this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Do Americans think skiing in general is the same as alpine? Skiing isn't any more bougie than going for a hike.
Yeah, every criticism I've seen in this thread applied exclusively to alpine skiing, and almost exclusively to alpine resorts.
Cross-country is basically just Other Snowshoeing. Brand new gear costs maybe a couple hundred bucks, used gear is perfectly functional and ubiquitous (at least here in Canada) and the only infrastructure or anything that needs to exist is just snow having fallen.
I think i only spent 80 bucks on my equipment, and it's been working well for the past decade for cross country lmao.
Yeah this thread is wild. It's a geography/climate tied sport. People are bitching about equipment being so expensive in California? The place famous for not getting much snow?
As this thread has tried to correct against only criticising the concept of traveling for vacations and the environmental factors of ski resorts (which both do suck yes) the criticism of non-alpine skiing has gotten even dumber than when it was just being ignored.
I guess I wish people could learn that not everything is always about them.
Tbf cross country equipment can be very expensive in a country that is all about cross country skiing.
I'd argue alpine skiing isn't bougie if you live within two to three hours of a mountain. Secondhand equipment is cheap, and lift tickets were affordable until relatively recently.
Yeah, I disliked it because it felt crowded and I felt pressured into it by my family, but I grew up in an area much closer than two hours and there was never a significant class element to it as far as I could tell. Kids who didn't have their own equipment, like me, would just borrow. Maybe as an adult there's more complicated stuff that you need specific gear for but I couldn't tell back then.
Adult sporting equipment in general is hard to find because if you're an adult who plays a sport you probably really like it and use the equipment until it's busted. Kids grow out of stuff, or lose interest.
I can't find adult ice skates in thrift stores ever. I've been on the hunt for a while, might have to just bite the bullet and spend $150 CAD on a new pair.
Only exception is golf gear because rich guys like buying new equipment.
I don't know where you are, but where I live this has never been the sort of second hand stuff that is even remotely accessible to poor people.
I have been able to alpine ski about twice in my life. With rented equipment. Plenty of places around me for doing it, the lift tickets alone make it way too expensive.
And when it comes to cross country, which is a kind of national sport where I live, we all did do that as kids. But, it isn't cheap. Plenty of kids can't afford the equipment and those who have the good stuff obviously enjoy it more and don't get laughed at.
During covid year one me and my partner thought about doing it again as it's outdoors, but soon found out there is no way poor folks buy even cross country adult skiis that are actually usable. Used isn't all that cheap either.
There are endless tax payer money maintained ski routes in this country during winter that take over walking routes, hiking routes etc. You are not allowed to do anything there but ski during the ski season. The people who do it are all upper middle class or otherwise in a position where they can afford the equipment. The poors don't even get to use the area for walking during this time.
Good point, the availability of secondhand equipment isn't something that ever crossed my mind.
I grew up in the California Bay Area. The PMC types buy equipment, use them for a season or less, then get rid of them on Craigslist and/or yard sales—the surplus drives the prices way down, especially during off-season. It's still too expensive if you're struggling to put food on the table and pay rent, but it's viable if there's breathing room in the budget.
In the 90s and 00s a decent set up of used jackets, pants, helmets, skis, and boots could be had for under $100, and last you for well over a decade. Hell, my dad is still using gear he bought in the 90s.
Gear is more expensive now. We recently had to kit up my cousin's bf, and we managed to scrounge everything for $155. He's a min wage worker, but in our cultures multigenerational living is the norm, and that reduces the cost of living enough that spending that much won't put him in the red. He also didn't have spend everything at once, because our family could loan him whatever he was missing while we searched for good deals.
Lift tickets also aren't what they used to be. Growing up, lift tickets at smaller resorts could be had for $10-15, so overall the sport was affordable for working class refugees with only a highschool education and a middling income. Now the cheapest lift tickets at the smallest resorts are $25, and that price is only available once a month.
Had my parents fled to the US now or within the last decade instead of when they did in the 80s, we wouldn't have been a skiing family. With the increase of lift ticket prices, we remain a skiing family only because we have all the gear already, and living with my parents lets me save up enough to buy us season passes. If I were living on my own I wouldn't be able to afford it, nor would my parents since they're on a fixed income.
