Skiing or Snowboarding: Which One Should You Choose?

A week on the slopes rarely leaves time to try both sports. Skiing or snowboarding, how do you choose? Here is an honest look at what sets the two apart, so you can pick with confidence. And the good news: nothing stops you trying the other one next season.

Two sports, two histories

Skiing has history on its side. The earliest mentions date back to around 6000BC, when people used skis to cross vast icy stretches. Snowboarding is still young by comparison, born in the 1960s. Skiing joined the Olympics in 1936, snowboarding not until 1998.

For years, snowboarding was the cool, rebellious choice: every teenager wanted a board. Those teenagers grew up, and boarding lost its edge as an act of rebellion. These days skiing is having its moment again, with sharper gear and free skiing pushing into more extreme, entertaining territory. Trends tend to swing back and forth between the two, and probably always will.

The kit tips the scales

When it comes to kit, snowboarders have the easier ride. Their boots look bulky but feel more like oversized trainers: comfortable, light, and easy to carry in one hand. Ski boots make you walk like a robot, and you still have two skis and a pair of poles to juggle.

Buying your own gear tends to work out cheaper for snowboarding too, quality for quality. On equipment alone, boarders come out ahead.

Easy to learn, or easy to master

The general rule: snowboarding is hard to learn but quick to get good at, while skiing is easy to learn and hard to master.

Beginner boarders often spend their first days falling, again and again, before they find their balance and start linking turns. Beginner skiers, on the other hand, can click into a pair of skis and snowplough down a green run on day one. Things get harder for skiers once they try to turn with any real style.

On the lifts, skiers have the advantage. Chairlifts and drag lifts were built with skiing in mind, and boarders often find them awkward to negotiate.

Steep runs and flat sections

There is a technique boarders live by: once you master the falling leaf, balancing on one edge and sliding side to side, you can get down almost any steep run without turning. Skiers have no such shortcut: on a steep slope, they have to turn to control their speed.

Flat sections flip the advantage. Skiers can coast across them using their poles from day one. For a beginner boarder, a flat run is often the hardest part of the day: carry enough speed from the steep bit, dodge other people on the slope, and stay balanced, or end up unstrapping and walking. Some resorts have far more flat terrain than others, worth bearing in mind when you pick where to learn.

Speed, variety and powder

If speed is what draws you to the mountain, skiing wins. Put a skier and a boarder of equal ability in a race and the skier comes out on top every time: it is simple physics, not opinion.

Skiing also has the edge for variety, with options like Nordic skiing, cross-country and telemark. Boarders looking for more can try splitboarding, which lets you hike up with the skiers, though it suits experienced, confident off-piste riders best.

Off-piste is where snowboarding takes the lead. Riding powder feels almost weightless: long, smooth turns and none of the chatter you get on a groomed run. It is close enough to surfing that the very first snowboard was called a snurfer, built to let people surf the snow.

The only real risk is skipping lessons

Both sports come with a risk of injury. Boarders are more likely to hurt a wrist or their tailbone, while skiers tend to injure knees and legs. Either way, the best protection is learning good technique from day one.

So, skiing or snowboarding? The easiest way to decide is to try both with an OxySki instructor. Explore our snowboard lessons and adult lessons and make up your mind on the mountain.