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Comment by peterlk | Hacker News Reader

Warren Miller inspired a lot of skiers. Every time I went to one of the movies while I was growing up, I learned to have a better time on the slopes. In my mind, the thing that made the movies so compelling wasn't pushing the edges of skiing in a badass way, it was pushing the edges of skiing in a fun/silly way.

For example: https://youtu.be/zD5RhNBmc_U

My brother and I used to have spinning competitions down hills. We also used to do slope breakdancing, which is way less cool than it sounds. Anyways, I'm grateful to Warren Miller for inspiring me to be silly on the slopes. I had a better time because of the films that he made.

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His films always had silly stuff, but my favorite pieces of his films were the 'slice of life' looks into various people's lives surrounding the ski industry, for example following ski patrol's day-to-day, or even going to foreign countries to document ski culture in, say, Almaty, Kazakstan. I particularly loved this scene from Snowriders II:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7Meb_pmMM

Important to recall that this was released in 1997, so probably filmed in 1996, and initiated in 1994-5, so its a look into a post-USSR culture a mere 5 yrs after the dissolution of the USSR.

I saw a film at the Banff Mountain Film Festival last year that was about skiing in Iran. It was fascinating to see how people get out of town and let their hair down, so to speak.

Was skiing more fun or laid back in the 70-80s? It seems that way from most of the videos I watch. Lots of comments on the Warren films I watched are saying it's gotten far too serious these days and people aren't letting go and having fun on the slopes (besides maybe the 'extreme' guys doing jumps but even they are working hard on a skill)... I'm not much of a skier, but I got that impression myself the few times I went.

Or is this just the usual nostalgic everything-was-better-in-the-past stuff?

Definitely not, here's a classic example of the mainstream skier attitude of the time: https://youtu.be/XPZDEWBzneY

I think the people like Warren were more or less revolting against the culture of the time. Nowadays it's just the norm - most people aren't really wound up even if they're mostly focusing on improving their skills. Maybe there are fewer people dialing goof to the max but in my experience most young skiers and boarders drink and smoke on the slopes - that sort of thing. Also there's movies like G.N.A.R. that are recent.

Snowboards were definitely controversial when they came out. A lot of it was probably "Get off my lawn" driven by the fact that snowboarders tended to be younger and more aggressive. So people didn't really like them although the same snowboarders running over their skis would have been doing it no matter what they had strapped to their feet. But people sort of justified their attitude with claims that snowboarders scraped the snow off the slopes, couldn't really see where they were going, etc.

In the US there's only one major and one smaller area that don't allow snowboards today. I didn't realize it but there was a lawsuit against one of the areas a couple years back but they won and still don't allow snowboards.

There are 2 resorts in Utah that don't allow snowboarders - are those what you're referring to?

Ah, my mistake. Forgot that, in addition to Alta, they're not allowed at Deer Valley either. Mad River Glen in Vermont is the other one I know of. It's not a tiny area but relatively small. (And the only one of the three I haven't skied at.)

Speaking as a snowboarder, I take different lines than a skier does and I get off the chair lift differently. So I see why they don't interact well on the slopes. In practice, everyone has adapted, though.

There was definitely a "get off my lawn" aspect to it but the thing that really led to acceptance was the dire economics of ski resorts: they needed boarders because the number of skiiers wasn't growing, and they were aging out.

Sad statistic: of people who put on skis for the first time (and remember first timers get free tickets and equipment at most locations in the US): only 25% of them ever put skis on a second time!

As snowboarding grew in popularity it just wasn't feasible for the vast majority of ski areas to continue disallowing them even if many skiers would have preferred they did so. The situation was actually worse as just the percentage of snowboarders; a mixed family or group of friends aren't going to go somewhere that one of their folks couldn't board at.

Interestingly the percentage of boarders is down a bit though still significant.

>Sad statistic: of people who put on skis for the first time (and remember first timers get free tickets and equipment at most locations in the US): only 25% of them ever put skis on a second time!

Not really surprising. Equipment is much better than it was when I learned but I nonetheless remember skiing having a fairly painful learning curve for me. I'm sure a lot of people go out, they don't really have the right clothing, and they fall a lot, get cold, get wet, and really just don't have a good time. I'm sure it's true for a lot of other sports as well.

That's a great video about snowboarding, as some people said in the comments it almost sounds like a parody today.

I think what you're seeing is that Miller's films (especially the older ones) always had a goofy aspect to go along with whatever extreme ski footage they showed. It's really a reflection of his formula whereas a lot of the footage you see these days plays things more straight.

Lots of people still ski for leisure, or for the exercise, or just to enjoy the splendor of the great outdoors. If this is the kind of skiing you enjoy, I would say just pick a pretty mountain and contain yourself to the green runs and you can have a very laid back day.

On the other hand, if you enjoy pushing yourself physically then skiing can also be a thrilling pursuit of your personal limits. When you are competing with yourself, trying to become better at a hobby you are passionate about, you can definitely become emotional and a bit tense.

There are a lot of people all over the mountain that take it pretty seriously just for the fact that it costs a couple hundred bucks just to rent the equipment and get an all-day lift ticket. If you make $1000 a week and you just paid $200 to go skiing, you might be a little bit annoyed if someone is stopped in the middle of the run to take photos, or skiing behind someone who is mashing the bumps down by side-sliding because they rode a lift to a run they couldn't handle.

Giant difference between skiing and making skiing movies...

We do seem to have a bit of an energy drink inspired progression fetish with certain sports. Warren's movies always seemed magical in that you'd see some people just having fun, there would definitely be some more extreme parts and you might see guys hucking off some giant cliff but there was always a constant thread of just skiing for joy. At least that's how it always looked to me and the parts of the movies I seem to remember the most. One of his last movies showed a bunch of footage from a privatized resort and Warren brought his old friends, like it was 50+ year olds skiing sick powder all by themselves, just old dudes skiing the best powder ever... It might have been the Yellowstone Club, I don't remember.

He made a brand and developed a loyal following, I think in today's world a lot feel that doing some crazy stuff is the easiest way to get the views, and it's all about the views. As for skiing itself, it's very much a family oriented activity in most places. The big resorts all have terrain parks now and some fairly extreme terrain that they've opened up but that vast majority of most mountains is designed to just be fun and relatively safe.

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