My last week in Whitefish really came together for me, I discovered my short turns through chopped up crud, I created some flow in deeper snow, carved up the groomers in complete turns and didn't let the adverse conditions bother me too much. But now our 6 weeks is over and we're on the way back to FL where my Trek road bike and paddleboard await me. But still there's time for a few days at Grand Targhee before we head East...
I seemed to have picked Targhee's "best" day of the year. Best being 30 inches in 24 hours, light snow still in the air, flat light and intermittent fog. Needless to say I was unprepared for waist deep snow cut to pieces by the earlier and more skillful locals. I felt like I should be enjoying myself a lot more but it was a struggle getting into any rhythm. The key things that worked in Whitefish either didn't work at Targhee or I failed to implement them properly.
Reasons / Excuses offered:
Flat light in open terrain - I really struggled with this all day. I had one run with 20 seconds of sunshine and I felt better instantly. The rest of the day I never felt in any danger but every unseen bump knocked me in the back seat. I knew it was happening and I knew it was a problem that I had to overcome but I just couldn't get there.
I posted a few days ago that finally pushing the bush far enough had brought me to an epiphany; that I finally had my hands on the steering wheel and separation and angulation was at my disposal and all of a sudden I could go anywhere I wanted to. All that went away at Targhee. I needed so much concentration on navigating the frickin' giant piles of snow that I couldn't get my center of mass ahead of my feet. Lots of traversing when I didn't want to be.
My intuition tells me that the same correct fundamentals should be applied to 30" of chowder as any other snow condition, so how do you "push the bush" when your legs are busy working through the 3d stuff? You have to go through a lot of what you encounter, or over it perhaps but there's no getting around it. I attempted more of a "bouncy" style of transition that I could see was working for some skiers but the push and pull of the piles interfered with my rhythm.
Is it just a higher level of distraction that your mind needs to ignore? So much of skiing for me is overcoming my brain. I so much wanted to just point 'em down hill and go, I know it would work, it's not that steep, I can do it in other places why not here?
I have one more day here, somebody throw me a lifeline so I don't spend the next 10 months stewing over my failure to execute!
I seemed to have picked Targhee's "best" day of the year. Best being 30 inches in 24 hours, light snow still in the air, flat light and intermittent fog. Needless to say I was unprepared for waist deep snow cut to pieces by the earlier and more skillful locals. I felt like I should be enjoying myself a lot more but it was a struggle getting into any rhythm. The key things that worked in Whitefish either didn't work at Targhee or I failed to implement them properly.
Reasons / Excuses offered:
Flat light in open terrain - I really struggled with this all day. I had one run with 20 seconds of sunshine and I felt better instantly. The rest of the day I never felt in any danger but every unseen bump knocked me in the back seat. I knew it was happening and I knew it was a problem that I had to overcome but I just couldn't get there.
I posted a few days ago that finally pushing the bush far enough had brought me to an epiphany; that I finally had my hands on the steering wheel and separation and angulation was at my disposal and all of a sudden I could go anywhere I wanted to. All that went away at Targhee. I needed so much concentration on navigating the frickin' giant piles of snow that I couldn't get my center of mass ahead of my feet. Lots of traversing when I didn't want to be.
My intuition tells me that the same correct fundamentals should be applied to 30" of chowder as any other snow condition, so how do you "push the bush" when your legs are busy working through the 3d stuff? You have to go through a lot of what you encounter, or over it perhaps but there's no getting around it. I attempted more of a "bouncy" style of transition that I could see was working for some skiers but the push and pull of the piles interfered with my rhythm.
Is it just a higher level of distraction that your mind needs to ignore? So much of skiing for me is overcoming my brain. I so much wanted to just point 'em down hill and go, I know it would work, it's not that steep, I can do it in other places why not here?
I have one more day here, somebody throw me a lifeline so I don't spend the next 10 months stewing over my failure to execute!