Sky Rocketing lift ticket prices force snow riders to take drastic measures!

Sky Rocketing lift ticket prices force snow riders to take drastic measures!

By: Team Billy

Ski Fiction/Ski Humor

After 48 years of skiing, watching what the high cost of lift passes and the current economy has forced the snowsports rider(s) to do is very upsetting. Upsetting? No, it makes me wanna hurl my Top Ramen.

Open the pages of any ski or snowboard rag and the results are right there. Watch any ski film from the past five years and there it is, skiers and riders forced to take drastic measures in order to enjoy the thrill of sliding down an incline.

Specifically, I’m referring to rail sliding down stairways and landing in parking lots. Take notice that even sponsored riders have been forced into this practice! The cover of FREESKIER Magazine, Volume 11.4 / December 2008 is one of the saddest examples. Poor Sammy Carlson is forced to turn a flat spin 360 off the remains of a house in Sweden. No doubt the house was burned to the ground by a poor old couple who were cold and hungry after putting their children through a ski or snowboard school.

Even more upsetting than Sammy Carlson not being able to afford a proper lift pass (and had only this old house to provide him with entertainment) is that he was forced to use the bricks to base structure his skis. Bricks and pavement are not the best ways to base structure your skis. 

Which raises an even more important question: How do you wax for steel rails, bricks and pavement? 

I suggest WD-40.

SNOWBOARD Magazine, December 2008 has another, even more disturbing image of Mikey LeBlanc launching off the wall of a parking lot into a basketball court. The high cost of lift tickets not only forced him to take this course of action, but the guy didn’t have enough money to buy a basket ball to stuff in the hoop!! (See page 13) And the guy is apparently sponsored by Matrix Clothing > OUCH Dude.

Other disenfranchised snowboarders in the above mentioned magazine are: Matt Belzile, Yan Dofin, Jesse Burtner, Johnny Lazzareschi, Brad Martin and my favorite, Pat Moore. If you have not seen this month’s issue of SNOWBOARD Magazine, run out and get it.

After reading it you will understand the full/negative impact this economy and rising lift ticket prices have had!