Ski or snowboard? For a first week, skiing gets you further
Skiing is easier in the first days, a board is harder at the start and quicker once it clicks. What that means for a first week, and the mistake on day two.
For a first week, most people get further on skis. Skiing is easier in the first few days, while a board is harder at the start and often quicker to improve on once it clicks, so it pays off best for people who will keep going back.
That is not a verdict on which is better. Pick the one that appeals to you, then give it the whole week.
What it means for your week
The first days. On skis, most beginners are making slow turns on a gentle slope by the end of the first day, and the snow plough gives you a brake from the start. A board feels less natural. You will fall more, mostly onto your hands and your bottom, and the hard part usually lasts into the second or third day. Wrist guards and padded shorts are worth the room in the bag. Skiers' injuries are more often knees, boarders' more often wrists.
Later on. Skiing is the harder one to refine, from the plough to parallel turns, then moguls and off piste. On a board, once you can link your turns, progress tends to come quickly.
Boots. Ski boots are rigid plastic and awkward to walk in. Snowboard boots are soft, closer to a stiff walking boot, and far nicer round the village.
Flats and lifts. This is where a board costs you. On a flat track a skier pushes with poles; a boarder unclips one foot and scoots. Drag lifts, which are most common on beginner slopes, are harder on a board too, because the board points across the way you are being pulled. For a first week on a board, beginner slopes served by chairs, gondolas or a moving carpet, and no long flat traverse home, make the week much kinder.
Lessons. Book ski school for the whole week. Ski and board classes are separate, so a mixed group meets for lunch rather than in class, then shares the lifts and the easy runs later.
Children. Most ski schools start young children on skis. Many start boarding at around seven or eight.
The one thing people get wrong
Judging the board on the second day. It is usually the worst one: you are tired, bruised and not yet linking turns, while the skiers you came with already are. Plenty of people swap to skis that afternoon and never find out that the third day is often when it comes together. Whichever you choose, commit to it for the first few days of lessons and save the experiment for next year.
Where to go next
If you are choosing a resort as a beginner, our high resorts for beginners page measures which of the 55 resorts we cover are both high and gentle. Before the first lesson, read our drag lifts explainer, which covers riding them on a board, and our page on piste colours, so you know what the blue on the map really means. Our page on what a lift pass covers explains the difference between a local pass and the whole area.
If a board is the plan, Laax lists snowboarding among the things it does best, and it is gentle as well: only 14 percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, the third lowest share of the 55 resorts we cover.
Planning a week in Laax?
The skiing, the villages and how to get there.