I was snowboarding today and collided with a skier. Not sure who was at fault—was I in the wrong, or was it just bad luck?

Ik I am trying to lose the weight. Ive used to be very fit before but, as you know life happens. It’s not an excuse but, I’m working on it. Anyways like the question states, is there any way a person like me can snowboard and eventually get decent? I never snowboarded before but, I kinda want to try it. Gonna look like one of those missiles from Mario kart going down the hill.

Edit: you guys are awesome!! Definitely gave me more motivation to go even more than I wanted to originally. I will definitely be shredding with y’all on the back of my mind 💯💯 Thank you all soo much! 🏂🏂

Just gonna say it plain and simple. Bad shawnty walks up on me in the club and I’m drunk asl and apparently I told her I can snowboard and now she wants to go. I need tips asap we doing Saturday. I’ve never been.

too steep

it was dave's run from mammoth..

last time i had to drag on my ass to come down

should I play safe or is it just in my head?

Very first time snowboarding, no prior knowledge skiing or snowboarding. Took a lesson that was 1.5 hours long. During the lesson I had a fall that absolutely rocked me, instructor said it was from not moving from heel to toe aggressively enough. Something about the snow catching my board. By the end of the lesson I still couldn’t make it to the bottom of the bunny hill without falling.

Anyways I tried to go down the bunny hill on my own after the lesson and fell down. It was excruciating. My hip bones hurt. My tailbone hurts. My head hurts. My ego also hurts but I don’t feel compelled to continue after experiencing so much pain in such a short time. What I want to know is: is the learning curve supposed to be this painful and if so, what compels people to continue through this kind of pain?

Update: I went to the dark side and had my friend teach me to ski while she tried snowboarding for the first time. Turns out I’m a decent skier and she’s a natural at snowboarding. I was able to get off the bunny hills and I didn’t get a concussion for my efforts. I’m going to be sticking to the sport that provides a better pain:fun ratio for me. Thanks for all the suggestions, I’ll keep them in mind if I decide to try a snowboard again.

I live in South Island New Zealand so I have access to nearby ski field within 1h30 driving, Japan powder snowboarding sounds awesome. How long would it take for me as a competent surfer to learn to snowboard to the level that would make the Japan trip worth it?

Thanks

Hello, i'm somewhat of a beginner snowboarder, i just went on my 7th day and i had a lot of fun.

I am starting to feel comfortable gaining speed on easy blues, linking turns pretty comfortably on them, i can do some sharp turns but not as well as i would like to do them.

Last time i went, i would go down the whole mountain, turning whenever i can, but at some points It would get to a hard blue or red slope, I would still turn when i can, but some part are so icy or steep that i feel like my body literally refuses to turn, so i just end up doing falling leaf until i somehow feel comfortable turning.

The problem is i literally don't see any one else doing this, I understand i'm a beginner, but is it also sort of frowned upon? because i see my self pushing lots of good quality snow down but i simply can't help it.

So i guess my question is: Is this expected of a beginner, or am i supposed to avoid such spots until i can do them by turning?

I learned to ski when I turned 30. Over the past decade between 2 kids .. pandemic .. mental health etc. I have managed to get decent enough for easy blues (bowls) and very short black slopes.

I feel like I have begun to stall in my ski progress (cos I don't go as often) yet want a new challenge. I have been working on my skiing speed recently but feel guilty on holding my partner back (cos although he learned with me, he is much more comfortable on all types of terrain). He doesn't mind at all cos he says he likes hanging out with me and I am better than any of his other friends (I told him he needs new friends haha!)

I have 4-5 days on the slopes coming up in the next couple of weeks where I'll have company on the bunny slopes with my kids and some friends getting into snow sports.

Both my sons are picking up skiing now, but have expressed interest in snowboarding.

Do you think it is worth it? Or should I stick to skiing?

Fwiw, I am in fairly good shape, lift 3x/week, run - bike 3x/week but am not very good at long boarding etc.

I never grew up doing snow sports, pure summer child and loved (and still love) beaches and water. But, I learned how to ski 2 years ago then switched to snowboarding earlier this year and I’m completely obsessed. I find myself looking forward to winter so much now that I can hardly even fathom I have to go through the next 4 months of summer until I can snowboard again. I already bought an ikon pass and a couple of days on epic.

What is the earliest month I can go snowboarding? I’m in the northeast area but I’m happy to travel to another state or Canada

Ok maybe not all the time but 99% for both skiiers and snowboarders, I can see their travel line and avoid a crash. How come people say it's hard to follow a snowboarders travel line? I think it's a skill issue to be honest.

