Park vs. Big Mountain

SkiMN

SkiMN

Active member
This is my two cents on a topic I am starting to see more and more of lately. No offense is meant to anybody in any way by what I say here, so please dont take any of this the wrong way. I am only trying to prove a point.

There is currently a thread that has a line in it saying essentially this: Park skiers are never good skiers. These people need to pull there head out of thier ass and look at a map. A lot of skiers are blessed with huge mountains and endless terrain on which to ski. Some of us, like those in the midwest, are stuck with smaller hills, man made snow, and absolutly no powder to speak of. I'm getting sick of people telling me that a person who only skis park can never be good. Some of us simply cant go anywhere else to ski, so we make do with what we can. People need to face the fact that not everybody can ski any kind of terrain on any given day. The unfortunate occurence of being born in a place like hte midwest shouldnt mean you cant be a good skier. There are two totally different sports going on here, most of us would ski powder if we could, but we cant. Somebody explain to me how skiing park makes you bad. Its the exact same thing as me saying if you ski powder you suck ass at skiing and should quit. We love skiing and we make do with what we have, why do we suck just because of that? In my opinion it takes a greater love for the sport to ski here and stick with it then if you had a big mountain. Give us a fucking break, we're skiers to.

Rant over, let the flaming begin, after you read the 1st paragraph.
 
From a purely technical point of view (im an instructor, sue me), I find that a lot of parkrats have pretty bad form outside of the park on groomers. They tend to rotate the upper body heaps, rarely pole plant and are quite often too far forward on their skis. I think this stems from the fact that they dont have to ski properly to ride the park, and then develop evil bad habit.

Big mountain skiers on the otherhand, if they dont ski properly ( ie; pole plant, stay balanced on their skis), have a tendency to eat mondo mega amounts of shit.

Not really relevant but thats my opinion
 
this is an age old arguement where you can't truly take one side or the other. Though the have been steriotyped to be horrible skiers,the things being done in the park today seem unreal to the people outside of the freeskiing world.

On the other hand, big mountain skiers don't recieve nearly enough credit for what they are able to do. And yes they may be better skiers, but both are good at different aspects of our sport.

The thing is that it doesn't matter who's better as long as you're having fun doing what you do.
 
mmk, heres the deal, people who ski park are either one of 2 types of skiers, a) skiers who just learned how to make real turns without the pizza, or B) skiers who accually learned how to ski first, then thought park would be cool. as you can see, the better parkrats are the ones that accualy know how to turn and work a ski, they're the ones that acctually know how the thing straped to thier foot works. the other skiers probobly started skiing just so they could jib (mabye because its like rollerblading, i don't know)

Second thing is, any real skier, Option B from above, knows that he/she will use excesive/deadly force to be at thier mountain as soon as possible on a powder day of more than 6". Option A probobly dosn't know what the hell we're talking about when we say Powder.

Third is that the terrain availible determins your area of progression, for instance, i live in new hapshire, and if your not hiking tuck's than big mountain is kinda out of the picture, (not to mention we never really got any snow this year at all, damn old man winter) so the park is all we had, you take what you can get.

now don't get me wrong, i rip grommers in the morning, and when the glades are open, if they're open, they are totaly sweet too. a big mountain skier can't say that i suck because i don't ski big mountain, because i acctually don't have a big mountain to ski, but if i did have one, you bet your ass i'd be skiing it, when i go out west, lets say this year i went to crested butte, i skied the park a grand total of 6 runs, i ski park all the time and when i can ski big mountain i do it alot because i barely get a chance to. if you present us with the terrain we will ski it, unless you are from option A above, then you should just strap into some ski blades.

please corect my spelling mistakes
 
I have the option. I own a pair of Volkl Gotamas and a pair of Ninthward Butterlicious. I work at one of the best resorts terrain-wise in the Tahoe area. I have been skiing long enough to be technically adept at both BC and big mountain.

I'm a park rat, a jib monkey, a rail jockey, whatever the fuck you want to call it. I wear a jersey when it's sunny. I'd rather be hikin the park, havin a film sesh, chillin with my buddies, smokin a bowl. I love skiing in all aspects, but I CHOOSE to do what I do, and I love it.

