+1. Always wanted to learn to Ski not having been exposed to snow early on but was told that Snowboarding is easier than Skiing for absolute beginners. Perhaps this time i can actually get some proper lessons. Timing couldn't be perfect!. Thanks.
I think the "easier" depends on the target skill level.
Skiiing is easier to achieve a beginner skill level. Absolute beginners can point their toes inward and ski "pizza wedges" down easy hills rated as "green" within a few hours. Indeed, many skiiers including adults never leave this stage. But upgrading the skills to intermediate level requires changing the technique to shift the body weight to the edges of the skis. This shift can take weeks.
Snowboarding learning curve is the opposite. It's harder to get going as a beginner because you must balance on alternating edges of the board to even make the simplest basic turns. But the payoff is that you can graduate to intermediate and advanced slopes (the blues and black rated trails) much faster.
I never skated on a regular board but I'd say yes you will have it easier.
If you do it just like on the skateboard, you will fall a lot.
1) You want your weight biased towards your front foot on a snowboard, when you get competent at riding you will be doing a lot of control with the front foot. This is the opposite to skateboarding, where leaning on the front leg will cause you to fall over very quickly.
2) Toeside turns on a snowboard are utterly counterintuitive because there's no real mapping to anything on a skateboard (unlike heelside which could be considered like a fs powerslide on a skateboard) - you have to push your shins into your boots. Maybe it's a bit like carving on a longboard, but not so much.
The whole turning thing is the main difference - on a snowboard you use your front foot and your edges, on a skateboard you just pivot on the trucks.
(Source: 20 years as a skateboarder, now spend about 30 days a year on the slopes instead).
Did one day of 2x2 hour lesson, then could board well enough to do intermediate runs and manage on t-bar and chair lifts.
Most abiding memory, very cold arse. We broke for lunch after the first 2 hours and I had difficulty using the loo because I couldn't feel my arse at all.
Great fun, but for the last couple of days of the trip I went back to skis. There's something about the rhythmb that matched mountain-biking for me.
Day after the snowboarding lessons I couldn't sit up in bed, had to roll over, my tummy was so sore. I'd recommend lots of sit-ups and squats to get your abs ready!
I think it's easier to learn to board.
But then for some reason I thought to ride it like a rip stick. And it completely clicked. I made it all the way down that very first run from there. Some of my group members had snowboarded multiples times before that day, but I was pretty much instantly better than most of them. As a side note, I also used to skateboard and didn't feel like it helped at all.
There are some ski schools that skip the "pizza wedge" technique and teach beginners directly the weight on edge parallel skis turns. They're very, very progressive independent schools usually. In the French Alps, you can ask about the ESF, which have schools everywhere, and in some (very rare) places teach like this.
That being said, in a normal 6 day ESF beginners class you would start learning parallel ski turns by day 3 if everything goes OK, after doing the usual pizza wedge the first days.
Alpine skis were nearly straight sided when I were a lad and "carvers" only started to appear in the 80's. Transitioning from snow plough, sometimes through stem christies (turn downhill ski and lift and bring uphill ski into it) to proper parallel turns was a rite of passage. Modern skis lend themselves to point and turn much earlier.
When I teach I try to do both snow plough and parallel together because they are both useful techniques. Snow plough for control of speed and stability and parallel for general usage.
One technique I rarely see these days (apart from me) is the "kick turn" which is where you turn yourself 180 degrees in place, regardless of slope. It looks a lot cooler than back sliding and then wacking in a quick slow speed turn.
They had a good combination of steeper bits to build speed and then leveled off to allow me to "regroup" and recover if I was pushing myself a bit. I understand how funny it is to think of "pushing yourself" on a green trail but this was the first time I'd gone skiing. The length of the trails helped a lot since even without being a major challenge, I could enjoy gliding through the woods for a good while before having to get back in line for the lift.
I didn't even bother with the short "bunny slopes" after a preliminary run or two since they were not long enough to get a feel for it before you had to just stop and start over.
I went a few more times over that winter and the next one and got to the point where I was feeling good on some of the easier "blues". I understood how edges worked and it mostly felt natural.
Snowboarding was very different for me. I have never taken the time to get any good at it because starting off is just so uncomfortable, awkward, and un-fun for me. I guess with skiing, it feels like the very basics feel like normal standing posture with some modification. I liked my legs being separate and not both strapped together in one direction.
What you're saying makes complete sense to me. I don't go often enough to ever get particularly good but I can still have fun and get some exercise as a noob skier. I've never had fun as a noob snowboarder and it makes it harder to put in the effort knowing that I don't have the money and time to devote to getting past that stage and to the fun parts.
'Skiing is easy to learn but hard to master, Snowboarding is hard to learn but easier to master'.
You're likely to fall over more learning to snowboard but will become competent and able to carve down the mountain faster.
Other elements to consider, Skiers are usually able to go faster than snowboarders down the hill. Snowboarders will have to unstrap and strap into their back binding when entering and exiting the chairlifts. Snowboarders have many more easy trick options available. I know hardly any skiers that can do any tricks, most of my competent snowboarding friends are able to at least do small jumps of sidehits (mounds of snow on the sides of the slope).
I'm a passionate snowboarder and cannot recommend the sport highly enough, there is just no feeling like riding down fresh powder snow on a cool winters morning!
I don't see many boarders who can handle mogul fields without looking miserable. Likewise, when you've got some vertical ice skating going on a double diamond, the skiers usually have a much easier time maintaining control (two edges and all that).
I'll also note that a flat traverse is way more miserable for a boarder, skiers can "skate" along.
All depends on what you want to do any your interests.
Either way, it's a great hobby.
And when I say waxing, I mean doing it yourself. Too many shops do really inferior work. If you must use a shop, keep a small structure brush with you. A credit card can be used in a pinch as a scraper. The bane of speed is wax left on the board.
So apart from the first couple of days, I don’t think it really makes that much difference.
The biggest difference to me, I have to admit, is that once you get the hang of it, snowboarding feels cooler and more fun than skiing looks (to me), but I’m sure skiing is a lot of fun too (especially if you want to go very fast, which is a lot easier on skis)! But for the first day or two of boarding, you spend a lot of time on your butt and falling over!
Skiing is all about not falling. Falling on skis is no fun and results in having to walk up the slope to find your skis. After your first season, you'll often go entire years with only a fall or two. And those hurt, so you avoid them.
Snowboarding is a sport where you fall all the time, even as an expert. There are no consequences to doing so, apart from maybe picking your hat up, so the best plan is to simply go for it and see what happens. If you bite it, you bounce back up before you even come to a complete stop and keep going.
Naturally, it hurts a lot the first season. But you get good fast. I skied for like 10 years before picking up snowboarding. And I was better at snowboarding within the first season.
Once you catch an edge or slide out on a board, you're on the ground. I've seen skiers fall back on to their skis and rocket down the hill uncontrolled.
The other downside is not being able to traverse flat terrain, which is more or less important depending on the resort you are at.
Skiing was intuitive and my body wanted to do enough of the right thing to get me down most of the beginner slope with little "learning". Snowboarding felt unnatural so i had to fight my bodies natural instincts. The trick with snowboarding is to go faster than feels comfortable at first because it is much easier when you have momentum.
I had the same feeling with skiing.
1. Lean forward to stop and get control when ur instinct is to lean back to stop the glide.
2. lean on the opposite side of where you want to go, you want to lean in the same direction.
etc
Lessons will definitely help shorten the learning time but be prepared for your first 3-5 days to be a painful experience if you're snowboarding. If you only go 3-5 days a season you're probably going to have a much better time on skiis.