Skiing on “groomers”

If, as Marx said, "religion is the opiate of the masses", we could say almost as much about skiing exclusively on perfectly groomed slopes; this pristine corduroy cover often gives skiers an exaggerated measure of their true skiing level.

This is one small aspect of the much larger range of options offered by alpine skiing. I've seen many “grown men” that truly believe that they're superior skiers when they barrel down a perfectly groomed slopes, come to a brutal halt on crud, bumps and other challenging terrain.

Any difficult snow and forbidding slope still remains the frontier that separates the men from the boys...