Intermediate vs Advanced vs Expert skiers: labels

[Yepow]

Hi folks,

Looked through the threads and didn't see too much on this, forgive me if this has been discussed before. Is there a good/ commonly agreed upon standards of labels for skier ability (obviously there are broken fronts of abilities but let's generalize for now) for intermediate vs strong intermediate vs early advanced vs advanced vs ... expert?

I had found this: https://www.insideoutskiing.com/level.html

which has more detailed descriptions and videos which is useful, but unsure if these are in general agreement with definitions in the community or instructor space, or are just this site's take on it.

My personal experience is that a lot of people self select up in group lessons, with there being a variety of skills (from (over?)confident intermediate to actually pretty good skiers) converging on level 5 (not expert 6, not intermediate 4) in Canada...

 

[mdf]

On SkiTalk there is a general reticence to calling oneself an expert. To a level where essentially nobody qualifies. Back when Gathering roll calls included skiing level, someone ( maybe @Tony S ) got around this by coining the term "expertish".

Personally I think it makes sense to recognize gradations within the "expert" bucket. ( your tagged article recognizes that) .

For those too shy to call themselves expert, I like to ask "do you turn back when you come to an 'experts only' sign?"

 

[JCF]

For those too shy to call themselves expert, I like to ask "do you turn back when you come to an 'experts only' sign?"

Expertish - yeah, I like that.
But that is a wide net.
I see a lot of people who don’t turn back at the experts only sign who are way down the expertish scale - and others who make me think I’m less expertish than I thought I was. Certainly nothing wrong with that But is someone side- slipping down that run really expertish ?

Interesting topic ! Like !

 

[ThomasD]

I'm an expert when the conditions are right.

Mostly what keeps me from calling myself a plain old expert is that sometimes I misjudge when the conditions are right.

 

[Seldomski]

My personal experience is that a lot of people self select up in group lessons, with there being a variety of skills (from (over?)confident intermediate to actually pretty good skiers) converging on level 5 (not expert 6, not intermediate 4) in Canada...

Yes this is common in the US as well. There is terrain-based ability and technical ability. Advanced lessons can have people ranging from "I can get down a black/double black when conditions are good" vs. "I can ski a double black and can make it look easy when conditions are marginal." The first one has some fundamental technique flaws that probably require rebuilding some things on green/blue terrain. The second one probably needs to be looking for an instructor with a very specific focus in mind (say race/gate training, freestyle for zippering moguls, or drills/tasks for high level instructor cert exam).

So when signing up for lessons I generally err on overstating ability since so many other already do so...

I think that most people who consider themselves advanced or advanced intermediate (and are motivated to truly improve) would benefit from video analysis in their lessons to get a dose of reality.

 

[dbostedo]

A couple of older discussions for reference:

What skills determine ability levels?

This topic has probably been covered before on the forum; if so, I apologize for dredging it up again, and for not being able to find it from a search. What skills and expertise differentiate an advanced skier from an intermediate skier, and an expert skier from an advanced one? These are just...

www.skitalk.com

Intermediate vs Advanced Skiing

As someone who describes himself as a terminal intermediate this is always in the forefront of my mind. Can any of the many instructors or experienced skiers here define the difference between being an intermediate and an advanced skier? I don’t mean in terms of published skier levels as you can...

www.skitalk.com

 

[Noodler]

I'm way better than all you guys...

 

[ThomasD]

...

I think that most people who consider themselves advanced or advanced intermediate (and are motivated to truly improve) would benefit from video analysis in their lessons to get a dose of reality.

Did my first racing clinic ever back in December (mid fifties is a good time to start racing, right?) and it included video analysis. Learned a lot in those sessions, mechanically I didn't have any major issues, I just looked slow. Bought my first set of cheaters shortly after.

 

[CascadeConcrete]

Unfortunately, everyone defines these things differently and there isn't any sort of commonly agreed upon standard. In the US, PSIA at least used to rate ability levels 1-9, although my impression is that this system is being used less. Honestly it was never very good to start with imho, at least at the higher levels.

For the beginner through intermediate these sorts of classifications work pretty well, as there are very concrete steps in the learning progression, and specific skills (wedge turn vs parallel for example) you can easily use to distinguish. But at higher levels, it gets a whole lot fuzzier. At some point everyone tends to have certain skills (e.g. parallel, capable of skiing ungroomed terrain, etc), just to different extents. I can ski moguls quite competently, but I can't ski them like Jonny Moseley... And while me vs Jonny Moseley is pretty obvious, it gets a lot more subtle when it's me vs some other weekend warrior. Also people start to specialize. A racer from the Midwest may be incredible carving groomers, but have no real experience in steeps and other rugged terrain. So you may be expert in one area of skiing, but not others. So such ratings of higher level skiers get messy quite quickly.

In practice though, few expert skiers are taking lessons anyways, at least of basic group lesson variety. They may get specific coaching from a moguls clinic, steeps camp, race program, or whatever. But it's pretty rare for them to just sign up for a random group lesson. So this isn't usually a big deal in the real world.

