Thank you James. (And Ron...)
My take:
If a skier can hold an edge traversing the conditions then it is physically possible to carve those conditions.
I'm sorry - I don't understand your point. There is this force called gravity on the hills I ski. It is certainly trying to take the skis sideways - just flatten your skis to the slope to see.[/QUOTE]
That's funny. You just answered your own question. Traverse across an icy slope with nearly flat skis. What happens? You'll go across somewhat and you'll skid down somewhat. On a really icy slope, you won't even make it across, you'll just skid down. This is analogous to turning with low edge angles at the top of the turn where you'll turn somewhat and skid somewhat. Sounds like in your mind you were comparing traversing with high edge angles with turning with low edge angles, and that's not valid. We're only considering the skidding phase of the turn where the edge angles are still low.
I think you helped me clear up another concern though. At low edge angles the centrifugal force is low, but very soon you start turning across the hill, and then gravity adds in with the centrifugal force, so there can be quite a bit of force that needs to be held with a low edge angle ski.
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