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Bumps vs steeps vs trees vs carving

SSSdave

life is short precious ...don't waste it
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Haven't posted on this long wandering thread nor the longer referred to carving thread. Most of what I ski on my ski days are recreational bumps and as the link below shows I primarily use edges. Thus not comp zipper lines unless they just happen to be there. First will add just like Glen Plake, I dislike using the word "carving" because traditionally that is a narrow subset of using ski edges. Especially in bumps there is not enough space to do so as I have always understood the term. Others seem to prefer that term to edging and that is fine and trivial.

Neither do I ski bumps with a classic comp mogul skiing technique that is what 90% members tend to talk about every winter as personally am not interested in going fast, nor having my skis close together for mere aesthetic reasons, nor just ski troughs, nor often use the common shovel pivot tail slide, nor air. Simply, I as someone that has skied from older decades when bumps were everywhere, ski bumps not for challenge but for the most personal exhilarating visceral fun my own way that has much to do with my current skis I use as a tool. I as yet don't have any recent decade traditional hand held videos by others of my own bump skiing however before the season did buy a GoPro Hero 8 that only began to use 3 weeks ago so last Wednesday recorded 8 consecutive POV runs down my favorite bump run at Heavenly Little Dipper that have subsequently processed, trimming out all the non-skiing time so most runs are short less than a couple minutes.

As some have noted there are different ways to efficiently ski bumps though on such threads they tend to be overwhelmed by just those discussing comp styles. And that is understandable. Thus my reason for adding this post herein is to clearly show one other style. The first of 9 videos in the youtube playlist is the 600 foot bump run view from the adjacent chair going up the lift line. We have beautifully shaped bumps because south Tahoe is home to a large 50k population with many competent bump skiers of all types, every day on the slope. The following 8 videos are in sequence, my runs youtube titled as RUN1 thru RUN 8. Given the previous 2 weeks of spring freeze thaw conditions the first few runs were purposely for the sake of you Eastern bump skiers that note how easier and soft our higher elevation packed powder snow is versus your often icy slopes. Yeah my first runs just as the surface thaw began are on firm and icy snow with my skis rattling, chattering, about noisily as I descend with a reasonably calm upper body though often mechanically. So yeah we do get such conditions late season. Hardly any other competent skiers were on the slopes so early because such is much more challenging and certainly not as aesthetically possible.

I did make it look fun although such may not be too apparent due to the POV nature as on runs 2 and 3 impressed lift riders yell out my name after I pulled up since I'm a familiar regular lift riders watch. To see my strategy and style change after the snow softened up go to RUN 7 where I ski the whole slope smoother, faster with just one pit stop. Next season will record then post some runs with packed powder snow that I much prefer but for now this will surmise.

 
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tromano

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Personally I think bumps make the steeps easier.

As far as skiing bumps being hard on the body. Its only hard on the joints when I do it wrong or once I get tired and slow and then my timing is off. If I am on time, it doesn't hurt.
 

Tony S

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Great view of a lot of bad skiers. And a few that aren't.
I didn't notice. I was too fascinated by the explanatory subtitles for each lift tower.
 

Tony S

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Personally I think bumps make the steeps easier.
Really? For a given surface condition?
Icy plain steeps vs. icy bump steeps? (Upside of bumps is that you probably won't slide to your death as readily if you fall. Otherwise?)
Powdery plain steeps vs. powdery bump steeps? (Upside of bumps here is that they can be a hoot in pow. But so is not-bumps.)
.
.
.
Then Tony S remembers what western bumps are often like.
.
.
Okay, I might be with you after all.
 

Tony S

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It's a playlist. Each run he does has a separate video. First video shows the run from the chair.
I know. I figured that out. After two minutes and fifteen seconds of watching the lift towers, all the while waiting for the run to begin.
Fifteen seconds of that would probably give the viewer the gist.
 

