Piste them small and family-oriented, so comparisons between slope classifications in Japan and "equivalent" slopes in Europe or North America are minimal. Piste A piste () is a marked ski run or path down a mountain for snow skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain sports. This European term is French ("trail", "track") and synonymous with 'trail', 'slope', or 'groomed run' in North America. The word is pronounced using a long "e" sound (e.g. rhymes with "beast"). Increasingly, North Americans employ its common European antonym, 'off piste', to describe backcountry skiing, especially when referring to skiing outside officially approved areas of a ski
Ski wood", "stick of wood" or "ski". In Old Norse common phrases describing skiing were "fara á skíðum" (to travel, move fast on skis), "renna" (to move swiftly) and "skríða á skíðum" (to stride on skis). In modern Norwegian the word "ski" has largely retained the Old Norse meaning in words for split firewood, wood building materials (such as bargeboards) and roundpole fence. In Norwegian this word is usually pronounced . In Swedish, another language evolved from Old Norse, the word is (plural, ). English and French use the original Norwegian spelling , and modify the pronunciation. Prior to 1920, English