I started the following in the discussion about terrain parks, but I decided to move it to a different topic. We've all seen a decrease in the number of ski slopes and proposed ski slopes over the years with few new ones arising. The slopes that do survive are often year-around vacation/residential locations. The decrease in interest  is not unique to this sport.

With all the distractions we have in today’s world it is tough to get the attention of the younger crowd. It can be useful to look at  roller skating and inline skating. Over the years I’ve been quite active in roller/inline/ice figure and freestyle skating and have seen some similarities. In ran the US Open Inline competition, a USARS sanctioned event and am a B level Roller Skating Meet Director.

Roller skating used to be a big activity for young people along with bowling and drive-in theaters. Over time interest in all these activities decreased. In the early nineties many people in  the roller skating organization looked at inline skating as the way to increase interest as a lot of young people were into it. Events were added at Nationals and a group in DC event held their own non-sanctioned inline freestyle event with 26 participants. Initially it was a big boon to the sport. There was some reluctance in the old school coaches, but enough of the younger coaches took to it to make it teachable. It used to be common in the nineties to see people inline skating along the streets, but  now it is skateboarding, the internet and video games.

Over time the interest and number of participants decreased in roller and inline skating except in competitive inline speed skating,  and surprisingly, competitive roller derby,  which has had a big resurgence. Also competitive slalom inline skating has been growing quite well.  I think  the key is further nurturing the  competitive nature of the sport. It encourages people to work hard and get  better and spend time on the sport.

I’ve competed in all forms of skating and it made me work harder and participate more. I’ve competed in Roller Nationals and Ice Adult Nationals  and did a lot of NASTAR (Gold) while my daughter raced on the local ski team only for her to go to figure and inline skating. I didn’t ski for twenty years while I was heavily skating when she changed. I’ve got the itch again and maybe will do some Masters USSA. It was great for my weight control encouragement.

There are some neat skiing events that encourage the easy racing like the Mt Dew Vertical challenge www.skiverticalchallenge.com  These occur on very easy greens and there are long line of people waiting to race. I saw the info on the Cupp race at Snowshoe which I couldn’t do as it was on a Monday. A similar event like that on a green on a weekend with a number of age categories could probably attract a lot of people and some people that are bored with just the casual downhill runs and increase interest and participation in the sport.

Snowboarding and the use of terrain parks has certainly helped to increase interest in the sport, but whether it will be enough to offset any possible decreased interest in skiing in the long term may yet be seen. Much like bowling and roller/inline skating it might require some different perspectives.

Joe Kaplenk

I agree on some of your points on the various posts.

You are missing a very big point (not sure where you grew up.) Skiing (and boarding) downhill, not in parks, are a very big part of the culture of growing up and in schools for a significant part of the country. New England, New York, PA? WV?, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, parts of CA, etc.

While in general population is moving away from the Northeast, it is moving to places like the CO Front Range and Utah SLC area. Where they will get indoctrinated.

Frankly, I don't think roller skating (in all it's forms) has ever evolved into the same culture as skiing has (in many parts of the country.) And people move from those parts of the country to the "non-skiing" areas, like DC.

My niece is an elementary school teacher in Northwest Connecticut. For a month during the winter, her school shuts down early once a week and buses the students to a local ski area, free of charge. With free equipment/lessons. I know that is very common in Vermont.

She is now hooked on the sport (having never skiied prior to teaching.)

That happen for roller/ice skating?

JohnL wrote:

I agree on some of your points on the various posts.

You are missing a very big point (not sure where you grew up.) Skiing (and boarding) downhill, not in parks, are a very big part of the culture of growing up and in schools for a significant part of the country. New England, New York, PA? WV?, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, parts of CA, etc.

While in general population is moving away from the Northeast, it is moving to places like the CO Front Range and Utah SLC area. Where they will get indoctrinated.

Frankly, I don't think roller skating (in all it's forms) has ever evolved into the same culture as skiing has (in many parts of the country.) And people move from those parts of the country to the "non-skiing" areas, like DC.

I grew up in upstate New York, lived most of my life in Chicago and spent the last six years in DC or Hampton Roads area. I see a lot of numbers  quoted about the number of ski resorts and how the numbers have decreased to more than half.  Certainly the culture of skiing may be different than roller skating, but it doesn't mean that these activities are not influenced by the same distractions. We could probably say the same about sports such as football and baseball. When I grew up we often had improptu football games in the street or at the park, but I haven't seen that where I live. I do see Soccer a lot and that seems to be something that is growing quite well.

jkaplenk wrote:

JohnL wrote:

I agree on some of your points on the various posts.

You are missing a very big point (not sure where you grew up.) Skiing (and boarding) downhill, not in parks, are a very big part of the culture of growing up and in schools for a significant part of the country. New England, New York, PA? WV?, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, parts of CA, etc.

While in general population is moving away from the Northeast, it is moving to places like the CO Front Range and Utah SLC area. Where they will get indoctrinated.