Tony S

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Yea, to me its alot easier to ski bumps than hop turns. Also reduces / prevents sluffing.
:roflmao:

Oh yeah. That sluffing. I hate that! :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

.
.
.
[I think I have experienced sluffing in Maine about twice in my life.]
 

Seldomski

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I know. I figured that out. After two minutes and fifteen seconds of watching the lift towers, all the while waiting for the run to begin.
Fifteen seconds of that would probably give the viewer the gist.

Took me a minute to figure out the playlist thing myself. Hopefully my post helps anyone that may have missed this detail.
 

Tony S

I have a confusion to make ...
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Took me a minute to figure out the playlist thing myself. Hopefully my post helps anyone that may have missed this detail.
Yeah, I feel bad for being such a smart ass now. Going to go back and watch properly.
 

Kiki

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Haven't posted on this long wandering thread nor the longer referred to carving thread. Most of what I ski on my ski days are recreational bumps and as the link below shows I primarily use edges. Thus not comp zipper lines unless they just happen to be there. First will add just like Glen Plake, I dislike using the word "carving" because traditionally that is a narrow subset of using ski edges. Especially in bumps there is not enough space to do so as I have always understood the term. Others seem to prefer that term to edging and that is fine and trivial.

Neither do I ski bumps with a classic comp mogul skiing technique that is what 90% members tend to talk about every winter as personally am not interested in going fast, nor having my skis close together for mere aesthetic reasons, nor just ski troughs, nor often use the common shovel pivot tail slide, nor air. Simply, I as someone that has skied from older decades when bumps were everywhere, ski bumps not for challenge but for the most personal exhilarating visceral fun my own way that has much to do with my current skis I use as a tool. I as yet don't have any recent decade traditional hand held videos by others of my own bump skiing however before the season did buy a GoPro Hero 8 that only began to use 3 weeks ago so last Wednesday recorded 8 consecutive POV runs down my favorite bump run at Heavenly Little Dipper that have subsequently processed, trimming out all the non-skiing time so most runs are short less than a couple minutes.

As some have noted there are different ways to efficiently ski bumps though on such threads they tend to be overwhelmed by just those discussing comp styles. And that is understandable. Thus my reason for adding this post herein is to clearly show one other style. The first of 9 videos in the youtube playlist is the 600 foot bump run view from the adjacent chair going up the lift line. We have beautifully shaped bumps because south Tahoe is home to a large 50k population with many competent bump skiers of all types, every day on the slope. The following 8 videos are in sequence, my runs youtube titled as RUN1 thru RUN 8. Given the previous 2 weeks of spring freeze thaw conditions the first few runs were purposely for the sake of you Eastern bump skiers that note how easier and soft our higher elevation packed powder snow is versus your often icy slopes. Yeah my first runs just as the surface thaw began are on firm and icy snow with my skis rattling, chattering, about noisily as I descend with a reasonably calm upper body though often mechanically. So yeah we do get such conditions late season. Hardly any other competent skiers were on the slopes so early because such is much more challenging and certainly not as aesthetically possible.

I did make it look fun although such may not be too apparent due to the POV nature as on runs 2 and 3 impressed lift riders yell out my name after I pulled up since I'm a familiar regular lift riders watch. To see my strategy and style change after the snow softened up go to RUN 7 where I ski the whole slope smoother, faster with just one pit stop. Next season will record then post some runs with packed powder snow that I much prefer but for now this will surmise.

Thank you for the video, I liked seeing the uprise before going down the hill to get perspective. Honestly watching the second and subsequent clips of you descending that monster was both terrifying and exhausting lol! May I ask why you were hugging the tree line instead of in the middle? I would have been scared of falling in the trees .... (please don’t skin me folks for what is likely a naive question!)
 

