Tales of the early years of newschool skiing

You would definitely be legit stoked to see someone with twin tips at the hill. There usually wasn't much of an age gap in the parks.

The Armada announcement was huge and the coolest thing to happen in skiing at that point. The three coolest skis to own that year were the AR5s, K2 Public Enemies and the Dynastar Troublemakers. The Troublemakers were shit though and the edges would rip out pretty damn easily. They were rad for pipe though from what I can remember. The Hellbents basically changed pow skiing and was one of the coolest skis. When Idea was released in 2007 or so it totally changed people's perspective of backcountry skiing and style. It also helped me make the decision to leave my job on the stock market and spend a season in Laax.

Some of the biggest fad items I can remember were giro bad lieutenant helmets, oakley puffy pants, oakley wisdom goggles, and later the Salomon G-Suit.

A huge, huge chunk of pro riders all lived in Mammoth during the time that Blunt and Session 1242 was released. The following year, a lot of that broke up and people moved up to Park City and Colorado.

My first twins were the orange 1080s when I was 15 or 16. That was twenty years ago, haha. I still ski a ton, I live in a ski town and ride a lot of park. The scene itself was really small back in the day. The member base on here was really engaged and we'd meet up at different ski movie premieres, the Whis glacier, contests or at WSSF. I basically got into skiing just as the "newschool" scene was taking off. It's been cool to see the whole thing develop and change over time.
 
Jiminy peak, hand dug "jump" and you can see the bench we set up for a box to slide.

This photo was 1999 i believe

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Threads for 90s babies like me. We're spoiled nowadays with all the cool shit at our disposal. A lot of things have gotten crazy since I feel like, but we can still keep the true soul of skiing alive.
 
I need to dig through some boxes and find some old VHS tapes(to the younger generation, VHS’s are tapes the size of a medium book and we had to pack around this huge camcorder[10lbs]to record any footage) and get them on DVD. I have some footage from the late 80’s and most of the 90’s.haha. Half way scared to watch that shit.
 
14047004:Maximumsushi said:
You would definitely be legit stoked to see someone with twin tips at the hill. There usually wasn't much of an age gap in the parks.

The Armada announcement was huge and the coolest thing to happen in skiing at that point. The three coolest skis to own that year were the AR5s, K2 Public Enemies and the Dynastar Troublemakers. The Troublemakers were shit though and the edges would rip out pretty damn easily. They were rad for pipe though from what I can remember. The Hellbents basically changed pow skiing and was one of the coolest skis. When Idea was released in 2007 or so it totally changed people's perspective of backcountry skiing and style. It also helped me make the decision to leave my job on the stock market and spend a season in Laax.

Some of the biggest fad items I can remember were giro bad lieutenant helmets, oakley puffy pants, oakley wisdom goggles, and later the Salomon G-Suit.

A huge, huge chunk of pro riders all lived in Mammoth during the time that Blunt and Session 1242 was released. The following year, a lot of that broke up and people moved up to Park City and Colorado.

My first twins were the orange 1080s when I was 15 or 16. That was twenty years ago, haha. I still ski a ton, I live in a ski town and ride a lot of park. The scene itself was really small back in the day. The member base on here was really engaged and we'd meet up at different ski movie premieres, the Whis glacier, contests or at WSSF. I basically got into skiing just as the "newschool" scene was taking off. It's been cool to see the whole thing develop and change over time.
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Oh man, I remember those bad lieutenant helmets. If you really wanted to look like a G you put some bullet hole stickers on them. The K2 Seth Pistols were rad as well. I still think those old Public Enemies from 2004 had some of the coolest top sheets. Wasnt it around that time that Grenade Gloves were popular?
 
You're gonna wanna grab a copy of the second issue of The Ski Journal this year...we're running a mega gallery of these early years in conjunction with our pals at Level 1 calling it quits after 20 years. You'll see never-before published images of some of the greats. So stoked on it. Hype Hype Hype
 
14047099:Rogge said:
You're gonna wanna grab a copy of the second issue of The Ski Journal this year...we're running a mega gallery of these early years in conjunction with our pals at Level 1 calling it quits after 20 years. You'll see never-before published images of some of the greats. So stoked on it. Hype Hype Hype
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Why do people keep saying they're done? Josh himself has said several times that they're not done, they are just changing the way they do things and won't be on a strict, one-movie-per-year schedule
 
Could try scouring craigslist in different cities or ebay, letgo etc.

14047061:chiknmcplanks said:
I'm trying to collect late 90s / early 00s twin tips for a project - how much do you want for any of the classic teneighties?
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I have to confess....... I boarded for a few seasons back in the late 90’s.... I was against it at first but then did cave but Twin tips brought me back to skiing in 99’.
 
14047909:oldmanski said:
I have to confess....... I boarded for a few seasons back in the late 90’s.... I was against it at first but then did cave but Twin tips brought me back to skiing in 99’.
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We appreciate your honesty. Takes a lot to step up and confess that.
 
