Stuck in the wedge

[Tony Storaro]

I basically have a policy regarding flappers / bombers -- if / when they crash / yardsale, I don't bother picking up their stuff. You can hike for it.

Had one of those semi-recently; guy flew past me, hit some roll-over and had a yard sale with his stuff spread over a good distance. He yelled to me for a "little help please". I skied down to him "uh, sorry, couldn't hear you?". Oh! Your stuff! I see... Well, enjoy the hike to get it back.

Hehe I still can’t bring myself to that level of coldness. I tried a couple of times but the internal urge to help the idiots was just too strong.

I am working on that aspect tho don’t get me wrong…

 

[Tin Pants]

About 20 years ago, CSIA had "fast track to parallel" as a program. But the only people that really benefitted were XC skiers, skaters or really athletic people. I taught a friends girlfriend the program. But she's a fitness instructor. So she had strength and sense of balance to do it. Most new skiers can't stand up on wide planks.

We had similar flying wedges at Tremblant this weekend on terrain they had no business on.

Hate BM, give a good Casear.

there have been many attempts at a direct parallel including HH I worked at winter park when harold persuaded granby ranch down the road to adapt it, granby ranch has really flat beginner terrain people would come to WP to ski the big mountain but the terrain is much steeper it didn't create flying wedges it creates UFP's unguided flying people carnage ensued ,I think direct parallel could work if combined with terrain based learning

 

[Tony Storaro]

I was skimming and thought Erik threw someone's backpack speaker in the woods at first..

I ski with theme music.. Every good skier should have some..

Just the other day I took the lift with three kids one of which carrying a speaker. I was about to say something nasty when they played:


so I gave them high fives. Good kids!

 

[James]

I took that one further last week. Grabbed the guys ski, skied past him and hucked it in the woods. As Warren Miller says, "Want your ski? Go get it".

Always wanted to do that!
We used to have a lot of poles dropped from the chairlift, with racer kids or the like throwing them down. If I skied by, I would pick them up and take them down to the lift. The head liftie used to have a nice little chat with them.

 

[Smear]

I took that one further last week. Grabbed the guys ski, skied past him and hucked it in the woods. As Warren Miller says, "Want your ski? Go get it".

Have also been there.... Was finishing my turns really across the hill on SL-skis. On the third turn following the same pattern a straightliner (old dude on vintage gear) clipped me from behind released one of my skis in the crash and turned me around 180 degrees. I was heading towards the forest backwards at good speed going off the edge of the piste at a really bad spot. Had long time to think in the air, knowing the trees start just where the steep part stops. Thinking there is no way this can end without breaking my back or worse... Stopped with my back protector curled around a tree, one of the birches in the middle of the picture. By some kind of miracle not much hurt. Crawled back up, gave the old dude a good scolding and in the end threw his poles as far into forest as I could. My eight year old not impressed with his dad witnessing the scene from a distance. But whatever these retards can kill people. Hope he takes more care in the future if he ever dears to come back to the hill...

 

[EricG]

In a tiny, tiny bit of possible defense for some of these people... there are resorts around here that blast music for you over much if the mountain, particularly where the terrain parks are. (Or they have at times in the past... not sure about some more recently.) So maybe some people just feel uncomfortable without the background noise...

keep that shit down there.

 

[dan ross]

I’m going to get on my soapbox here once again:
Your ears are your rear view mirrors on the slopes .
In other words don’t wear earbuds or anything that impedes hearing.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

View attachment 193838

Have also been there.... Was finishing my turns really across the hill on SL-skis. On the third turn following the same pattern a straightliner (old dude on vintage gear) clipped me from behind released one of my skis in the crash and turned me around 180 degrees. I was heading towards the forest backwards at good speed going off the edge of the piste at a really bad spot. Had long time to think in the air, knowing the trees start just where the steep part stops. Thinking there is no way this can end without breaking my back or worse... Stopped with my back protector curled around a tree, one of the birches in the middle of the picture. By some kind of miracle not much hurt. Crawled back up, gave the old dude a good scolding and in the end threw his poles as far into forest as I could. My eight year old not impressed with his dad witnessing the scene from a distance. But whatever these retards can kill people. Hope he takes more care in the future if he ever dears to come back to the hill...

