Piste 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 resort. Pistes are usually maintained using tracked vehicles known as snowcats to compact or "groom" the snow to even out trail
Ski Dutch, or or (as above also or ) in German. Norwegian and Swedish do not form a verb from the noun. Finnish has its own ancient words for skis and skiing: "ski" is and "skiing" is . The word "suksi" goes back to the Proto-Uralic period, with cognates such as Erzya "soks", Mansi "tåut" and Nganasan "tuta." The Sami also have their own words for "skis" and "skiing": for example, the Lule Sami word for "ski" is and skis are called . The Sami use for the verb "to ski" (the term may date back to 10,000 years before present).