SSSdave

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Thanks Kiki. The opening lift ride chair lift video IMO in my neophyte experience of these type of action cameras, is a more effective way to show a bump field that is adjacent to a lift than any static photo can possibly be. The POV lens is so distorting with a limited field of view and speed variances that such alone loses a sense of how long the bump field really is while the ride is something all of us can relate to. Some now are using 360 degree lens cameras but that makes it even more weird.

The opening seconds has a map in N to S orientation, showing Little Dipper faces due north. Thus early spring by midday at our latitude, sun had been shining more on the skier's left trail side so was softer. On RUN 7 I finally venture at the end of the run at the most steep bottom to the center that has largest bumps where I more mechanically drop slowly a direct fall line brutalizing the still mostly frozen steep bump spines with quick turns. So even two hours after I began, it was still barely unfrozen.

As for skiing close to trees, if one can turn at modest speeds projecting mass and momentum at small targeted surfaces in a complex variable recreational bump field, avoiding close obstacles is similar as is skiing fresh snow through dense trees. A level of danger to be sure but part of the game. Key in all this is over decades of skiing winters building up a neuromusculoskelectal system with visual brain control via neuroplasticity that operates our creaturely bodies in flowing auto mode that is otherwise changing too rapidly moment to moment difficult if one needs to think.
 
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LiquidFeet

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Thank you for the video, I liked seeing the uprise before going down the hill to get perspective. Honestly watching the second and subsequent clips of you descending that monster was both terrifying and exhausting lol! May I ask why you were hugging the tree line instead of in the middle? I would have been scared of falling in the trees .... (please don’t skin me folks for what is likely a naive question!)
The formation of the bumps along the edge of the run, next to the trees, is often devoid of the horrid irregularities you'll find in the middle of the run. At least that's the case here in NE. But to ski that line one does need to have precision control to avoid getting sent into the trees.
 

SSSdave

life is short precious ...don't waste it
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More precisely the LD slope orientation is 63 degrees north of due east or 27 degrees east of due north with whitebark pines blocking the early morning spring sun on looker's left. As LF mentioned generally on any runs there is also always less skier tracked 3-dimensional forms closer to trees or trail sides.
 

LiquidFeet

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Right. There's less skier traffic on the sides of the trails, and the skiers that do ski there tend to know what they are doing because they aren't worried about their skis unexpectedly sending them into the trees.

Skiers cautious about their control tend to ski the middle of the trail, far away from the sides. Most skiers fall into this category where I ski, so the bumps in the middle tend to reflect the irregularities in their skiing. Those middle bumps also get more traffic, so the troughs get deeper. Catch-22.

I am always envious of the perfect formation of whole bump fields on big mountain slopes out west.
 
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Seldomski

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As mentioned by @SSSdave , skier's left/looker's right gets sun early in the morning and stays in the sun until early afternoon. So it has the softest snow. Staying close to the edge also is harder for the 'non-bumper' skiers. So the % of 'non-bumper' skier turns in that area vs 'good bumper' skier turns is lower. A 'non-bumper' skier will do a couple turn in there, then shoot out toward the center. So the moguls are shaped more regularly on skier's left.

The middle of that run can get some pretty weird bumps, partly due to some boulders that poke through the snow, but you can't see in that video (good coverage). They still influence the shape of some moguls in the center. But mostly the irregular center is due to the 'non-bumper' skiers meandering all over the center when they find out that the 'good bumper' skiers they saw from the lift made it look much easier than it is. The snow in center is also harder to ski in the morning (in shade), so if you end up in that center bit you are more likely to flail, which compounds the problem. The woods to lookers left/skiers right is a nice gladed run and can serve as a bailout or merger into that bump run. So there are some weird moguls on that edge, since there is some cross traffic of people coming out of the woods, then quickly regretting the decision and going back to the woods.

This is one of my favorite bump runs, usually with really nice bumps from top to bottom on looker's right, up until the last 50 yards or so where it get a bit steeper and the shapes always seem to get awkward.

Edit to add - nice skiing @SSSdave , looks like you were having lots of fun.
 

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