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Snow storm skiing

mister moose

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I found through observation of others who are likely just better as skiing, that I apparently turn way too perpendicular to the fall line in these conditions in an effort to control speed (I know it's a bad idea even while I'm doing it, but end don't have a better solution that I can execute well when it's happening--or so it seems).

It seems to be a compounding issue. If you're not used to this kind of snow, you really focus on balance also, which of course is harder as speed picks up on these piles. And because speed plays into it, I become more speed "adverse" to ensure I maintain balance. So I end up just turning close to 75 to 90 degrees, left and right as I make my way down. This is of course completely exhausting in these conditions.

The people who seemed to be enjoying it and zipping right on down where the ones that were only turning, maybe 20-30 degrees against the fall line. It seemed when I did that i picked up too much speed (or felt I did), so I had a hard time copying them.

You describe it well. Think more turns but less deflection each turn. In other words, think about turning only 30 degrees, but twice as often.
So with all of that, here's a couple of questions. <SNIP>
Fundamentals, fundamentals. Same for bumps. Get way better at all kinds of turns. Get skilled eyes on you for feedback.
And my thinking is that if you can ski these conditions well, the others will be that much easier because they require you to bring to bear, most of the elementary techniques of skiing and exacerbate your weakness.
True. Except the elementary part. if it was easy, you'd be doing it by now.
"Another thing that can help in uneven conditions is to use more edge angle than you think, which enables the skis to slice more cleanly thru the snow,"
And get the skis on edge earlier than usual so they slice through the snow all the way around the turn.

Yes, but why is more edge easier? Only if more edge means less skidding. High edge with skidding is going to push even more snow and be exhausting.
The video above is a very good tip. Note the edge angles he's making as well as how early he's edging due to his pressure on his uphill leg to end the turn.
I think what Dan is describing here is a very advanced move. The earlier you start shifting pressure in the turn, the more advanced the turn. In addition, pressuring what is still the inside ski is advanced for many skiers. In any case, try this a lot on easy terrain on packed snow and see how it goes, don't wait until you're flailing around in thunder chunder.
Storm days like this last Tuesday and Wednesday are what I train for everyday. Spend most of your ski time in the ungroomed natural terrain. Once you are comfortable in 3D snow the possibilities are endless. On powder days I often let out a loud "Whoo-Hoo"when passing those not having as much fun. With some practice anyone can master storm skiing.
First practice arranging your life so you can get to the storm skiing! (Tuesday was great, Wednesday was freakin' awesome)
 

SSSdave

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Wide skis and technique others have mentioned. Of note slalom racers and mogul skiers have a significant advantage bouncing turns in short powder because they are used to making continuous short dynamic rebounding turns. In powder one efficiently bounces into the balanced center of one's ski flex like on a moving trampoline so that in a turn's up phase, one can easily laterally move skis within less snow resistance versus down deep. During the down phase on lower gradient terrain, one can hear my breathing as I purposely use my upper torso breathing out pushing down to get extra bounce while my lower body with skis close together pistons down into the snow, finding just the right elastic bounce out of snow softness. On steeper slopes there is enough gravity acceleration each turn so extra bouncing isn't necessary. Notice how I can ski through long verticals of fresh snow without much more effort than an easy running jog around a city block.

As I noted on recent previous threads, I'm going to be showing other advanced members herein how a GoPro video front helmet mounted system can add useful value to one's skiing and especially for posting in web forums. The Adobe Premeire Elements 2021 processing I've down herein is not complicated and am willing to help others here make it straightforward that will be more interesting for all of us. For decades in Silicon Valley helped engineers with written test processes for using complex equipment.

Here in this deep powder I'll add two 3/6/23 videos I just processed today, 3/19/23. Shows how this person over 2 hours after the Dipper Express Quad chairlift opened, while most others after a run or two just saw already tracked cut-up powder slopes left, I was still skiing significant areas of untracked snow by finding awkward to reach areas and especially lower slope gradient strips right beside heavily used trails that most skiers cannot turn in as they become bogged down due to not enough ski width, a lack of technique, or are simply too heavy. Before fresh snow days, by examining topographic and satellite maps on caltopo dot com, one can find awkward to reach and unseen from trail or lifts zones that later on fresh days can be skied after obvious zones are tracked out. Heavenly has much of that kind of sparse forest terrain on both sides of their resort.

On the alGH010735b.mp4 video over 4 segments, note how from 00;24 instead of following the escape route of others, I moved right into an untracked low gradient zone. Skiing through such variable rolling terrain areas is great fun for this person. It does help to being short 5'6" light 138# guy. Note how smoothly I flow through such luxuriantly soft areas. After that right beside the heavily skied Orion trail, found plenty of perfectly skiable and fun little skied strips ignored by others. And down near the bottom, with the best snow in always ignored Nova woods, where very few had ventured into even 2 hours later. Note how I easily negotiated a fun route through the maze of trees while just crossing a few tracks. Like I noted, helps being a bump skiier.



Then on the alGH010736b.mp4 video, over 5 segments, on Segments 1 and 2, just another section of awkward to get into Cosmic Wave. In Segment 3, I crossed to the other side of Orion and bounced turns a ways down perfectly skiable lower gradient section. Segment 4 had crossed back across to the left side of Orion where I worked a same section after Jacks I'd skied the previous run. For Segment 5, I moved further out into Nova woods where I enjoyed a long meander in deep untracked snow through trees.