Skiing with family and friends are some of my fondest memories, and introducing new people to the sport and watching them fall in love with it is phenomenal. Watching year after year as that joy becomes increasingly out of reach for the working class is enraging. Don't even get me started on the insulting, increasingly low pay of resort workers, destroying another solid avenue that working class kids used to use to afford slope time.
You could never really be poor and ski around here, but to the average middle class family it was doable. Now only those in, just below, or above the upper middle class can afford it. It's only going to get more bougie from here on out, which is a travesty.
That blows big time, I'm sorry. While the resort slopes are exclusive to skiers, the miles and miles and miles of hiking trails in the Sierra Nevada are open to regular and snowshoe hikers, as well as cross country skiers. Y'all are getting hosed. We're all getting hosed. Death to capitalism.
It's very different then. Here this is a mandatory sport in school, but everyone has to buy their own equipment. Often kids from poor or for example migrant families end up having to sit out the ski lessons and also get poorer grades/negative feedback because of it. I was able to buy my kid one set of new skiis during their school years, but even those broke our bank. Kids skiis are cheaper, but you also need the sticks, shoes and proper clothing. Kids need several pairs over the years as they grow up so other times my kid just never got to take part.
We are made to compete in skiing as well from grade 1 onwards latest, it can be very humiliating for those who never learn it well or those many who never like it. I personally did like it, but my parents never were able to get good skis for me so it was always miserable. I did ski in the woods by myself though, that was nice. It was a good way to get to places in winter growing up, I did love skiing on sea ice.
Interestingly skiing was just a mode of transport in this country in the past, just like biking, and everyone had these equipment or made them. Nowadays it has become more of a banal nationalism and a symbol of "national spirit" and "fitness" or whatever that is seen as good and moral. It fits really well into the neoliberal wordview because people can just say "everyone is free to do it", ignoring the fact that the cheapest and crappiest skis for adults are hundreds of euros. If you are for example tall or fat, you can't buy those or you will hate skiing or end up hurt.
It is actually pretty depressing how something that historically was a mode of transport for the majority has been turned into something very exclusive and expensive by capitalism. I would argue this is happening to biking too, new bikes are well out of reach for someone like me now, but at least there is a better second hand market.
I tried to look for old school forest skiis to get past this and to be able to ski outside the raging bougies in the maintained lanes, but turns out those are even more pricey as the bougies have also discovered nature now as a posing stage.
Wish we had kept all the old skis our grandparents still had when I was young, the wood plank style army skis and such from the start of the last century. Those would still work in cross country terrain and could be maintained forever unlike the high tech carbon fibre stuff we are sold, but you can't find them anywhere anymore.
It's not mandatory anymore. Even when I was in school, we went skiing maybe a few times, and this was 20 years ago. Having to buy equipment was probably a big reason for why it's not mandatory.
I should have said "socially mandatory". Not mandatory as in you fail your classes if you go walking instead, but it was heavily not ok if your kid doesn't take part or you can't buy the equipment for them. My kid was in school just a few years ago still, but it was more rural.
I also did substitute PE teaching for some years and saw a lot of these equipment related financial issues during those times, there was none to give from the school to improve inclusion. Not just with skiis, but with skates and other winter sport stuff as well.
I couldn't afford downhill skiing as a child (and we lived right next to a ski hill) and I am still vaguely resentful. Used to bring a sled up the hill by foot and go down it though. The only way I got to learn how fun it is was my mum winning a union raffle for a skiing weekend.
My brother twisted his ankle the first day, so it wasn't very fun for him, but that is what we call a skill issue.
Ah solidarity, I also won a week long ski pass as a teen with lift tickets and rented skiis. I went to it with a friend and we spent all day every day in the slopes. That along with a school class trip are the only times I have alpine skied in a country of endless ski slopes, haha. It was a lot of fun, the rich kids did it all the time. Tony Hawk games and snowboarding was a big thing at the time and it was the rich kids in my class exclusively who had snowboards and were able to do that and flex about it.
There's a reason why you never see successful winter sports athletes from the global south.
Because we have no snow for the most part lol
Climate definitely doesn't help. Hard to do snow sports where there is no snow.
Southeast Asia seems to be serious about building up infrastructure for a number of winter sports so maybe in the future that will be less true.