There is no argument that either is better. There is no argument that either type of skier is better. We do different stuff, you do your shit, I'll do mine.

And Royale, you should post some vids. I want to see you slayin the BC.
 
next season. I gotta get my camera set up first, and get one of those VHS-DVD transferrers cuz i have one of those old-school ones.
 
dude go skiing with a big mountain skier and he will out ski

he is just more of a developed skier and can deal with more things
 
Honestly, I don't care about how well I ski in someone elses eyes. If I want to backseat and sloppy, than that is my right as a skiier. The freeride movement is about skiing for fun, not how someone else wants you to.

Poor form is only in the eyes of the people who have decieded that because they know a set of technical rules to unlock the turn in skiing, they are better than other people. I really don't care. If I am having fun, than that is all that I need. Don't get trapped in the bs world of needing to do things in skiing, because skiing is self expression and when you accept what you are supposed to do, you are just ruining it for yourself.
 
i usually find the good park skiers to be the best overall all mtn-big mtn skiers compared to the straight up only big mtn skiers.

keywords "usually" "good" but not to limit to decent or less than park skiers
 
Park is so much fun, i don't destroy the park but i have a lot of fun riding it. also, everyone should spend a whole day out of the park, i probably ski outside of the park more than in it and when you go to ski park after a week or 2 of all mountain it's a good change.
 
Exactly what I've found..

Park skiers a lot of the time ski with their hands by their side because it 'looks cool' tho it's pretty bad posture on skis for the rest of the mountain. Not all, just some.
 
im a big mountain skier first and a park skier second. i live in a country where all it snows is powder (luckily) and at the end of the season is when the park is good because its hard pack pow.i was skiing pow 5 foot deep in febuary.

so it does depend on what terain you have and what snow you get.
 
Agreed on the having fun part.

But have you ever thought that typical park rat form can get your killed in a true big mountain situation? (OK, at the very worst but still...)

Here's something I'd call "pure skiing skills"; nailing a trick is specialialized skill, holding your edge on the steeps is all about overall skiing skill. That's probably the difference between the "skill set" of those two said groups of skiers.

Good steep skiers usually can at least clear bigger kickers, try rails & pipe etc. But how many (pure) park rats would even attemp, let's say, some of the classics at ski mountaneering world?

So, I give big props to likes of Eric Hjorleifsson, who ski(&climb) big lines but can hang on in the park too. There are not too many skiers like that around!(And hopefully this is going to change soon?)

(And I personally suck at both disciplines but have fun at both at the same time...:))
 
I cant ski powder unless I drove to Vermont. The mountains around here suck and are unkept. Ive skied for free 7 times here because they dont check for your pass. I learned how to ski from my freind when I was over his house and he said "get in the car" thinking I was going home I went to god knows what state and saw him race. I wanted to ski and he taught me. Thats probally the only powder Ive ever gotten. So basicly im stuck with trails with no snow and all ice and dirt patches, or go to the nice slightly kept park and enjoy my day.
 
I don't really know any "Big Mountain" skiers that can throw cab 7's or cab rodeos. But I know plenty of guys that can throw cab 7's that hold their own in the big mountain realm.

Again, though, this is a silly argument.
 
i dont really consider us as skiers. i think just plain skiing is really gay, big mtn is sweet as long as there are some jumps and stuff with it, park is awsome, and backcountry kickers are the coolest ever. so i dont really want to be a good "skier".

and about the instructor who said park kids have terrible form. yeah i really dont give a shit about my "form" im not into being all gay and making hardcore racer turns all over the place, i just wanna mess around and have fun. fuck having form.

and i actually do have really good form, i skied for like 8 years, and even went to a race camp, then i realised how gay skiing was then switched to snowboarding, then i saw how cool freestyle skiing was so i started doing that.
 
i think that park skiers can shred the bc just as good as other skiers, but it is a lot different. if you have seen Tangerine Dream, in the Oleniks part, they show how skiers who live in the park like the Oleniks can also go ski some ssweet back country and shred just as hard as other bc skiers are, its all about doing it all and what you like
 
yeah i mean ive seen some people with park skis rip it up on double black diamonds and in the park

so all park skiiers dont stink at regular skiing...

