The turn of a decade is a pretty arbitrary designation of change. Nobody flips a switch on times and trends, but it makes it a lot easier to laugh at the way people used to look and act if we can point to the “nineties” or “aughties” as the period in question. I’ve had enough looking back on the last decade, so let’s fix our gaze forward. By the time we break into the 20’s (isn’t that weird?) we’ll be looking at a changed sport. It’s hard to predict, but a few things are for certain:

The last stragglers left behind from the visionary generation of skiers that revived our stagnated sport will be too old even for pow segments. Guys like Mike Douglas, JP Auclair, and Eric Pollard will take up permanent residence as behind-the-scenes influencers, rather than on-screen icons. As long as the culture provides space for them to work and accepts their guidance, this is a promising reality rather than a sad passing.

The outerwear we’ve all got on will look as ridiculous as stretch one-pieces or the Hawaiian shirts and backwards hats of the aforementioned pioneering generation. I’m no fortune-teller, but I’ve got a pretty good formula for figuring out what skiers will be wearing in future years. It goes like this: what snowboarders are wearing now = what skiers will be wearing in a few years. Therefore, I’m betting on rock n’ roll making a comeback. The XXXL snowboarder is an endangered species, and I’m sure it won’t be long before we follow suit.

The bandana tied around your face will be exposed as a really dumb idea. It was a fun style while it lasted. Everybody wants to be Jesse James (the train robber, not the motorcycle bro), and this style let us live that fantasy. However, good sense will prevail and we’ll realize they really aren’t that warm and after a few breaths the cotton gets wet, frozen, and smelly as shit.

Poles will be even shorter. I’ve long held that park poles are like tails on humans. They will get shorter and shorter until they lose all function, and then they’ll only pop up in strange and unnatural instances. Or it’ll stay exactly like it is and some will hold them and some won’t; hopefully there’ll be less forum threads about it though.

The Applebees guy likes poles.

Ski comeback will reach its peak and we’ll be wondering where we go next. I took a recent trip to Mount Snow in Vermont. An argument can definitely be made for this being the East’s current park mecca. The thing that really struck me was all the kids on skis. I’m not talking about five-year-olds that will likely switch to snowboarding once their parents will allow it—we’re talking tweens. Huge mobs of tweens, and most of them better than I’ll ever be. These kids will be college-age by the time I’m writing another “next decade” article. That’s a big customer base, and it’ll be up to the industry to stay innovative and prevent another stagnation.

For my final trick, I will predict that the internet will be big in the next decade. I’m serious. The question is whether the old media stalwarts and new media nerds will figure out how to make any money off it. The tens will be interesting indeed.