 
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Jjmd

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If one wanted to perpetuate terminally crappy off piste skiing this is a wonderful blueprint.
 

Tony S

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I'm going to be showing other advanced members herein how a GoPro video front helmet mounted system can add useful value to one's skiing and especially for posting in web forums
Really? I immediately shut down the instant I see POV video.
 

Mothertucker

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Oh yeah, if you have POV clips of another skier that's totally different. I just get less than nothing from looking at someone's ski tips.
I would film you, but you have to come out West!
 

SSSdave

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Really? I immediately shut down the instant I see POV video.

Having watched many POV videos before I bought a system in 2021, would agree. But then after using it and finding new ways to do so, I have discovered my own POV videos to be of considerable value especially for my own personal watching in unexpected ways though not something to discuss more than briefly in this storm skiing thread. A 2 minute video with information about what one is looking at does tell a much better story to others with enough patience versus a web post with mere posted words or a photograph. It can tell much about one's skiing skill especially in sunny conditions with a body shadow. And is something not lost to time one may relive for years. I do appreciate yours and other's opinions on this thank you and expect general skier opinions about POV systems will change in the future I'll continue to discuss.

Key is how a front mounted camera records where one's eye look at 2/3 height at horizontal center frame that in my case is where in front I will be turning next. If one looks at that center location while viewing on a larger 1080p screen, the effect can be immersive. Much less so for those viewing on tiny smartphone screens and worse viewing a video youtube has severely bandwidth compressed versus an uncompressed original. That is a reason I will be posting some of my videos on a free site where same as posted uncompressed originals may be downloaded. The two above despite being less than a couple minutes long are about 100 megabytes, or way too much for usual web page content.
 

KingGrump

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As always, I bow to The King in deference to his royal bumpiness. But I would point out that bumps largely dictate the turn specifics whereas the OP is still navigating more open areas and needs to avoid shopping turns more than anything. Learning that all that crap in front of you is easily negotiated with the right technique is one of the major hurdles in skiing. I relearn this lesson every time we get new snow.

Also the soft side slip for speed control in the bumps is what kills you in the cut up powder.

Bumps are 3D terrain. Chop is more like 3D snow with 2.5D terrain. A round 3D turn of variable radius will usually handle that easily. The trick is timing the radius of the turn to the chop piles. That comes with mileage. No real work around to that.
 

tball

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Oh yeah, if you have POV clips of another skier that's totally different. I just get less than nothing from looking at someone's ski tips.
Stand by for game-changing Next Generation POV Video showing both another skier and the turn shape of the skier with the camera. Ponder how that's possible for a bit. :ogbiggrin:
 

tball

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I caught some great off-piste shots this weekend with my new Insta360 camera. I love that I can film my son skiing behind me, and you can also get an idea of my turn shape from my tracks.

This is east-facing Spaulding Bowl at Copper Mtn on Saturday with some nasty sun-baked crud on top of refrozen—very challenging conditions. Notice nobody else is in that giant bowl!



That's my go-to turn shape for less bumped-up off-piste, with lots of unweighting in the transition on challenging snow. Notice my son making the common mistake of bringing his skis too far around with too much weight in transition, and the crud takes him down.

I think the key is lots and lots of off-piste mileage in all sorts of conditions to prepare you for that rare storm day.
 
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Tony S

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I think the key is lots and lots of off-piste mileage in all sorts of conditions to prepare you for that rare storm day.
The kind of practice shown in your vid is essentially unavailable to skiers at most eastern lift-served areas. There is not enough "extra" terrain that mountain ops is going to leave any of it ungroomed like that, for any amount of time, under any but perfect fluffy powder conditions. Every inch of the terrain is immediately skied on by many hundreds of people. No one would stand for the conditions you're showing. Or if they did, it would all immediately be skied-up. Or have turned to a solid sheet of ice after the inevitable rainstorm immediately following. The one exception is glades, where groomers can't go. Unfortunately it's often the case that glades are not good learning areas when dealing with challenging snow conditions.

That's why people in the OP's position need to take a two-pronged approach:
1) Yes, ski ungroomed snow whenever you can, knowing that this may be seldom, barring trips to other parts of the world
2) Learn the needed movement patterns even while skiing on groomed terrain
 

tball

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That's why people in the OP's position need to take a two-pronged approach:
1) Yes, ski ungroomed snow whenever you can, knowing that this may be seldom, barring trips to other parts of the world
2) Learn the needed movement patterns even while skiing on groomed terrain
I like that. #1 means lots of bumps, and as many have said, skiing bumps is great practice in 3D snow and is fantastic for your skiing in all sorts of conditions. Lots of good strategies for #2 (groomers) above. I'd emphasize floating through transition and learning to control speed when the ski is loaded.
 
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tball

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And don't forget @Bob Barnes' key tactic!

Keep 'em going the direction they are pointed. If that doesn't work... point 'em in the direction they are going!



@GA49, I think you described the challenges of fighting the direction your skis are going well in your OP.
 
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GA49

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Bumps are 3D terrain. Chop is more like 3D snow with 2.5D terrain. A round 3D turn of variable radius will usually handle that easily. The trick is timing the radius of the turn to the chop piles. That comes with mileage. No real work around to that.
Yeah I was thinking this the entire way down...what seems daunting at first becomes second nature eventually.
 

martyg

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“I know just skiing more will help, and it has,…”

Skiing more will only help if it deliberate and purposeful. Book an instructor to help with the deliberate part. You need to dial in sensations originating from your feet to ski these conditions well.
 

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