Flat Light - Technique/Optics to mitigate it

[Novaloafah]

Just browsed through some recent posts in other threads where flat light played a role in an injury in one case (best wishes for a speedy recovery) and seemed to impact ability in the other thread.
I wear goggles with a yellowish brown lens on flat light days and night skiing in the likely misguided belief that it helps with flat light. I also ski very small hills with lots of tree line breaking up my line of sight which I believe is helpful.

I put it out there, am I out to lunch, and if so, what do you experienced folk do for technique and gear to mitigate flat light?

Thanks

 

[surfsnowgirl]

Flat light is terrible. I swear by my Oakley goggles with hi pink prizm lenses. Rose is good too but I found it too dark. I like the hi pink much better.

 

[Sibhusky]

Pray? There's days here I can see floaters in my eyes better than the snow at my feet.

 

[skibob]

Just browsed through some recent posts in other threads where flat light played a role in an injury in one case (best wishes for a speedy recovery) and seemed to impact ability in the other thread.
I wear goggles with a yellowish brown lens on flat light days and night skiing in the likely misguided belief that it helps with flat light. I also ski very small hills with lots of tree line breaking up my line of sight which I believe is helpful.

I put it out there, am I out to lunch, and if so, what do you experienced folk do for technique and gear to mitigate flat light?

Thanks

I have a pair of yellow lenses for cycling. They are amazing. I use them to drive in low light conditions. First time I did it, my wife was freaked out. "You are wearing sunglasses in a snow storm. Take them off!"

So I replied, "what kind of car is the third car in front us?" She laughed and said, "Nice try, there are only two cars in front of us".

I took them off and handed them to her. She exclaimed "OH!" and took them off and pushed them back at me. "Put em back on, put em back on!"

They are amazing. It feels like daytime when I wear them. If I take them off I feel like somebody switched off the lights.

They are unbranded and I can't remember where I got them. I've never found goggles anything like them. When I do, I will buy two pairs. Sometimes I ski with these glasses, but I want a pair of goggles for when its snowing or windy/cold and I want the face protection of goggles.

 

[James]

Trees are cheating...

 

[Novaloafah]

Trees are cheating...

If you ain't cheating you ain't tryin'

 

[Novaloafah]

Pray? There's days here I can see floaters in my eyes better than the snow at my feet.

Your pics here and on Epic always made me go wow, or OMG. This is def, OMG. Do lenses make any difference in this sort of condition?

 

[James]

I assume you're talking fog and not just flat light. Above tree line it can be horrible. Lenses don't really help. I do dislike the Oakley Rose Prizm for that. It gives a weird glow to some areas when it's all white. Haven't tried the Hi Pink version.

 

[skibob]

Your pics here and on Epic always made me go wow, or OMG. This is def, OMG. Do lenses make any difference in this sort of condition?

Honestly, my yellow cycling lenses would shock you with how much they would sharpen that scene. One of these days I'll have to try to take a pic through them and then w/o.

 

[Primoz]

Fog is one thing, and it's really crappy to ski that, as you have absolutely no orientation where to go. Flat light is the other thing. With that, good goggles help (what color of lens is personal thing so what works for me, is not necessarily going to work for you), but on the end, the only way to handle that is to learn to ski that. Best advice I ever got was from one racer ages ago. With normal light, you see track infront of you and you prepare for bumps etc. In flat light you can't so you need to learn how to ski reacting to things once you hit them. I'm sure it's easier said to be done, but that's pretty much exactly the way every racer is skiing, as most of time flat light is normal thing. You are a bit slower this way, you make more mistakes, but you just learn to react to things once you hit them. And I can tell you after a while it works. Nowadays I have absolutely zero problems riding 80 or 90km/h in complete flat light and you just deal with things once you hit them. And it works even in backcountry for me, not just on polished race courses.
But as I said, fog is different thing, at least for me, as I simply lose track where I'm going, and I normally have really good orientation feel, but in fog everything is same, so it already happened I was wondering why I'm slowing down only to realize I'm actually turning into the hill

 

[flying_j]

I tried a few different lenses for both night skiing and flat light. For me, for flat light it’s all about the yellow lenses. Forget exactly which flavor, but the ones I use are Smith and make a world of difference

 

[scott43]

Pray? There's days here I can see floaters in my eyes better than the snow at my feet.

