Blades are fun. But they're more of a novelty. Unless that's what you only want to do, you'd probably use them once in a while. Most of the time you'd be on skis, especially if there's good powder. Gotta have good balance b/c they're very short. Plus no poles used with blades = less balance.

I'm a skier, so I recommend skis . Actually I used to instruct at Cypress - kinda miss it - and worked at Comor Sports way back when I was at UBC. Never owned skis b/c I product-tested for Comor, so spent my winters on the slopes testing a variety of skis in every kind of snow condition.

Incidentally, equipment has changed considerably. There's now purposeful categories that target varying skier levels and particular snow conditions. Back in the old days skis were either SL or GS and sidecuts varied minimally. If you were a strong skier, you wouldn't be caught on anything less than 200 cm. Nowadays, SL racers are on 163-171 cm skis with massive sidecuts.

If you get skis, what would you be looking at?