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Thought Bubble

90’s Degree Slope

Charlie Walker August 27, 2024

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90’s Degree Slope

Out Of Collective 90s

Why the 1990’s were skiing’s best decade and it’s been downhill ever since.

Grunge, Flannel, Beanie Babies, and AOL. If you are “Clueless” what decade I’m talking about, then I’m not sure we can be “Friends”. I’m talking about how hella tight the 90’s were. The golden age of Blockbuster and the first days of the internet also gave us perhaps the most prolific ten years the ski industry has ever seen.

The Dopest Riders

In the 90’s big names were out doing big thangs across every aspect of the sport throughout the decade. Skiers pushing the envelope of what was possible across so many disciplines inspired many of today’s most prominent riders. And they all did so with their own unique and incredibly 90’s style.

Before there was Mikayla or Lindsey Vonn, there was Picabo! Picabo Street reminded people ski racing can be cool. She won the Downhill Silver in the 94 Olympics and a Super-G Gold in 98 in Nagano. In between that she won the World Cup Downhill Women’s title in 95 and 96, at the time the first American ever to win a season title in a speed event. She was a hero and remodel for women like Shiffrin and Vonn and helped pave the way for the future success of America’s fastest women on skis!

Picabo Street

And while Picabo was smashing gates, couple dudes by the names of Davs and Coombs were revolutionizing what it meant to be extreme ripping spines in Alaska. Pun intended Heli-skiing really took off in the 90’s and so did the limits of what we thought was skiable. Doug Coombs and Chris Davenport were just two of the 90’s pioneers that went to tame the Chugach. They weren’t doing it for clicks or views. They did it to push themselves, and take on the best skiers in the gnarliest terrain and move the sport forward. No WESC (World Extreme Skiing Championships) then no Freeride World Tour today.

Hell, the 90’s even made moguls cool. Whether it was Jonny Mosely’s Gold in Nagano with a helicopter iron cross, or McConkey getting a lifetime ban from Vail for hucking a nude spread eagle in his final heat as a racer; even the bumps in the 90’s had rizz.

Coverage Fo Shizzle

Maybe the reason the names of the nineties remain relevant are because we actually freakin saw them and knew who they were. The nineties were the glory days of cable TV. The rise of at home video and the dawn of the internet. Espn2 was established in 93 and the first winter X-games bringing the park and pipe into peoples homes for the first time. Half of middle America probably didn’t realize snowboarding was an actual thing until the late nineties because they’d simply never seen it.

Speaking of in-home access, being able to watch your favorite ski movies on VHS or DVD anytime you wanted was so rad, maybe even laser disks if you had bougie ass friends. We used to literally wear shit out til it got grainy or too skippy to continue. While Greg Stump stole the torch from Warren Miller in the 80’s, new production companies like Teton Gravity Research (95), Poor Boyz (94), Matchstick (92) took that flame and lit the world on fire. Exotic locations, insane tricks, and killer music was the perfect recipe for stoke. That formula continues today even if it’s cut down to a 15 sec ticky tok or reel.

And how could we forget the literal cinematic classics that graced the big screens of the 90’s?! I’m talking movies like Ski Patrol (1990), Ski School (1990) and of course Aspen Extreme (1993)! These were legit Hollywood movies. That aired in theaters. And people left their homes to go see. I was one of those people. And not sure if I’m proud or ashamed to admit I wore my goggles over a backwards baseball cap until 2015 a la Dexter Ruteki. Do those movies still hold up today? Nope not really. Does that somehow make them worse and better at the same time. Absolutely!

Oh and there used to be these things called magazines. They were kind of a cross between a blog and Instagram. But they had it printed out almost like a book. And you would own it. Memorize it. Plaster it all over your walls. The stories, photos, interviews, and gear that came out magazines like Powder in the 1990’s captured the sport like nothing does today. It was disposable but not instantly discardable like so much of today’s content.

The Illest Conditions

When I say illest condtions yes I mean the snow was better…kinda. Sure California had draughts and New England still had the right amount of suck. But on average out west it would snow around 50 days and that is now down into the low 40’s annually. And the Northeast still gets 2 inch powder days but then it rains or is 50 the next day and it melts away quicker as shown in studies about deteriorating snowpack in river basins. But this article ain’t about “science” it’s about skiing and illest conditions meant more than just snow in the 90’s!

The economic climate was right, and you could afford to shred. Whole families could weekend warrior their Volvo station wagon to the closest resort and not go bankrupt doing it. So hear me out lift ticket prices in 1990 in Vail was $35 and Killington was $39. Inflation sucks a wang, but its a part of life. If those passes followed normal cost of living today they should be $84 and $93 respectively. Instead this coming winter a to day ticket to ride would cost you $295 and $167. That markup surely carries over to the lodge where $25 cheeseburger now seem the norm. Last season I saw an even more infuriating $16 grilled cheese. No soup. Just GC. As 90’s Bart Simpson would say, “Eat my shorts dude.”

But maybe the most important factor in the conditions in the 90’s were the skis themselves. Allowing any conditins to be the illest conditions. Elan trademarked the term “parabolic” in 1990, essentially the hour glass shape with a tapered waist. By the middle of the decade everyone else was following suit. Allowing all types of skiers to progress further and carve like never before. And in 97, the godfather Mike Douglas shopped around his idea for twin tips skis. This allowed skiers to do the same tricks as a wave an up & coming snowboarders where shredding the scene. Salomon took the bait and dropped the “Teneighty” the first mast produced twin of its kind and the rest is history.

Talk To The Hand, 2024 Don’t Understand

Fully aware this article gives off serious boomer, get off my lawn, turn down your rock music energy. And for those too young to experience the 90’s I’m sorry you missed out. For those closer to this millennials age, I’m sorry for your loss and wish we could have held on to those days forever. There will be hard-o’s that love to argue that their decade was way better. Cool. Just know that where we are today is largely in part and thanks to what went down in the 90’s. Respect your elders, appreciate the history, and tip your jester hat to potentially the last best decade of skiing.  Go skiing and make the best out of this decade and those to come. But from where I’m standing looking at things today, it very well might all be downhill from here!

RELATED: WHY SKI MOVIES STILL MATTER

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