Frickin floaters...

 

[Dave Marshak]

The usual advice is the red or pink lenses filter blue light, and that helps a little. Also, the best sunglasses and goggles have trivex lenses which disperse light a little less than the more common polycarbonate.

The best advice is stay in the trees.

dm

 

[crgildart]

If it's just cloudy but not snowing or raining good glasses are better than the best goggles IMO... something about the amber lens being closer to your eye allow it to enhance shadows and depth perception better than goggles..

If it's snowing or raining just slow down and be more careful. I've seen the worst flat light wreckage on the rollers and washboards at the bottom of trails. Worse when crowded with people (hopefully) eying other people and paths to avoid collisions more than eyeing the texture of the terrain right in front of them..

 

[tball]

Ski the same lines you've skied hundreds of times before. Dial it way back if you are in unfamiliar terrain, which is easier said than done on a powder day.

 

[Seldomski]

Strategies:

1) Cheat. Find trees, signs, huts, other skiers, lift poles, moguls, etc to give you some perspective and depth perception. On bad light days, cut up powder can be easier to ski than untracked since it gives some definition to the landscape.
2) Remember to look far downhill even if you can't see anything there. It helps with balance and maintaining good stance.
3) Ski slower. Keep turning.
4) Drag poles on either side of you as feelers. There's a drill for separation that looks like this.
5) Move around the mountain until you find better visibility areas. Visibility can change quite a bit from one location to another at the same resort over the course of the day.

 

[TonyPlush]

I'll throw some praise towards my Zeal Automatic polarized goggle lenses. They have a natural amber base, and they actually transition based on how bright it is outside.

That last part sounded like marketing nonsense to me too, except my ski buddies are always complaining about flat light, while I'm always in front making out the runs just fine.

No idea how they compare to a full blown yellow lens, but I do know that flat light is a minor inconvenience to me, while it's a total day changer for my friends and their Oakley Prizms.

 

[Bad Bob]

The right goggles are great, and stay near the trees when you can.

Personal aid is, 'keep turning'. So long as you are turning you are flexing and can react better to changes, and it is easier to control speed. Look forward, not down, if you are looking at your ski tips you are probably in the back seat already.

Increase the upper and lower separation to make it easier to initiate a turn; you will skid more but so what. Nothing like leaving nice skid marks while you are in the fog.

 

[Guy in Shorts]

I swear by my Oakley goggles with hi yellow lenses. Just bought the last leftover pair that I could find at Killington on Sunday. Switch to my Maui Jim sunglasses whenever I can get away wearing them.

 

[James]

Trees are simply not available sometimes. Ask @JohnL who got caught in a white out at Targhee and didn't know which way was down. Scary. The freakiest thing is coming to a stop, well you think you're stopping, and then you're going uphill. Or maybe not. There's a strange temporary vertigo that can happen. I've fallen over coming to a stop with this feeling.

If you're in a spot like this and the clouds drop...it would be very tough. And there's no big exposure there.

Courmayeur, ITA

Verbier, SUI

We had to travel a piste like the one above in maybe 1-2 pole visibility. The ones on the side of the piste. I think they're 15m apart. I learned- too late that left and right poles have different markings. Though sometimes they just seem to be all orange. But the piste we took had some sharp curves in it like above.

Nowadays I have absolutely zero problems riding 80 or 90km/h in complete flat light and you just deal with things once you hit them. And it works even in backcountry for me, not just on polished race courses.

I am absolutely amazed at the speed some Europeans go at in 1 pole visibility on piste.