 

[Tony S]

On reflection, I realize I have an opinion about this. (I know. Big surprise.) I have no credentials whatsoever that might persuade anyone to CARE about my opinion, but I have one.

A person I call an "expert" (not "advanced") can and does link consistent turns down any non-specialized* marked inbounds terrain at any resort in the US** with composure and control - not flailing, not habitually over-rotating, not excessively turn shopping, not stopping every two turns to plan the next move - under more or less any conditions when the run would be open. This emphatically includes trees, moguls, steeps (including chutes), powder, crud, and most kinds of undesirable snow/ice. (Refusing to ski dangerous leg-snapping deep mank or breakable crust is just sanity. Far from disqualifying you, it proves you value your knees.) Show me a terrain phobia and I'll show you a technique problem.

* So yes, I'm excluding park features (notwithstanding that I like half-pipes), excluding the race course (notwithstanding that I like racing), and excluding mandatory no-fall-or-you-die areas, such as billy-goating through cliff bands. How do I rationalize that? I rationalize it by saying that when you look at the area map, the terrain you're missing out on by excluding those specialized areas is, in general, so microscopic as to be irrelevant. I fully recognize that if you're a park rat you're not going to agree with me and I'm okay with that. Have fun destroying your skis on non-snow objects.

By contrast, at many of the biggest and best ski areas, steeps, trees, and bumps comprise a giant swath of the mountain - often more than half. If you're going to turn your back on all that, how can you call yourself an expert? In short, "I'm an expert but I don't do bumps" or "I'm an expert but I don't ski when it's icy" or "I'm an expert but I struggle in powder" - all commonly seen on this board and elsewhere - are statements that don't fly with me. As Josh Matta so famously said, "It's not that you can't ski bumps; it's that you can't ski and the bumps prove it."

Now let the flame war begin!

** I'm not an American chauvanist, but I don't have enough first hand experience at non-US resorts to be able to talk about them with confidence.

 

[Yepow]

A couple of older discussions for reference:

What skills determine ability levels?

This topic has probably been covered before on the forum; if so, I apologize for dredging it up again, and for not being able to find it from a search. What skills and expertise differentiate an advanced skier from an intermediate skier, and an expert skier from an advanced one? These are just...

www.skitalk.com

Intermediate vs Advanced Skiing

As someone who describes himself as a terminal intermediate this is always in the forefront of my mind. Can any of the many instructors or experienced skiers here define the difference between being an intermediate and an advanced skier? I don’t mean in terms of published skier levels as you can...

www.skitalk.com

@dbostedo just want to let you know that these are not only super useful but also breaking my brain/expanding my mind as I see parts of myself here. For the last year I have not enjoyed or wanted to tackle hard terrain with my boys because I am bringing some of my shitty intermediate tools to bear. I oscillate between some good technique and fear pulling me back into old ways and I literally do not enjoy not skiing well. The difference is I now KNOW the difference between the two, or at least when I'm doing it poorly. Many of my friends don't understand why I don't want to "just get down" in terrain I used to enjoy schmoe-ing my way down.

I've been working on just running easier terrain over and over again and trying to get that fall down the line and the separation. A lot of unlearning to do But awareness is the first step, and willingness to tear it down is the second.

I saw myself in a lot of the comments there: "Quite the contrary. It is the intermediate's reliance on bracing against the straight line force of gravity vs the continuance of the turning force that is the issue." and " Advanced skiers are able to throw their bodies down the hill, ahead of the skis at initiation. An intermediate cannot do this, but will instead pivot/smear and then brace against the downhill ski." from @Seldomski .

I want to make that jump for all ski conditions, not just very easy blues/greens I've been working hard at doing this and by necessity it has to happen on easier terrain. On worse snow or slightly steeper than comfortable terrain or... old habits reemerge.

 

[Tony Storaro]

It will be much easier if we all agreed that “Expert” is someone whose name begins with Marko and ends with Odermatt.
Or starts with Marcel and ends in Hirscher. Ted Ligety also works.

All the rest suck. At different level of suckage. The goal is to elevate the level of suckage.

Skiing is not a pastime activity. It is a never ending, continuous strive for self-improvement.

 

[James]

Honestly it was never very good to start with imho, at least at the higher levels.

Yeah the number system works pretty well till 7. After that, with only 8 and 9 left, not really.

I thought we got away from trail ratings like “expert” to disentangle trails with ability.
I rarely if ever use the term expert, though places will force you sometimes to use it.

Back when we used 1-9, I once took a run with a kid who showed up as a 7. Literally after this one very unremarkable run down a black, he asks me “so am I an eight now?” No.

Then there was the kid a patroller told me about. Like 12-13. He gets injured in the park on a rail. Patrol shows up, in assessing the injury, he asks the kid what level skier he is.
“Professional.”
-Really? You get paid to ski?
“Well, no.”

 

[Marker]

It will be much easier if we all agreed that “Expert” is someone whose name begins with Marko and ends with Odermatt.
Or starts with Marcel and ends in Hirscher. Ted Ligety also works.

