Flat Light - Technique/Optics to mitigate it

[tromano]

I have personally landed face first twice or thrice dropping on to cat tracks in low vis conditions at snowbasin. I have just fallen over while standing still from vertigo. Being on a primary ridgeline the clouds just gather there often for days before and after a storm. Knowing the mountain helps, being in the trees helps, having the right goggles helps, but my worst fall was in the trees in an area I knew well and wearing my storm lenses when I thought I could see. Then I dropped 5' onto a cat track and landed on my chest. Its just an inherent risk of skiing (in low vis conditions).

The solution is to maintain situational awareness and a weather eye open. Avoid trouble spots (e.g. Strawberry area) if the clouds are rolling in. If you get stuck you can wait out the light, just a little light makes a big difference and clouds are fickle and will move on given enough time. Often it only takes 15 minutes. And then stay low below the clouds on a lower lift or just get off the mountain if you see clouds rolling in.

Also I have noticed that vis gets worse when it stops snowing. If it looks like it is about to stop snowing prepare for a drop in visibility.

Another trick is to follow others or to follow a rope or marked boundary until you get below the fog.

 

[CalG]

flat light or fog

I adopt an "aggressive posture" Lower, and with some meanness.
Standing tall does not enhance vision or performance in low visibility conditions.

Ski with the knees,!

 

[PTskier]

Skiing in fog is easy. Follow someone going about the speed you want to go. Look at their boots. If the boots go up, expect a rise. If the boots go down, expect a dip. If he disappears, don’t ski there.

Most the goggle makers have new tech lenses. Oakley’s Prizm was the first I knew about. Now we have Smith ChromaPop, Scott Illuminator. Spy Happy, Giro Vivid, Dragon Lumalens, and there are others.

My Oakley Prizm Rose were the best I’d used at the time. Better for me than old tech Smith RC36. But, sometimes in really flat light I just saw a pink blur. Testing through a shop window on a flat light day showed ChromaPop better for my eyes than Prizm. Spy Happy was better, and Dragon Lumalens was the best for me. I like them, the best I’ve used to date.

There are multiple colors and densities. Some skiers prefer the lightest density with the highest VLT visible light transmittance. I like one step darker than the lightest for flat light. This is all personal preference.

 

[Dave Petersen]

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

That's pretty darn funny.

I had a vitreous hemorrhage in early January (after skiing over some junky, rough snow) and have plenty of things floating around in my right eye -- the opthamologist calls it "debris".

 

[skibob]

I wore the yellow cycling glasses I mentioned on the first page in this yesterday:

IMG-20180310-WA0002

• skibob
• Mar 11, 2018

I was the last person skiing in my group. In fact, I quit mainly so they didn't all have to wait forever. I really never felt like I couldn't see everything I needed to see. I did notice though, they are Oakley glasses, FWIW.

 

[Eleeski]

I got some fancy (not really) new goggles. Very stylish Kreed goggles. Nice on sunny days despite a light tint. I got horrible vertigo on poor visibility days. The lower edge of the field of view was tinted blue while the rest of the view was yellowish. Maybe that was screwing me up.

I broke out the cheap Gordini goggles with light gold lenses. While I'm still blind in flat light, I didn't get vertigo yesterday afternoon or today with them.

My son tells me to quit whining - nobody can see.

Eric