Frigid weather and inches upon inches of snow are less than desirable when making the trek up the hill to the Administration Building, but for the many recreational and competitive skiers and snowboarders that attend the University of Idaho, it’s a sign that a weekend on the mountain is near.
Lucky for most snow-sport enthusiasts, there’s enough mountains in the area to go around and keep the boarders and skiers coming back for more — even if they have to share.
Lindsey Anderson, a former UI club ski team member, spends her weekends teaching ski racing at Schweitzer Mountain Resort. Anderson, a Sandpoint native, has been skiing since age two and began racing at five.
“I grew up on the mountain,” Anderson said. “We got a condo at Schweitzer when I was two and my parents put me and my sisters and brother through a ski school.”
Anderson competed on the ski team for several years and qualified to compete at nationals last spring but had to forgo the opportunity for school. She placed first in the regional competition in the women’s giant slalom, making her an expert on the slopes — on two skis.
“I have snowboarded once,” Anderson said. “I just went straight down the hill because I didn’t know how to turn. The sports are pretty different but with snowboarding I think it’s easier to at least get good enough to go around the mountain sooner.”
Anderson said she has stuck with skiing because it’s what her parents taught her to do.
Brendan Baugh, former VandalSnow president, began skiing at an early age like Anderson, but at the age of 12 Baugh learned to snowboard and “hasn’t looked back since.”
“I prefer snowboarding. It’s the feel of it. I don’t know if it’s the leverage that you get from being able to put your whole body into the turns,” Baugh said. “It’s just a different way to ride … it’s more of a ride than just charging down the mountain.”
Baugh said snowboarding and skiing differ in the culture that surrounds them and said he believes that’s why people tend to favor one over the other.
“When you look at how snowboarding came to be … it was always the counterculture and when it first started there were a lot of mountains that wouldn’t let snowboarders ride on the mountain,” Baugh said. “A lot of the first snowboarders that were getting on these mountains were rebels and a lot of them were drunken buffoons.”
Anderson said the rivalry between the sports comes from developing an identity and a community with your sport.
“You just automatically don’t like the other snow sport — like skiers don’t like boarders or boarders don’t like skiers and they have all these stereotypes about each other,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the rivalry is less prominent than when snowboarding first became popular and snowboarders weren’t allowed at ski resorts. She said skiing was considered a “fancy, rich-person” sport and skiiers thought snowboarders were punks.
Baugh said snowboarding was the quickest sport to be inducted into the Olympics which has helped the sport become more widely accepted on the mountains.
“Today and in the last five years you see a lot of the snowboarding bleeding into the ski world and I won’t say that skiing hasn’t been a huge part of snowboarding because that’s really how it started,” Baugh said. “I think it’s just that cultural divide between the two that has spawned that separation.”
Jerry McMurty, Associate Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, has been the head coach of the ski team for 17 years and has been skiing for more than 40.
“I prefer skiing, but I’ve done both,” McMurtry said. “They’re just different sports and it depends who you’re going with and what you want to do.”
McMurtry, who has skied around the world, said he thinks it’s more difficult to be an accomplished skier than snowboarder.
“Skiing is more technical while snowboarding is more tricks,” McMurtry said. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just different. It’s about getting on the mountain and just getting outside in the winter.”
Baugh said it’s hard to tell someone to choose one sport over the other because they are so different.
“Skiing is easier to pick up on because you’re standing forward, going straight down the hill and that can help you get the basics of snow physics down,” Baugh said. “It’s easier to learn the feel of it when you’re standing in a comfortable position and your feet are separate.”
Baugh said learning to snowboard can be challenging because not knowing what foot to go first down the hill with is difficult, especially when your feet are tied together.
“It’s kind of a crapshoot the first time you go and it’s funny for friends to watch, but it’s painful and you’re either landing on your knees or your butt or wrists,” Baugh said.
Baugh said this is the reason he always tells people try skiing a few times before learning to snowboard.
“If you like the concept of it and you can deal with the cold and the wind and you like the sport of it then do it, then try snowboarding,” Baugh said. “And you’ve got to try more than once because everyone that only tries once … all I hear is how bad their butt hurts.”
Baugh and Anderson agreed that no matter which sport you prefer, nothing beats being on the mountain.
“You own the thing that you’re on. For snowboarders it’s the mountain. You’re charging down it just ripping it up with that leverage … you can just own it that much more,” Baugh said.
Anderson said skiing is probably one of the main components of her personality.
“It’s been my entire life … I just like to get away for like six or seven hours and not really think about anything else but skiing and skiing fast and I don’t really get that kind of feeling — I don’t get that anywhere else,” Anderson said. “It’s just kind of a lifestyle.”
Kaitlyn Krasselt can be reached at [email protected].