Good God Pipe Skiing in 2019 Sucks

[@LANTASKI]

Caught some of the pipe jock comp in China (wtf)

As someone who literally came of age parallel with freeskiing , the display I witnessed on the Olympic Channel was seriously underwhelming

No one is boosting 20’ out of the pipe anymore , literally no style , and people are taking like 4 12-15’ hits in the pipe ... what a joke

FIS has ruined our sport

 

[VT_scratch]

IDK man I saw the halfpipe rodeo contest in Calgary in February and it was my first time seeing a full-size pipe in person. The men were going SO HUGE it was insane to see in person. I definitely had more respect for pipe skiing after that.

 

[GayWolf420]

Pipe skiing just doesnt have the youth involvement or interest from younger kids like it used to either. That could also be why pipe skiing is starting to die.

Ive personally seen a lot more interest in either skiing park or big mountain, or a variety of the two honestly. Pipe skiing isn't even in the equation anymore for a lot of kids that ski for the program i work for. All the kids i help coach either want to ski big mountain and compete in IFSA events or just lap park lines and stuff. IFSA events are kinda hard to get kids signed up for now cuz of lotterys and waiting lists due to tons of kids signing up. kinda interesting to see.

**This post was edited on Dec 21st 2019 at 7:41:58pm

 

[wameron]

Pipe skiing just doesnt have the youth involvement or interest from younger kids like it used to either. That could also be why pipe skiing is starting to die.

Ive personally seen a lot more interest in either skiing park or big mountain, or a variety of the two honestly. Pipe skiing isn't even in the equation anymore for a lot of kids that ski for the program i work for. All the kids i help coach either want to ski big mountain and compete in IFSA events or just lap park lines and stuff. IFSA events are kinda hard to get kids signed up for now cuz of lotterys and waiting lists due to tons of kids signing up. kinda interesting to see.

**This post was edited on Dec 21st 2019 at 7:41:58pm

Honestly at least that is awesome for the future of the sport. Pipe and park is cool and all but big mountain is so much sicker

 

[MXmx]

It’s hard to ski pipe when there aren’t pipes to ski.

I think the blame is more with the ski resorts that are too lazy to build and maintain a pipe.

Pipe skiing just doesnt have the youth involvement or interest from younger kids like it used to either. That could also be why pipe skiing is starting to die.

Ive personally seen a lot more interest in either skiing park or big mountain, or a variety of the two honestly. Pipe skiing isn't even in the equation anymore for a lot of kids that ski for the program i work for. All the kids i help coach either want to ski big mountain and compete in IFSA events or just lap park lines and stuff. IFSA events are kinda hard to get kids signed up for now cuz of lotterys and waiting lists due to tons of kids signing up. kinda interesting to see.

**This post was edited on Dec 21st 2019 at 7:41:58pm

 

[Dilldoes]

The half pipe is dying across all action sports disciplines. Its going to be hard to get kids to be excited about an activity that really only has one dimension to it vs the multitude of different ways you can ski park or free ride.

 

[Redrobin]

The half pipe is dying across all action sports disciplines. Its going to be hard to get kids to be excited about an activity that really only has one dimension to it vs the multitude of different ways you can ski park or free ride.

Full sized superpipes may be dying out because they are fuck hard to maintain and there's at most 10 people on the mountain that can actually hit it properly. Mini pipes on the other hand are doing fine; Jerries and kids love them, new-wavers can skrrt around in them, and wannabe comp jocks can try to go hard.

 

[Dilldoes]

Full sized superpipes may be dying out because they are fuck hard to maintain and there's at most 10 people on the mountain that can actually hit it properly. Mini pipes on the other hand are doing fine; Jerries and kids love them, new-wavers can skrrt around in them, and wannabe comp jocks can try to go hard.

I should have been more specific! I remember when my local got a pipe shaper for the snow cat and I thought it was going to be the shit for the next decade. They used it for a few seasons but no one was ever really in the pipe so they sold it and turned the pipe area into two "big air" jumps.

 

[theabortionator]

It’s hard to ski pipe when there aren’t pipes to ski.

I think the blame is more with the ski resorts that are too lazy to build and maintain a pipe.

Halfpipes even with dirt work yake a ton of snow to build Like a ton. Like a ton of snow, and then a shit ton more. Unless places get absurd amounts of natural, that's a lot of snowmaking and a lot of $$$.

Pipes got big with snowboarding. There wasn't much to the rest of the parks, and some mtns really just had a pipe. Maybe a couple of small shitty jumps too. There were pipe contests everywhere all the time, televised and not. It was huge.

Park skiing grew, especislly when more place started adding rails and people figured out to ski them. More focus was going ominto jumps, less people were riding pipes. Leas pipe contests. Mtns started to stop building them and it became a big trend.

Also many if the old pipe cutters started to fall apart. There's one rusting in the boneyard of pretty much every mtn thats had a decent sized park long term.

Also when the sport went 18 and 22, it kind of left places behind. Contests were only at venues that really manicured a perfect pipe and had a zaugg 18 or 22. The 14ers were forgotten.

Now parks are mostly rails, with a few well buikt jumps generally. This has been a formukar that works well. Using the snow you have to build less but really good jumps and filling in the rest with rails.

Rails are cheap to build and easy to move around. You can keep an almost stagnant 3 jump line(if you're really picky) but moved around rail featyres all season and the park will still feel pretty fresh.

Some pipes are coming back to life, there are even 2 midwest hills building pipes. It's unfortunately something that probably will never catch back on to the point it was.

I do hope more people build weird 1/4 and general tranny features in jumps and around the park. Cat built ir cut, place that zaugg or at least clean the sides of their knuckles. I just dont see pipes making a comeback.

Pipes are fun, but for a lot of mtns it sadly just isn't realistic.

 

[theabortionator]

Full sized superpipes may be dying out because they are fuck hard to maintain and there's at most 10 people on the mountain that can actually hit it properly. Mini pipes on the other hand are doing fine; Jerries and kids love them, new-wavers can skrrt around in them, and wannabe comp jocks can try to go hard.

I hope we have enough snow again this year but we built a 12 next to our 18 last year with soare2 natural snow. People really liked it and gave the people a legit option.

We're still making snow for our 18 though atm. But put down a decent amount more last night so hopefully have enough for 1 wall + now.

Also allegedly we might cut a baby mini pipe up in 1 of our parks, and got our 13' fixed. Hoping this is a go.