Holly Price

Apr, 18 - 2025 - 7 mins

Snowboarding vs Skiing: Which is Easier for Beginners?

The lore of skiing vs snowboarding rivalry has been around for quite literally decades. You may have seen the infamous 1985 news segment documenting how skiers felt about their on-slope counterparts, and some people maintain the opinion that one sport is more dangerous than the other to this day. However, if you ask both skiers and snowboarders which is easier to learn, you’re likely to hear the same expression – “skiing is easier to learn and harder to master, snowboarding is harder to learn and easier to master.” At least we have one opinion in common.

What does this expression mean? We’re going to consider it in more depth below, but the logic is that downhill skiing is relatively easy to learn to the point where you can make linked turns down a mellow run. Progression from that point is trickier and takes more time. Snowboarding is hard to learn to the point of being able to link turns, and is often quite painful - most learners will spend a lot of time falling onto their backside and wrists when they ‘catch an edge’ of their board. Some boarders find it difficult to get past the ‘falling leaf’ stage, which is a technique used to introduce linked turns. That said, once you can link your turns on a snowboard, you’ll quickly progress through different types of terrain, turns and speeds.

Is it easier to ski or snowboard?

The short answer to this question is that it’s easier to learn to ski. The longer answer is that once you’ve cracked the basics of skiing, it gets harder to nail the advanced technique. With snowboarding, the opposite is true.

Why? Because the "pizza" (wedge) approach for learning to ski has been the leading beginner technique taught by ski schools for decades. While it does work and helps lower the risk of bad falls and building speed before you’re ready to control it, it also teaches bad habits that you have to break to advance further, drawing out the process of ‘mastering’ the sport.

With snowboarding, the movement of the board is the same as the movement of the skis, but you only have one effective edge in use at a time, making the margin for error smaller. On skis, if you catch one edge you have another ski to help stabilise yourself. Catch an edge on your snowboard and you’ll either fall backwards or forwards - your feet are attached to the one board and so you have to learn the ‘proper’ technique for riding from day one, making it easier to ‘master’ the sport in the long run.

Should I ski or snowboard as a beginner?

Choosing whether to learn skiing or snowboarding ultimately comes down to personal preference. However, if you’re only going for a week, it’s worth knowing that your first week on skis vs your first week on a board look very different.

In a week, most people can learn the basics of skiing and after a few days, they will be able to navigate the gentle slopes of the resort on their own. Your first week of snowboarding, however, is much more of an investment into the future! A week of snowboarding progress will involve a lot of falling, catching edges and finding your feet. While I’m not saying it’s impossible to get down the slopes at the end of a week of learning to snowboard, the honest answer is that you will probably have more fun on skis.

Ultimately, if you’re a complete beginner to both snowsports and you don’t mind which one you learn, you can use the following questions to figure out which is best for you:

• How long is your trip? If it’s less than a week, opt for skiing as you’re more likely to progress faster and spend less time falling over.
• Are you planning to learn before you go? If you have access to a local indoor or dry ski slope, you can usually book a beginner course for either sport. This is well worth it as it will teach you the basics and allow you to progress further during your trip to the real thing. If you have the budget and the time for it, you could even take a few lessons at your local slope so that you’re relatively proficient on the hill.
• Have you done any similar sports before? Being good at a sport with a similar movement to skiing or snowboarding can really help with the learning process. Things like ice skating and rollerblading are often compared to skiing, while board sports like surfing and skateboarding are closer to snowboarding.
• Are you concerned about your fitness level? If you’re worried about the physical demands of both sports, learning to ski tends to be more forgiving because you’ll spend less time hauling yourself up off the floor. Flat sections of piste on a snowboard are also pretty excruciating for the leg muscles, while skiers can use their poles to glide on by - I’m saying this as a snowboarder who always envies skiers in those moments.
• What style of riding appeals to you? Do you dream about clocking up high-speed miles on perfectly groomed slopes, or getting air off the fun side hits and gliding through fields of powder? Many people think that snowboarding is best suited to powder and skis to groomed runs, but nowadays, with the development of both ski and snowboard technology, there are no limitations — with snowboards designed for carving, and fat, twin-tip freestyle skis made for tricks and powder skiing. One thing to consider is that skis are more versatile when it comes to accessing a wider range of terrain, including every snowboarder's worst enemy — flat sections!
• Are you worried about being the odd one out? Booked a trip with a group of skiers, but feel as though snowboarding is your calling? Don’t fret, these days you can fraternize with the enemy and it won’t make any difference on the slopes - the bonus here is that you’ll have mates with ski poles who can tow you along the flat sections.
• Are you worried about ski lifts? It’s no secret that ski lifts are much harder to use on a snowboard than on skis, particularly T-bar or drag lifts. However, these are pretty few and far between in ski resorts now, and perfecting your chairlift dismount is just a matter of practise.

Do you go faster on skis or a snowboard?

Skiers reach faster speeds for a number of reasons. They can adopt a more aerodynamic stance in the classic high-speed ‘tuck’, and their equipment — typically narrower and longer than a snowboard — creates less drag, allowing for smoother, faster gliding over snow.. Other factors such as the equal weight distribution and having four edges as opposed to a snowboarder’s two also make it easier to carve and turn at high speeds. As of March 2025, the world record for skiing speed is 158.7mph, while snowboarding is 126.3mph.

Find the resort ski resort for your beginner trip

Whether you’re learning to ski or snowboard, there are a few factors you should consider when picking the right ski resort for your first trip. These include things like value for money, in-resort infrastructure, the standard of ski schools and where you can find the quietest slopes. To help you choose, you can take a look at the Snomad ranking tables, where members of the Snomad community (thousands of genuine riders just like you) have cast their votes. Once you’ve narrowed it down to your top three, you can then read through the community ratings to get honest, unbiased opinions that will help you make the final decision.