i mean everyone started skiing then went to park
 
-eric pollard

-sage catabriga-alosa

-shane mckonkey

-seth morrison

-marc andre

-eric hjorleifson

-shane mcconkey

-dana flahr

-johnny law

-anthony boronowski

-jp and julien

-JT holmes

-mark abma

-jaime

theres some just to name a few. usually, not always, but usually, a guy(or girl) who grows up skiing mainly all mountain and then goes on to big mountain skiing, can usually lear spins and grabs ALOT faster than a park skier can learn to pick lines, follow lines, ski powder, and land cliffs. but theres a list of just how wrong you are. thats just scraping the famous skiers. theres tons, tons, of skiers out there who can throw down both big mountain and park.
 
yea man i live in new england and normaly charge the park and we get now pow ever but i was up at jay this year during march break and we got 2 and a half feet and i was like fuck yea this is sweet and skied some clifts and glades for like 3 days
 
dont get me wrong, i like what the oleniks do, but they really wernt very good at the whole big mountain thing. i mean, those guys are insanely talented skiers, and they held mostly their own, but if you compare their fluidity and line choices and other key aspects to big mountain legends like coombs, morrison,mcconkey, treadway, and davenport, they really arnt close.

i know its not extremely fair to assume their going to be up to par with these guys, but you say they shred just as hard as other BC skiers do. i think thats wrong. i think real BC skiers like pollard and mcconkey and the list above shred better and harder than the olenik brothers.
 
there have already been threads on this....many of them....and i have established that big mountain is better in some aspects and park in others
 
couldnt have said it better, btw, i know plenty of people who hang in the park all day and can rip it big mtn too.
 
does it matter as long as your skiing what you want to be skiiing and having fun??

Its like in any instance of skiing everyone is good at their own certain things, some can jib urbans MAD, some drop cliffs, some carve grooms, some float pow, some ski the bumps, some throw it down in the park.

But again I say the really good park skiers that i know grew up skiing the whole mtn and ventured into the park and are now park rats, but can absolutly still slay the rest of the mtn, some big mtn skiers wont go in the park, yadda yadda, some skiers never learned to ski but just felt like getting into urban and the park, all in all its all skiing. You've got the pep fujas's, seth morrisons, jaime pierres, t halls, and what not, each ski, each slay at their own thing.
 
man you gota try everything, ski a little of everything, do that befor you say one is better than the other. I have skied both and i will never say one is better, they are just different
 
The Olenicks did a pretty good job, but they are definitely not even close to the top of the big mountain chain. They are not shredding "just as hard" as the really good guys, and if they spend all their time in the park they never will. It is not just about skiing pow, it is about finding the steepest most technical stuff you can find and negotiating it when it is icy. By all means, ski park, but get other fundamentals down. Have any of you noticed that of the skiers who migrate out west and get movie parts with big mountain segments, they ALL have racing or mogul backgrounds. If you only stay in the park it will limit your development. It is not about PSIA form, it is about having a solid and adaptable style. The park will definitely make you a better skier, but is important to get the other fundamentals down too. I have yet to see someone from back east become a great big mountain pro without a racing or mogul background. Ski the mountain as well as the park, whether or not there is powder. You should be able to find a glade or an icy bump run somewhere on your mountain, and lapping it will help you build skills and confidence.
 
Thats entirely true. my point here is that not all of us have acess to big mountain skiing at all, and I'm trying to say that we shouldnt take shit for where we live because it isnt our fault. Park skiers can still be good, but go figure a big mountain skier can handle a ski better, they ski bigger skis in deeper snow.
 
i like people like this, they leave more powder for me. don't hate on these people if you like to ski big mountain, thank them instead.
 
word. i live in ontario. but like people say were bad skiers cause all we do is ski inbetween jumps and rails. we never go like mach 2 down a 50 degree slope with mad carving
 
I live in vermont, and most years, there is ample snow to ski trees, but this year, I had to ski probably 80% park, we only had 2 powder days the whole year.

If I had real mountains to ski on, I would never touch the park
 
This should not have made it to page two. My point, in a nutshell, is that it shouldnt matter. You can be good either way. So what if park skiers cant ski big mountain or the other way around. So what to about everything I saw posted here. It's so simple people, we are all skiers, we all have strong and weak points, I just dont see why this is worth a big argument.
 
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