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Just when you think you can ski...

Fuller

Semi Local
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Whitefish or Florida
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!
 

Josh Matta

Skiing the powder
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Dec 21, 2015
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the flatter the light, and the more chopped the snow, the longer the skis....assuming your doing everything else right.

BTW you should never push the bush....if your pushing the bush, I promise you, you are off balance, even if it felt good on one day other cues would have worked better.

With out video though I have no real tips, but of some of the wording used to describe your skiing is telling...

"hands on steering wheel" sounds like hand way to high and to close together.

"COM ahead of feet" , well not really. Com moves with feet. In 3d snow and terrain, that means consistently redirecting. I let me turn bring my COM over my Base of support, I also move forward and back to maintain balance in choppy snow.

Ok I guess here is a general tip. Functional tension. Keep heels down and toes lifted, in unseeable chop I willingly ski more retracted and expend energy for a trade off in balance and stability, but if I had to guess its something actual fundamentally holding you back not some tactic a high expert uses to navigate said conditions.

any video of any skiing you have done recently?
 

T-Square

Terry
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As Bob Barnes said, "You’ve only made one best turn. All the rest are approximations. Even after you make a better turn, ... ..."

Don’t sweat a bad day with rough conditions. They happen to all of us.

From your discussion I gleen that you are still thinking a lot about your skiing, This is a good way for you to learn and it shows you want to improve. Take those uncomfortable feelings you had while skiing the rough stuff and try to duplicate them in easier conditions. Then take note of what you need to do to counter those feelings. That will make you more aware of what to do when you encounter them again. As you improve the rough conditions will decrease. This will happen as more and more of your skiing skills move into the unconscious competent zone.
 

DavidSkis

Thinking snow
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Toronto
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.
Flat light sometimes gives me vertigo, especially on oddly sloped double fall line runs. If you ever need an excuse, that's a good one.

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.
Let's pretend you did get your centre of mass ahead of your feet. What do you think happens to your centre of mass then when you hit a pile of snow?

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 don't. You keep your legs moving forward. Too many skiers are obsessed these days with religiously pulling their feet back. Sure, if you've fallen way into the backseat that could work, but if you're already centred, and you hit a pile of snow, you need the feet to keep charging ahead through that snow. Otherwise it's like slamming on the brakes in your car with no seatbelt.

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?
Nah, it's that you have snow pushing your feet behind you. You need to be able to resist the push. A little bit of hopping is good; practicing a bit of fore-aft shuffling of the feet is even better. That will give you the feeling of resistance. Keep your core engaged and let the legs do the work here. You can do it!
 
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TS
Fuller

Fuller

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Whitefish or Florida
BTW you should never push the bush....if your pushing the bush, I promise you, you are off balance, even if it felt good on one day other cues would have worked better.
OK, let's not say "push the bush" perhaps saying "maintain a posterior pelvic tilt" is better? Josh, I know that you have advocated a "tail tucked between your legs" body stance (I'm simplifying your advice a bit) and I've had great success with that in the recent past. It just seems hard to keep that stance in the conditions I encountered today and now your advice seems to be contrary to what worked before. I'm not looking for a static position, I know I have to be mobile but is 30" of chowder an exception to the "tail tuck" advice?

"hands on steering wheel" sounds like hand way to high and to close together.
That was just a figure of speech, if anything I drop my hands way too low.

Ok I guess here is a general tip. Functional tension. Keep heels down and toes lifted, in unseeable chop I willingly ski more retracted and expend energy for a trade off in balance and stability
Finally something I can work with, thanks!
 
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Fuller

Fuller

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Whitefish or Florida
From your discussion I gleen that you are still thinking a lot about your skiing, This is a good way for you to learn and it shows you want to improve. Take those uncomfortable feelings you had while skiing the rough stuff and try to duplicate them in easier conditions. Then take note of what you need to do to counter those feelings. That will make you more aware of what to do when you encounter them again. As you improve the rough conditions will decrease. This will happen as more and more of your skiing skills move into the unconscious competent zone.

I think about skiing - a lot! In fact I worry that I'm a bit obsessed with it. But thanks for the words of encouragement...
 

Josh Matta

Skiing the powder
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Dec 21, 2015
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@Fuller No tail tucked is good, pushing hip towards tip always can be bad, so for the confusion.

Low hand assuming they are in front and to the side are good.
 

François Pugh

Skiing the powder
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Technique - If the big piles of snow are knocking you around, you have to borrow from your mogul technique. Actively lift your skis over the bumps and push them down into the holes, absorb, extend. But unlike moguls, still carve clean turns.
Equipment - long heavy long radius skis.
 

oldschoolskier

Making fresh tracks
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Ontario Canada
The comment about 20 seconds of sunshine and I instantly skied better.

A lot of skiers have difficulty in poor lighting, even if they ski well. They biggest part is the confidence to be a reactionary skier based on what your feet tell you vs skiing to what your eyes tell you. With vision you get forewarning of what to do, with input from the feet you are always skiing slightly late and that takes confidence in your skills.

Relax a little enjoy the moment and believe in your ability and you’ll ski better.
 

razie

Sir Shiftsalot
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Learning to carve with a clean edge-to-edge transition can significantly improve your powder skiing. As you noticed, you can't pivot in deep powder.

And with that, early and lots of counter will also help, not just to cut through the stuff, but with balance, when you're bounced around by the big piles.
 