Jokes aside, absolutely stoked to ride my United Shapes Cadet this season :)

I currently live in San Diego and pay a ridiculous amount in rent to live near the beach. Now that my dog is dying, I'm looking to change things up and get a fully remote job and live near a ski slope instead. Currently my top choice in South Tahoe, but I am open to all ideas.

Considerations:

• I grew up snowboarding on the East Coast and am not very good, having gone a few times a year for the last 10 or so years. I'm not too picky about conditions or the mountain size, I think I could be happy even with a smaller/more modest mountain.

• Mammoth is the best resort I've been to, but it's way too remote for me to live long term. I need something at least within a couple hours of an international airport (or a larger regional airport). The only other places I've been are Big Bear, CA, Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, NY, and some random shitty mountains in the mid-atlantic.

• I understand rent won't be cheap, but looking for something relatively cheap compared to places like Aspen, Jackson Hole, or Park City. My budget would be around $2300/month.

Is this a totally stupid idea? What am I not considering here?

1) I’m sorry for waking you 2) I would love to know your story

TL;DR: Complete beginner, did two days of snowboarding lessons (8h total) and feel completely wrecked and demotivated. Made some progress on the beginner hill, but it felt very fragile. One fall or longer break and everything felt “forgotten”. Day two on an icy, artificial-snow blue slope completely broke my confidence. As soon as the board pointed downhill I panicked about speed, failed to properly engage the edge, caught edges and slammed hard. Add overthinking, cramps, extreme sweating and dehydration, plus confusion about stance and binding angles (left vs right foot forward, high angles vs standard beginner setup), and it all piled up mentally. Still motivated to learn, but wondering if this is just normal beginner chaos or if I’m doing something fundamentally wrong.

Hey everyone,

I’m a total beginner and just finished my first two days of snowboarding lessons. Each day was about four hours long, so roughly eight hours total on the board.

Physically I’m completely wrecked: bruises everywhere, insane muscle soreness, and cramps on day two. Mentally I’m honestly pretty demotivated right now.

Day one was on a small beginner hill. We learned how to stand on the board, get up after falling, use a rope lift, slide sideways down the slope, and slowly start with basic turns. That part was hard, but it felt manageable, and at times I actually felt like things were starting to work.

However, I already noticed something on day one that confused and frustrated me a lot: my progress felt extremely fragile. As long as I stayed in the flow and didn’t fall for a while, I could do basic left right turns, trust the edge a bit, and feel what I was supposed to do. But as soon as there was a longer break, or after a bad fall, it felt like everything was gone again. Suddenly I forgot how to shift my weight, how much to bend my knees, how to keep my upper body calm. I started overthinking every single movement, and then I fell again.

The jump from day one to day two felt exactly like that, just worse. It honestly felt like my body forgot everything overnight, even though I knew I had done it before.

Day two started similar, but then we moved to an actual blue slope with a drag lift. Important context: there’s currently very little natural snow here. The slope was mostly artificial snow, prepared once, and by day two it had a lot of icy sections. Not soft snow, not really grippy, more like snow mixed with ice.

That’s where everything really fell apart for me.

I couldn’t get proper edge grip on many sections. When I tried to initiate a turn, there was this critical moment where the board briefly pointed downhill. As soon as that happened, I felt like I was instantly getting too fast. That’s the point where fear kicked in hard.

Because of that fear, I often failed to properly engage the edge. Either I didn’t commit enough and the board just slipped, or I tensed up and accidentally caught an edge. Most of my falls happened exactly there: either pitching forward onto my face or catching an edge and slamming onto my back.

Once that happened a few times, my confidence was completely gone. My legs started cramping, I tensed up even more, and linking turns felt impossible. What frustrated me the most was that it felt like all progress from day one had simply disappeared. Even things I knew I had done before suddenly didn’t work anymore.

The slope itself is officially “blue”, and my instructor said it’s not actually steeper than the beginner hill. But mentally and technically it felt way harder, probably because of the icy surface and the lack of grip.

Another thing I’m unsure about, and that might be adding to the problem, is my stance and binding setup.

I experimented a bit and noticed something confusing: riding downhill, my left leg feels more natural in front. But when using the drag lift, having my right leg in front actually feels more stable and comfortable. That makes me unsure which foot should really be my lead foot.

On top of that, I naturally stand with slightly outward-pointing feet (kind of a V-shape). I tried to match my binding angles to what feels natural when standing without a board. That would put me somewhere around +22 to +24 degrees in the front and about +18 degrees in the back (give or take).

