Blast from the Past – Old School Straight and Narrow

While snowboarding is really fun (see the part I of this series “Snow is only frozen water”) for us old school geeks there is something very appealing in the classic old school powder skiing. I mean long, narrow and stiff skis, lots of up and down movement, physically demanding way of moving down the mountain. If you haven’t bee there, doing that way of skiing, this all will probably look out a bit funny, even ridicilous? The beauty of it lies deeper though – the simple act of handling some over two meter skinny planks in soft and often uneven snow is pretty damn demanding. And knowing how hard it was, and how often you just struggled compared to the modern cruising on the fat freeskiing equipment, makes looking old pictures and videos really pleasing. I guess we all would still learn alot from the guys like Trevor Petersen or Doug Coombs back in the day.

Ok, our pics are not that epic but here is our little effort to pay tribute to the dynamic, physically demanding skiing of the 1980′s and 1990′s… Enjoy(?)

Rare pic of Marko on that side of the lens, Hurungane, Norway 1999

Mid fats were all the rage in the year 2000, Chamonix, France

My attemp of new school (yea right), 1998, Vihti, Finland

Another one from Verbier 1995

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About the Author

Janne Niini

I am a former (not-so-competitive) mogul-skier who nowadays enjoy many aspects of snow-gliding: alpine, telemarking and occasional snowboarding too. I have two small daughters and try to ski with them as often as possible.

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