It used to be that showboarders – AKA knuckledraggers, slackers, ski punks –
were the bain of ski areas everywhere. Where I go a lot in Mammoth Mountain, California, they used to be thought of as
scum and wastrels. Not by me, of course, since I started to take to boarding myself, but by the old folks who had grown
accustomed, the way people do, to owning the hill. Well, interesting how thing have changed. Seems now that the
demo has shifted so much that
areas are now bending over backwards to attract showboarders.Of course, if you’ve done any skiing/snowboarding at all
in the last five years, this is absolutely no surprise. Some 6.3 million Americans went snowboarding in 2003, a HUGE
increase from a decade earlier, when only 2.1 million said they had done it, according to an annual survey
conducted by the National Sporting Goods Association. The NSSA also says 60 percent of people under 20 who take
up snow sports are snowboarders, and resorts WANT them like junky wants a fix.