Snowboarders, Skiers Don’t Mix Against Boards This Hill Is Not Big Enough.

Do we really need to encourage and enable testosterone-driven teenage terrors to take over our ski slopes?

It’s happening, each week, one half-hearted “Sorry, Dude” apology at a time, all over the Inland Northwest.

Ski resorts have been slow to admit that mixing downhill skiing and snowboarding is a problem.

After all, the growing popularity of snowboarding has bumped up the lift ticket sales.

But this mix-and-match, everybody-just-get-along attitude is definitely on the minds of adult skiers.

Unless resort operators respond, they run the risk of ruining the traditional ski experience and scaring off alpine skiing’s core customer base.

The ski industry has tried hard to promote alpine skiing as a family-oriented experience that grows into a lifelong sport.

Adult skiers fondly contemplate the idea of getting their children started on the mountain and then, in later years, enjoying the outdoors with them.

Snowboarders change that equation.

Their incessant hopping and scooting into lift lines and off chairlifts has mutated once-routine ski protocol into fretful chaos.

The snowboarder penchant for cutting through trees and jumping off cliffs and rocks has shaken basic skier assumptions about where to be careful and attentive.

And many snowboarders are young men who bring a surly, in-your-face attitude to a place where courtesy and camaraderie once had been encouraged.

Must the ski industry simply throw up its insulated mittens and turn over a mostly civilized experience to people who wear pants five sizes too large?

No, the industry needs to separate the two cultures.

Snowboarding, like skateboarding, jet skis and bungee jumping, is a legal high.

Surely there can be a growing industry built around the care and feeding of snowboarder hormones and attitudes.

That industry needs to grow in parallel to the ski industry, not on top of it.

Otherwise, the people who grew up loving to ski will be hanging up their poles early.

Life is too short to be run down by a kid on a board who doesn’t have clue about the history and civility of downhill skiing.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Don’t stereotype snowboarders

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