I’ve skied a few times, never very well. Which is easier to do in a barely adequate fashion?
To get up and moving down a slope, snowboard probably. You only have two things to control (toe and heel edge) while skiers have 4 edges and two poles to confuse you. Using the lift is harder but actually moving, albeit slowly, is moderately easier on a board.
However, it’s also easier to smack your head on the snow when you catch a heel edge, or hurt your wrists falling forward, on a board. Plenty of ways to hurt yourself on skis as well but the falls are more predicable.
Skiing is much, much easier. Snowboarding is tough.
New borders tend to catch edges more than new skiers, so the initial learning curve is steeper for boarders.
New skier: top of hill, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, scritch, scritch scritch turn completed, bottom of hill.
New snowboarder: top of hill, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, face SMACK, back of the head THWACK, bottom of hill.
Back when boarding was a new thing and therefore reviled because it was a new thing, the asshole who owned and operated a hill that my friends and I skied at refused to let any of my friends’ kids snowboard on his hill. Figuring that the asshole wouldn’t stand up to me, I made a deal with the liftie to not stop the lift (an ancient T-bar) no matter what. I strapped on a board and spent the day being dragged up the hill and SMACK-THWACKing my way down, somehow living to tell about it. Thereafter the asshole grumbled a lot but stopped banning boarders from his hill.
Comparatively, I found my first day on a snowboard more physically abusive than seventeen years of rugby.
That being said, once you get past the edge-catching stage, boarding is a bit easier for beginners because, as Telemark says, it is more simple. You have a more stable single platform, rather than two less stable platforms.
It’s all good – boarding, alpine, telemark, cross-country classic & skate, so give them all a try. You’ll find the skill set in each discipline also applies to a greater or lesser degree to the other disciplines. With any luck, you’ll find one or more that turn your crank.
(Kee-riiste! I’m getting a headache just recalling that first day on a board.)
The aphorism is that skiing is easy to learn, hard to master. Snowboarding is hard to learn, easy to master. I never got anywhere at all with snowboarding. I made some rewarding progress with skiing, but I plateaued out pretty quickly. So the aphorism was true in my case.
seal cleaner, if you get a chance, sign up for multi-day group lessons (in whichever discipline) in which you audition and are placed in a small group with students of similar abilities, and then spend a few days with the same instructor touring the ski area.
From my own experience I found skiing very easy, I was doing slow but passable parallel turns after about 4 hours. I had a natural affinity with the two planks and have remained an avid, if somewhat inelegant and cautious skier ever since.
I had one snowboarding afternoon and found it difficult, frustrating and painful, not my mug of gluhwein at all. I’ll go along with others who say skiing is easier to learn but harder to master.
If you’re a skateboarder, then snow boarding is waaaay easier to start with. As a snowboarder, IMHO you could get to do a straight downhill speed rip much easier than on two skis…
Similarly, if you can ice skate, skiing is pretty intuitive. I grew up playing ice hockey and was able to ski the first time I tried. The edge control is very similar - skis feel like big ice skates.
Snowboarding is harder than skiing at the very beginning (first day or two). Then it’s easier than skiing for quite a while from intermediate skill up to advanced. It again becomes harder at very advanced to expert levels.
It’s harder at the beginning because a snowboard is not dynamically stable. It’s difficult to just stand up and not move on a board on relatively flat ground. Skiers, with two skis, can just stop and stand there, and push to go. Once you get comfortable enough to get off the really easy stuff, snowboarding is easier for a while, both because it’s simpler, and because many of the basic motions are sort of natural already. Want to stop? Dig your heels in.
Also, on intermediate to advanced slopes, you can always just plow right through it with your snowboard perpendicular to the mountain. Skiers can’t do that, so they have to learn to turn correctly and have control at higher speeds.
When you get to steeper runs with moguls, skiers again have it easier. Poles and two skis help you turn more quickly and recover from minor errors. The snowboarder’s “plow straight down the middle” technique to deal with challenges beyond their ability stops working because the terrain isn’t smooth and the downhill edge of moguls is often pretty close to vertical.
In my experience (being fairly proficient at both) the learning curves are quite dissimilar.
If you consider falling a lot/spending a lot of time on your ass an issue, you are probably better of with skiing. Starting with snow boarding you’ll be on your ass all the time. Once you get how to keep your balance though, you’ll be going down the slopes in a decent fashion while the new skiers are still doing the “snowplow” before daring to turn.
When skiers actually get how to do turns in a decent fashion, they will quickly seem to be able to handle higher speeds and steeper hills better than snowboarders. You can see this at the pro levels as well, where alpine skiers have more difficult runs than snowboard races typically have.
If you already know how to surf or skateboard, snowboarding will come fairly easy to you.
Earning the animosity of skiers in the east and mid-west. That’s why god invented terrain parks – to keep boarders happily occupied without messing up the hill.
Well, I’m not saying you should, just that you can. 
I’ve gone skiing every winter for the past 35 years, starting before snowboards existed.
Then gradually, I started to notice a new phenomenon: weird guys (and it was always guys, not girls)–with both feet nailed to a board.
And I noticed something about them: they spent more time on their ass than on their feet.
And after a fall, it seems like they have to use a lot more muscle power to stand up again------unlike us skiers, who can move our legs independently, the way god intended .
Nowadays, we skiers are ,I think, a minority; those damn boarders are everywhere.
But most of them seem to be sitting on the ground
Though when they get up and start moving again, they sure seem to be having a good time…
I don’t know what you’re asking cause of all the fancy-ness, but snowboarding is WAY, WAY more fun. OK. If you haven’t done it. DO IT. If you want easy, go to Vegas.
Monoskis are the easiest and most fun.
From my perspective snow boarding is easier.
My perspective being the person who drives my gf to the mountain, hauls the equipment back and forth, and sits in the lodge drinking hot toddies.
No, skiers are still the majority.
http://www.snowsports.org/research-surveys/snow-sports-fact-sheet/
Sitting in a line across the hill blocking traffic. Another reason why god invented terrain parks.