All the rest suck. At different level of suckage. The goal is to elevate the level of suckage.

I was just thinking along these lines, but more in a Spinal Tap way. Whenever I've read these kinds of threads in the past, I'm reminded that there is a level 10 beyond 1-9 and it's called professional, not expert. Anything less are amateurs even though instructors do get paid, so perhaps there is a expert gray area for Level 3 and the PSIA Demo team at 9 to 9.5.

 

[CascadeConcrete]

It will be much easier if we all agreed that “Expert” is someone whose name begins with Marko and ends with Odermatt.
Or starts with Marcel and ends in Hirscher. Ted Ligety also works.

You're probably being somewhat facetious, but if that's the standard we want to judge by then there would be only a handful of experts in the entire world, and mere mortals would never get past beginner/intermediate/advanced. I think there's value in that fourth "expert" category to classify those who can ski damn near anything, and do so quite well. And there's a lot more people like that than there are Teds and Marcels and Marcos. I'd argue there's another level (or maybe a couple more) above your run of the mill "expert" for those guys. Call it "pro", "elite", or whatever, but that's where I'd put high level racers, ski movie stars, etc.

 

[Tony Storaro]

On reflection, I realize I have an opinion about this. (I know. Big surprise.) I have no credentials whatsoever that might persuade anyone to CARE about my opinion, but I have one.

A person I call an "expert" (not "advanced") can and does link consistent turns down any non-specialized* marked inbounds terrain at any resort in the US** with composure and control - not flailing, not habitually over-rotating, not excessively turn shopping, not stopping every two turns to plan the next move - under more or less any conditions when the run would be open. This emphatically includes trees, moguls, steeps (including chutes), powder, crud, and most kinds of undesirable snow/ice. (Refusing to ski dangerous leg-snapping deep mank or breakable crust is just sanity. Far from disqualifying you, it proves you value your knees.) Show me a terrain phobia and I'll show you a technique problem.

* So yes, I'm excluding park features (notwithstanding that I like half-pipes), excluding the race course (notwithstanding that I like racing), and excluding mandatory no-fall-or-you-die areas, such as billy-goating through cliff bands. How do I rationalize that? I rationalize it by saying that when you look at the area map, the terrain you're missing out on by excluding those specialized areas is, in general, so microscopic as to be irrelevant. I fully recognize that if you're a park rat you're not going to agree with me and I'm okay with that. Have fun destroying your skis on non-snow objects.

By contrast, at many of the biggest and best ski areas, steeps, trees, and bumps comprise a giant swath of the mountain - often more than half. If you're going to turn your back on all that, how can you call yourself an expert? In short, "I'm an expert but I don't do bumps" or "I'm an expert but I don't ski when it's icy" or "I'm an expert but I struggle in powder" - all commonly seen on this board and elsewhere - are statements that don't fly with me. As Josh Matta so famously said, "It's not that you can't ski bumps; it's that you can't ski and the bumps prove it."

Now let the flame war begin!

** I'm not an American chauvanist, but I don't have enough first hand experience at non-US resorts to be able to talk about them with confidence.

Excellent. And true.

For the EU resorts-groomers mostly, you know you are watching an expert when you see one. Impossible to describe but you know it. The lil voice at the back of your mind that be like: You know, I want to ski like this some day.

 

[razie]

I think that most people who consider themselves advanced or advanced intermediate (and are motivated to truly improve) would benefit from video analysis in their lessons to get a dose of reality.

that goes for "experts" too

 

[dbostedo]

All the rest suck. At different level of suckage. The goal is to elevate the level of suckage.

I believe the correct adage is "sucking at a higher level".

 

[jimtransition]

By contrast, at many of the biggest and best ski areas, steeps, trees, and bumps comprise a giant swath of the mountain - often more than half. If you're going to turn your back on all that, how can you call yourself an expert? In short, "I'm an expert but I don't do bumps" or "I'm an expert but I don't ski when it's icy" or "I'm an expert but I struggle in powder" - all commonly seen on this board and elsewhere - are statements that don't fly with me. As Josh Matta so famously said, "It's not that you can't ski bumps; it's that you can't ski and the bumps prove it."

Now let the flame war begin!

** I'm not an American chauvanist, but I don't have enough first hand experience at non-US resorts to be able to talk about them with confidence.

Of course it's important to recognise peoples preferred terrain when defining expertism, bump hardos and east coast tree skiers are more expert than freeriders and racers, and pmts'ers are the most expert, even if they solely make their expert movements on green trails, all of the above are certain they are more expert than park skiers, but only because deep down they wish they could jump

 

[Tony S]

Of course it's important to recognise peoples preferred terrain when defining expertism, bump hardos and east coast tree skiers are more expert than freeriders and racers, and pmts'ers are the most expert, even if they solely make their expert movements on green trails, all of the above are certain they are more expert than park skiers, but only because deep down they wish they could jump

There you go. Thread complete. And I do wish I could jump. Gotta work on that.