I Never got any shit for

Sking switch. If you can hit a jump switch it pretty much proves you can ski backwards better than most of the ppl on the mountain can ski forwards
 
14048489:DolanReloaded said:
I Never got any shit for

Sking switch. If you can hit a jump switch it pretty much proves you can ski backwards better than most of the ppl on the mountain can ski forwards
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I noticed nobody cared until the damn yellow jackets popped up one year and threw a fit about it. The old patrollers were cool as long as you looked like you were in control.
 
Im working on the ship right now and will be for another month and a half. We dont have enough bandwidth to watch videos on the internet. I remember all those movies and I cant watch them until I come home. I feel like throwing up from the nostalgia just by reading the headlines.

The biggest change I would have to say is how the internet changed the way we consume ski media. Back in 03, I would visit every sports store to find the video cassette or dvd or the movies published in the Freeze magazines. Sadly, Quebec was not the right spot to find ski movies. All they had were warren miller stuff... felt like a complete knock off. You had to order all that stuff from the US and that was really expensive. However, once in a while, my mom would find an MSP movie and I started collecting them. I still watch the original dvd of ski movie 2 and 3 on my PS3 on a regular basis.

Strike 3 was the movie I always wanted to watch. It was only in 2017 that I found a pirated stream video of it (which go deleted pretty quickly) and it was everything I ever wanted to see. I was bummed that I missed out, but I need to find a copy of it...that movie was on par with Session 1242.

Back in 2001, there were no real "ski shops". when you wanted a pair of twins, the salesman would pull out a pair of race skis with elevated tails and try to convince you that was the real deal. Even as a 13 year kid, I knew better.

-Mogul skiing was the gateway to freestyle skiing. If you wanted to jump, you had to sign up with an acrobatic team to be allowed to use the aerial site. But you had to suffer through weeks of hitting bumps to get your chance. If you ditched you training mogul days to ride park, you were kick out of the team and forfeit all right to hit "floaters" on the aerial site. Ever wonder why everyone had "knee patch logos" on their pants back then? thats why.

-Having the choice between the Saloman 1080s, Dynastar concept twinboard, Rossignol powair or Elan...whatever that garbage was. There were not cheap either in 99 and 2000. I remember going through 2 concept twinboards and a pair of Pro Candides in 2 years. Skis are much stronger these days and much cheaper.

-Camcorders were the only recording device that we could use. Had to plug that shit on the VCR to show friends and family what kind of skiing you were in to. You could just ask someone to record you either; image stabilizers didnt exist and people would always film the ground, use the zoom 50X or shake worse than a Parkinson's patient. Most didnt even know you had to press the red "record" button either.

-No knowing any of the trick names. First time I saw a cork7, I asked 3 different people and they called it 3 different things. My favorite was the off axis double full. No one knew what was going on back then. The sport was so new and was purely driven by the people practicing the sport. Sponsors were always the weirdest brands: in X-games 01, Paul Mitchell (yes, the shampoo company) was the main sponsor.

-Being told by ski instructors that park skiing wasnt "real skiing". no...wait...that still is true.
 
wow. What an incredible thread. I cant tell if i want to cry or throw up reading this. it feels like yesterday when people were afterbanging in g-suits. someone posted Team Joss videos recently and I just couldnt believe how much time has passed since then. whoa. I feel so blessed to have skiing have played such a big part of my life, and to have gotten into it when i did. I to remember the OG 1080's and how quickly i delammed them by knuckle jumps every damn day.

This website, to be honest, was wildly huge in my freskiing trajectory. As others have mentioned when you were on the hill you had no choice but to buddy up with another newschooler. the NS logo was like some sort of punch card to a secret society, and you knew when you saw that decal on a ski or something that person was legit.

That being said I only ever knew what was going down at my hill. We would get stoked, huck our meat, hit rails, then go home and see on this very website what other folks were doing all over the country. It was unreal, inspirational, and extended a very real community. These forums would blow up once the hills closed. Everyone would be trading plans for summer setups; did astro turf work better or orange consturction fencing, should i build PVC rails or try and make a metal one etc..

Also, did FARP: the movie ever come out?
 
From 2003ish. We built a kicker out of the 1/2 pipe over the deck to the backside. Dynstar Fhil Larose Pros 182. Color and graphics on those things were next level. Still in the Raichle boots. I was the original "get Full tilts" but it was "get this boot they don't make anymore on Ebay" You're welcome for keeping that shit alive. Got Pivots too but not the good ones.

**This post was edited on Aug 3rd 2019 at 4:42:14pm
 
I still ski in raichle's also, its a little embarrassing but they fit so dang well I don't want to risk paying $ for a boot that hurts.
 
14049399:Tnski said:
I still ski in raichle's also, its a little embarrassing but they fit so dang well I don't want to risk paying $ for a boot that hurts.
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Man if a boot fits you perfectly, it doesn't matter what people say, it's meant to be
 
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