to advance the teaching methodology of snowboarding lessons so that it’s less about enduring the pain of falling constantly and more systematic (like skiing). Skiers might be stoked about the flat numbers but there’s little reason to gloat. Fewer snowboarders since 2005 has meant a massive loss of dough for the entire snowsports industry. Via Transworld.

Read more stories like this at Adventure Journal.

Tags: Skiing, Snowboarding

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 7:00 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.