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I find myself anticipating this year’s snowfall in the north, for after a five to ten year hiatus from sliding down mountains on planks attached to my feet, I intend to return to the sport of skiing. Or, something like skiing.

I last skied on a routine basis around the time I encountered high school. Back then, skis were long, and snowboards hadn’t yet taken over the slopes, and I had no idea what snow parks were because the closest thing I could find was a makeshift half-pipe on some random slope. As a friend pointed out to me the other day, things have changed.

These days, skis are shorter and parabolic, which is a shape I encountered rarely on the skis of my fellow downhill sliders. When I tried to pick skiing back up in college, I recall that skiboards were a short-lived fad, and though I got into skiing, knee surgery and a broken foot all in the same year prevented me from hitting the slopes again. After that, time and money kept me away from the slopes, but last year, I promised myself I’d return.

I did some reading up on skiboards, which always intrigued me, and the intrigue hasn’t stopped. They caught on in part because they were highly manueverable compared to skis, since they were shorter. About the time parabolic skis caught on, and the general length of skis themselves shortened, skiboards were relegated to the novelty section on slopes, and the sport seems to have a niche following these days. For those who may recall, skiboarding was featured in the X-Games some years ago, but ultimately replaced with skis shorter than the then-norm.

In any case, I decided to buy myself a pair of skiboards because the learning curve isn’t as significant as skiing is. That’s not a huge issue in my case, since I used to ski well as a kid, and as I found out in college, skiing is like riding a bicycle: you pick it up easy after years of neglect.

Skiboarding is also considered to feel more like inline skating, likely because skiboards have more freedom of movement given their length. This allows quicker cuts in the snow, and very sharp, shoulder-to-the-ground turns.

Ironically, skiboards have gotten longer over the years. While some ‘boards were as short as 65cm, the norm these days is 99cm, and some are longer, usually for purposes of stability at speed and ability to float on powder. I don’t know how this fares with the under-100cm rule for skiboards I’ve read about, but the community in general tends to accept the skiboard label for ‘boards around 120cm, which is still shorter than skis. I imagine the definition for skiboard is still changing somewhat, but the core facts are the same: they’re shorter and wider than skis.

Sadly, there aren’t many vendors who deal in skiboards these days, so the online route is the best to go with. Hundreds of dollars and a few days of research later, I’m looking forward to an interesting snow season.

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