Tips for dense snow

[Doby Man]

word salad.

Yes, I expect it to be "word salad" to anyone accustomed to describing technique without mentioning the ski. I might argue that directives regarding what to do with the skis themselves are very specific, concrete and full of meat. While I certainly do not expect my contributions to read to everyone, that I might get periodic feedback that they do not from anybody whose technical advice is "GO there! then Go there! It really works!", I certainly appreciate the confirmation. I would then suppose that as long as a skier left one place and arrived at another, they would have successfully followed your instructions regardless of the "dressing" you put on it. I can just imagine a ski instructor barking such a directive to a skier on the slope ... "Go there! No, no! Not there! There! The other there!" However, that is not completely fair. When teaching or coaching, I like to use the frame of reference that the customer is accustomed to. So, if someone with a similar frame of reference were to come to me for a lesson, I’d be more than happy to tell them where to go.

 

[Monique]

The inside foot pull-back move is amazingly helpful in eliminating the back seat thing in this kind of snow, at least for me.

In my circles, this is called a "tele turn" (on alpine skis). I'm going to make a pitch for you to call this turn the tele turn, because it's less of a mouthful and flows better!

"tell-ee turn"

 

[Monique]

This is not a particularly helpful comment, but weirdly, I often feel that I ski better when all I can see is maybe a turn ahead. I think it quiets my "what ifs" and I finally believe that whatever comes up, I can handle it.

I don't know if I would feel this way skiing unfamiliar terrain, though.

 

[LiquidFeet]

In my circles, this is called a "tele turn" (on alpine skis). I'm going to make a pitch for you to call this turn the tele turn, because it's less of a mouthful and flows better!

"tell-ee turn"

In tele turns the inside foot actually IS behind the outside foot. This thing I'm talking about does not create that arrangement. So it doesn't look like a tele turn at all.

 

[markojp]

Bouncing is like unweighing, you lose ski pressure in the first half of the turn, and it takes more energy.

I ski powder, light or heavy, the way I do everything else, flex to release, and tip the inside ski.

You needed to watch the video until the end to see how Deb took it back into 'normal' skiing.

 

[albertanskigirl]

I don't have much to add to this thread - but I feel your pain @Fuller - I skied Whistler Blackcomb for the first time last year, and we got between 20 and 35 cm each of the three nights I was there. It was a very big difference from the dry powder we have here in Alberta. I had never skied anything like that. I was flailing the first day. I just focused on the technique I learned in lessons - good stance, getting lower into the turn, not so sharp turns, nice round turns, facing the fall line etc. I just focused on making really nice turns and that helped me a lot. though I have to say, I was still exhausted after three days

 

[markojp]

Cuff contact is your friend. And start tipping movements with the feet inside the boot. That's about it.

 

[Coach13]

Stand on both feet, tip both feet at the same time for long, round turns. AND TRY TO RELAX

This plus staying in the fall line longer and subtle movements are what I think about in tough snow.

 

[Monique]

In tele turns the inside foot actually IS behind the outside foot. This thing I'm talking about does not create that arrangement. So it doesn't look like a tele turn at all.

If you're actually tele skiing, that's true, but my instructors (at least two of them) have called the thing you're talking about a tele turn and explained that you're going for that feel, not for actually bringing the foot back that far. It still feels like an extreme move when you do it for the first time.

*shrug* you can call it something else, but what you've been calling it is not exactly pithy or easy to remember. That's my only point.

 

[Josh Matta]

Downward heel pressure while maintain forward cuff pressure is the trick to getting tip to float while still maintaining directional control of the skis.

Also REALLY tight boots sometimes are needed......any heel lift and its game over.

 

[cantunamunch]

Just out of curiosity, how many here have experience with the other sort of 'dense' snow, where it's bone dry and behaves more like clumpy flour than anything else, to the point that skis have trouble penetrating down to the crust/hardpack underneath?

Where it seems like it should just be plain old dust on crust but the stuff just plain clumps in on itself like badly stirred gravy and doesn't really slough or slide? Talcum powder, maybe in texture, but high friction talcum powder that sticks and grabs.

Particularly interested in experience of those who have skied flat tails with full camber on that sort of snow. There is an interesting mechanism that feels like the tailward clumps lift the tail away from the engaged edge.

For those who haven't experienced it, there is zero problem floating on this stuff, one can't help it. What is really difficult is getting edges to bite.

 

[Sibhusky]

If you talking about what I would call chalk, then we don't get it that deep here, or it'll be groomed and lovely. I don't think I've ever seen it breaking off in large chunks?

 

[LiquidFeet]

@cantunamunch, Nope, I haven't experienced that kind of snow.

Does this stuff fall from the sky as you describe it, or does a groomer's action create it, or does wind make it happen, or is it the result of snow settling over a few days, or what? You're talking about snow in dry higher altitudes out west, right?

 

[Wilhelmson]

Just out of curiosity, how many here have experience with the other sort of 'dense' snow, where it's bone dry and behaves more like clumpy flour than anything else, to the point that skis have trouble penetrating down to the crust/hardpack underneath?

Where it seems like it should just be plain old dust on crust but the stuff just plain clumps in on itself like badly stirred gravy and doesn't really slough or slide? Talcum powder, maybe in texture, but high friction talcum powder that sticks and grabs.

Particularly interested in experience of those who have skied flat tails with full camber on that sort of snow. There is an interesting mechanism that feels like the tailward clumps lift the tail away from the engaged edge.

For those who haven't experienced it, there is zero problem floating on this stuff, one can't help it. What is really difficult is getting edges to bite.

After the bomb blizzard the woods at Cannon were packed with superfine dense snow. It was zero degrees and I had fresh CH4, but my skis felt like they were sticking to the snow. No snow was actually sticking to them but it must have been so dry there was no lubrication. My turns were a little sloppy but it was very steep so a slight snowboard like turns steered me around the trees. Even on mid width skis I stayed on top of the snow, not a single new base scratch.

 

[cantunamunch]

@cantunamunch, Nope, I haven't experienced that kind of snow.

You're talking about snow in dry higher altitudes out west, right?

Nope, not at all. It's often manmade, but can be natural. Wednesday/Thursday before last it was available even in MA/So. VT. It will get tossed by the wind with visible spinners but wind's not what creates it. If it sits long enough it becomes just plain granular.

Now imagine it is so thick that a fully tuned race ski has no bite on the last 2/3s of the tail.

 

[LiquidFeet]

I can't imagine that.

 

[cantunamunch]

I can't imagine that.

It's pretty interesting when it happens - 85mm+ skis wind up working better than skinnier ones. (The person with the race skis thought it was more on the frightening spectrum, TBH)

 

[Beartown]

After the bomb blizzard the woods at Cannon were packed with superfine dense snow. It was zero degrees and I had fresh CH4, but my skis felt like they were sticking to the snow. No snow was actually sticking to them but it must have been so dry there was no lubrication. My turns were a little sloppy but it was very steep so a slight snowboard like turns steered me around the trees. Even on mid width skis I stayed on top of the snow, not a single new base scratch.

Fresh methane?

 

[cantunamunch]

Fresh methane?

it goes like stink.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Those crafty Norwegians figured out how to make wax out of cow poop. No wonder the president wants more of them to move here.