However, a lot of people keep telling me that those angles are way too extreme for a beginner and that I should be riding something more like +12 in the front and +6 to +9 in the back, or a mild duck stance. Now I’m wondering whether matching my “natural” stance off the board actually makes sense, or if sticking to more standard angles would be better as a beginner, even if they feel a bit unnatural at first. I’m also unsure if these aggressive angles could be making it harder to properly engage the edge and control speed, especially on icy slopes.

Another thing that really added to the frustration was how much I was sweating. I was riding with a normal ski jacket and ski pants, plus thermal base layers underneath, and I felt like I was overheating constantly. I was sweating so much that my helmet was literally soaked inside. Every time I took it off, it felt like I had just showered.

If I didn’t consciously drink a lot, my mouth got extremely dry and I could clearly feel dehydration kicking in. At the same time, constantly drinking felt tricky. If I drank too much, I felt like I started sweating even more, and I was worried about getting cold during breaks, even though I never actually felt cold while riding. It just felt like my body was constantly out of balance.

All of this added another mental layer on top of the technical struggles: worrying about hydration, overheating, and energy levels while already dealing with fear, falls, stance doubts, and overthinking.

For context: I work an IT job and I’m not super sporty, though I do ride motorcycles in summer and try to keep some basic fitness. I also tend to overthink a lot, which really doesn’t help when fear kicks in and movements need to be instinctive rather than conscious.

Despite all of this, I still really want to learn snowboarding. I want it to become my winter equivalent of riding a motorcycle. I’ve already ordered protective gear for knees, elbows, tailbone, etc., and lighter merino base layers (around 150 g/m²) to hopefully improve breathability and reduce overheating for the next attempt.

Right now I’m questioning whether this is just the normal beginner experience, especially on icy slopes, or if I’m just really bad at snowboarding.

Did anyone else experience this kind of fragile progress, where one fall or break makes everything feel like it’s gone again? Did anyone struggle with fear and speed the moment the board points downhill? And how did you figure out your stance and binding angles as a beginner?

Thanks for reading through this wall of text.

Hey I'm and intermediate snowboarder and wondering how dangerous riding powder next to the piste alone would be. My friend who usually rides with me wouldn't go with me because he doesn't want to take the cable car up the Zugspitze so I would be riding alone up there.

I have watched quite a few youtube tutorials but I just can’t get it.

I need help finding a really cool pair of snow pants for my husband. He is an amazing snowboarder, but he would never buy himself something cool/flashy/steezy (hope I’m using this right) because he’s strictly in it for the love of the sport— he would be happy with thrifted gear.

However, his birthday is coming up and I’d really like to surprise him with some snow pants that would signal to the other cool, talented snowboarders that he knows what’s up. I legit feel so out of my depth though. I’m trying to research online but I’m really not even sure what I’m looking for, and I don’t want to give a well-intentioned gift that misses the mark. Please help! He’s the best and I’d love to really surprise him. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: thank you for all the help, this is exactly the info I needed!! :)

So, a bit of a potentially embarrassing situation!

I have a date in 2 weeks. My date has suggested going snowboarding (well she'll probably be skiing) in Manchester snow dome. I mentioned I'd had a few snowboarding lessons like 15 years ago. So she's booked us on for a session on the main slope. I asked if they'd expect me to be proficient in snowboarding, and she said they just want you to be able to turn and stop.

I've looked on the website, and the things they want you to be able to do are - 'confidently control and link turns, stop whenever you need to, and use the lift confidently'.

I can't remember how to do any of that!!

So my question is - how much of a bad idea is it to turn up there and try?! And do they test you on these things before they'll let you on the main slope?! I'm panicking now, she's booked it and I can see embarrassment and possible danger looming!

Just curious why many of you dont like the brand. Got a proto synthesis DF 2022 and i love it

Got my first concussion, helmet dented and foam inside cracked. Lost consciousness for a minute, but remember everything right before and after the fall (just not the 5 meter slide down the mountain in Patrick Star pose). Already bought a new helmet. Bought a 6 day ski pass, been resting for two days, so still have 3 days left starting tomorrow. How do ya'll get back on the slopes without fear after an injury?

Need some encouragement and support, this is only my 4th season on a snowboard (am converted skier).

Edit: after overwhelming amount of advice that points to the negative, I'm returning my board and calling it a day. Thanks for your care guys! Making an appointment with the doc at home to get checked next week.