James

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Skiing chopped up is harder and more work. Otherwise, there'd be no Chinese downhill to ski untracked.
Now, 30 inches of cut up? In flat light.
With that much snow you need more speed, esp at Targhee without lots of pitch. But, you're not going to increase speed because you can't see. Catch 22.
 
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Fuller

Fuller

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Thanks for all the advice, today will be the leftovers but the skies look clear. I'll try a few things and see how they work for me.
 

Mike King

AKA Habacomike
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An obvious tactic for flat light is to use trees and other terrain features to provide visual clues about the terrain. When that fails, use your uphill pole to provide feedback: drag it in the snow. The pole will provide some stimulus about the slope and snow conditions.

Just be careful to not let it take you into banking rather than angulation (although this is less of an issue when skiing deep powder/chowder).

Mike
 

jseeski

Skiing a little BC powder
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Salmo, British Columbia, Canada
Ok I guess here is a general tip. Functional tension. Keep heels down and toes lifted, in unseeable chop I willingly ski more retracted and expend energy for a trade off in balance and stability, but if I had to guess its something actual fundamentally holding you back not some tactic a high expert uses to navigate said conditions.

What Josh said.

Poor visibility often creates a bit of anxiety with an associated degradation in stance. If you drop your hips back just a bit and get into the backs of your boots, suddenly lots of other things don't work right. Consciously flexing your ankles and maintaining contact with the tongue of your boot may be counterintuitive (because you think it will increase the likelihood you'll go over the handlebars), but it actually helps you drive the skis through whatever you hit and control what they do.

COM should be centered, not out over your toes. This allows you to ski "soft" because your quads or hamstrings aren't working so hard to carry your weight. If you're not so rigid and tense, it's easier for irregularities to push your feet up, if necessary. It also helps with sensitivity so that you can add active retraction if you want to go over something. A little retraction may also help you pull your feet back under you if something knocks you into the back seat. Just be sure to extend again after! ogsmile
 

PTskier

Been goin' downhill for years....
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carved up the groomers in complete turns
Did you carve similarly in the chopped up snow? Put the skis on edge and slice through the lumps? That's the way to ski them as smoothly as possible. Razie in post #11 makes good points, as does oldster in post #10.

I've been at Targhee in cloud so dense that I couldn't see my own feet. Well, not quite that bad, but so upsetting that I tipped over. Fell while standing still. The only thing you can do there is find a place to ski above or below the cloud. If you had merely seriously flat light, not cloud water droplets blocking your view, consider different goggles. The new-tech lenses from most the makers actually do show better contrast than conventional lenses. Smith ChromaPop, Dragon Lumalens, Spy Happy works great for my eyes. Some other brand might work best for yours.

I find all the gimmicks somewhere between worthless and harmful. Push the bush forward. Ugh. Grasp the steering wheel. Nah. On the heels and toes pulled up. A good way to sit back with tensed feet--doesn't work for me. My cue for fore & aft balance is to be lightly on the balls of my feet with the amount of tongue pressure I feel as an indicator to know where I need to be so my skis perform well. Know when you adopt one of the defensive postures that are natural, instinctive, and wrong. Know when you sit back, stop, get centered, restart. Ditto if you twist around toward the hill or lean toward the hill. Your head & shoulders need to feel like they're leading you down the hill. One person I ski with helped herself with her motto, "pour my body down the hill." So, stand kinda tall with loose joints. Have the knees slightly flexed to act as shock absorbers. A bit more knee flex when more lumpy stuff is expected. Balanced both fore & aft and side to side. Beware of too much weight on the inside foot. Hands up in the natural balancing position--a bit up & a bit out.

You Florida guys and that sunshine thing.....
 
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Fuller

Fuller

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Whitefish or Florida
Well I've been back in FL for a few days, a brisk north wind and brilliant sunshine greeted my arrival along with a week of office work to catch up with. I finally succumbed to the nasty head cold that's been going around and my bicycle is starting to talk to me again after being abandoned for two months. The skiing is not very good here.

My last day at Targhee, the day after I started this thread, was mostly clear and the light was much better. Off piste was a bit churned up and the snow had compacted a lot especially facing south. The groomers (if you call what GT does to snow "grooming") were fun and soft but more like proto-moguls than corduroy. My legs and knees were barking at me from the previous day and the 28 consecutive skiing days that came before. I didn't push it that hard, not wanting my last day to be "My Last Day"

I spent as much time as I could in the chopped up stuff working on technique. I focused a lot on keeping my shins connected to the tongue of the boot, staying on edge and facing downhill. No real breakthrough but I was able to connect 4 or 5 turns together and feel the flow occasionally. My weakness was coming up with a smooth transition that worked for me. Retraction, tipping, bouncing?

Oh well, better next year!
 

PTskier

Been goin' downhill for years....
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Retract, then tip. Good about the fore & aft balance, staying on edge, and facing downhill. Even better, face the outside of the turn before that direction becomes downhill, but don't let your inside foot get far forward--try to keep your feet side by side. When you said shins against the tongues, was that by squatting down (ineffective) or moving your body center of mass forward (effective)?
 
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Fuller

Fuller

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Whitefish or Florida
When you said shins against the tongues, was that by squatting down (ineffective) or moving your body center of mass forward (effective)?
I had worked that out previously in easier conditions, my body knows the difference between the two. harder to achieve in the mega-chop though.

Thanks again for all that commented.
 

slowrider

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I was @ the ghee on that big dump. Haven't skied that deep in 10 years.
Tg.png
 

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