Frankly, I don't think roller skating (in all it's forms) has ever evolved into the same culture as skiing has (in many parts of the country.) And people move from those parts of the country to the "non-skiing" areas, like DC.

I grew up in upstate New York, lived most of my life in Chicago and spent the last six years in DC or Hampton Roads area. I see a lot of numbers  quoted about the number of ski resorts and how the numbers have decreased to more than half.  Certainly the culture of skiing may be different than roller skating, but it doesn't mean that these activities are not influenced by the same distractions. We could probably say the same about sports such as football and baseball. When I grew up we often had improptu football games in the street or at the park, but I haven't seen that where I live. I do see Soccer a lot and that seems to be something that is growing quite well.

WRT # of ski resorts; I think most industries in the U.S. are undergoing consolidation. With some possible exceptions of craft food/brew/wine/distillery operations.

WRT ski numbers. Ski Snowshoe (or Timberline or Whitetail or etc.) on a Saturday? Not hurting for popularity, IMHO.

More distractions? Yep. Society is different. You can say that about any and every activity that requires a physical presence.

Kids don't have anything impromptu nowadays. Non-online that is.

Sorry, not buying your thesis.

Well, I think first you have to look at demographics.  I'll let you look it up, I'm lazy.  The baby boom, that fueled the explosive growth of skiing in the 70s and early 80s, are now seniors.  Many are no longer interested in adventure sports.  The 'echo', the kids of the boomers, are entering early middle age.  Smaller numbers are entering the prime skiing years.  

I do indeed worry about the effects of video games and the 24/7 plugged in lifestyle.  I see the addiction to them in my 3 grandsons, ages, 18, 15, 12.  At the same time, they are very high energy, very physical, very fit kids.  They throw themselves into everything, soccer, ultimate frisbee, skiing, trampoline, leaving nothing on the table.  A day without blood is an unusual day, yet it doesn't slow them down.  Every weekend they are hucking cornices and cliffs at Kirkwood.  Video games have not ruined them.

i am teaching skiing this year at Sierra at Tahoe.  This has been an exceptionally busy holiday weekend in ski school, with deep snow for the first time in the past 4 years.  We have been slammed with first timer lessons.  Who are the students, you ask.  90% are Asians, from Silicon Valley.  Intel brought 1000 people here on Friday for the company ski day.  Almost all had never skied before and many had never seen snow.  This is probably the biggest potential growth area for the sport.  They are very apprehensive about snow, and require extraordinary patience in the beginning.  I am afraid I am going to be spending a lot of time teaching on the bunny slope because i have gotten a reputation for being very good with first timer Asians.  I just enjoy the smiles on their faces when they have learned to link a few turns on snow.  

The teaching season everywhere begins to wind down after Presidents day, which is pretty much the beginning of prime time, deep snow, season, so I am looking forward to my reward.

 Denis, you are a one man Army when it comes to growing our sport.  You da man!

I hope to have more local races streaming next year real-time and give the process  to the parks. technology is there and cheap.

maybe if they see it, they will come.  MT DEW (free) pulled in about 800+.  Roundtop Nastar (6$)  Holiday cold weekend pulled in 100 racers over 4 days. 

demographics here Balt/dc are 3% of total pop (9 mill) less than 1% diehards. ie 10+ visits. 

Montana - 5%   I get my 30+ days a year, this year 25+ short a bit due to PT. 

skiracerx wrote:

I hope to have more local races streaming next year real-time and give the process  to the parks. technology is there and cheap.

maybe if they see it, they will come.  MT DEW (free) pulled in about 800+.  Roundtop Nastar (6$)  Holiday cold weekend pulled in 100 racers over 4 days.

demographics here Balt/dc are 3% of total pop (9 mill) less than 1% diehards. ie 10+ visits.

Montana - 5%   I get my 30+ days a year, this year 25+ short a bit due to PT.

Great idea. I did the Mt. Dew at Whitetail. They said it was a little over 400 there. (See my writeup elsewhere).

I've been interested in the video aspect. I did a lot of video work for roller and skating competitions as well as coaches and have many thousands of dollars invested in video equipment and software that I haven't made use of since I moved from Illinois. I just picked up some video software that allows me to run six cameras and also have done a lot with Dartfish, which I have. I'm working on trying to get it setup for a live feed. I have the next to highest level Dartfish. The highest level is for broadcast and quite expensive.

I think the biggest problem is going to be getting a decent signal from the camera on the hill to an internet connection. It is doable but might require some additional equipment, either bought, borrowed or rented. It won't be possible to run cables to an internet connection and any camera or controller would probably be out of range for WiFi. It could be possible to use a cell phone to transmit, but the quality would be pretty low and maybe expensive for airtime, but it could be a start. It might also work by hoping across multiple wireless extenders.  It is pretty basic though to make the direct wireless connectivity and would just need to work with the slope to get the connection for high quality connectivity.

The station I worked on in  Illinois broadcast a lot of local events and did high school sports events like gymnastics, football games and a bunch of other events and had a van with state of the art equipment. Maybe there would be a local community access channel that can do some of the work.

This would be a great off-season project.

Joe