Glad you didn't die!

 

[Wilhelmson]

I haven’t been following this but it occurred to me that I can neither ski backwards nor on one foot (for a whole green trail) competently, so I am still stuck in the wedge too.

 

[DesmoDog]

As someone who has been away from skiing for ages, I had no idea what this was about when I first read it. I still don't know what the difference between snow plow and wedge is. But today I went to a ski patrol candidate eval (considering joining) here in Michigan and watched a few people and now see what you guys are talking about. I saw a few scary moments with younger skiers basically bombing the hill.

One kid had mom skiing a ways behind yelling "Turn! Amanda! Turn!" TURN! AMANDA!" Amanda was having none of it and proceeded straight down the hill.

The scariest one was watching a guy transitioning from one run to another to another, but seeing a little kid barreling down the one he was transitioning to. I don't think he saw her, I'm pretty sure if she saw him there wasn't anything she could do anyway. I have no idea how they didn't collide, maybe the viewing angle from the chair was weird or something, but he passed in front of her and she missed him by what could only have been inches. I was shocked when there was no contact. He looked over as she blew by... no one said a word, just went on with their day.

I also saw a couple really young ones skiing while being held between a parent's legs. I've heard that's how I learned. Made me smile.

And a first for me, I saw a kid on a snowboard, with Mom skiiing along behind holding a leash that was attached to a harness the kid was wearing.

Saw one dad almost eat it when he was following his kid (who was doing the straigt line wedge) down the hill, recording it on his phone so navigating through the viewfinder. It was warm today, heavy snow bordering on slush in places. Something caught him off guard I guess.

All in all though, I gotta say I get a kick out of seeing little kids learning how to ski. One gal, maybe 5 years old, was really cutting it up, parallel turns and all. You go, girl!

 

[Smear]

Saw one dad almost eat it when he was following his kid (who was doing the straigt line wedge) down the hill, recording it on his phone so navigating through the viewfinder.

There is more of them, on several continents??? Some days before in same week as the crash above this also happened. Had stopped together with the eight year old on a black slope, just before a steep section. We were standing not far from each other and a kid in backseat wedge high speed rocket mode comes flying in between us almost going over the skis of my kid. We were the only one there, so going in between was kind of strange. But it gets stranger, right behind comes this other creature, filming with a phone, in a really backseat wedge mode with outstreched arms, flapping jacket, 90 degrees knee angle, following the same line, filming the kid in front. A few meters after having skied past my kid really close with no control, he crashes, releases both skis and tumbles down the hill. Skiing down to the yardsale, I realize it's an adult probably the wedge-rockets-kid dad, trying to film a "cool" video of his son.

What would you say to the dad? I didn't throw any equipment that time. But if that ever happens again I will follow the suggestion from Tony S:

I like to think that I would have had the presence of mind to pick up the ski very calmly and advise the skier that he was free to pick it up at the patrol shack at the bottom of the hill. Then take it there.

I've only been hit twice in 1000-1500 ski days, the first one ending in a cracked helmet and concussion and then the incident with the tree above. And only had two on-the-hill tantrums during the same amount of days. Strange that both of the tantrums happened in the same week...

 

[jt10000]

One kid had mom skiing a ways behind yelling "Turn! Amanda! Turn!" TURN! AMANDA!" Amanda was having none of it and proceeded straight down the hill.

At least the parent knows something is not right. Yeah, that's a low bar, but it's better than the parents who just don't know/care.

 

[justplanesteve]

One kid had mom skiing a ways behind yelling "Turn! Amanda! Turn!" TURN! AMANDA!" Amanda was having none of it and proceeded straight down the hill

You could catch me in a class some days looking/sounding exactly like that mom.

Kids know they have to cooperate with a class to some extent, and demonstrate certain proficiencies to get to certain terrain.
And then every now and then, one will just decide to bolt. Tune you out. See you at the bottom and pretend they did not hear, etc.
Next trip up after the lecture, some will do kid-perfect FU turns all over the hill. Half the early-elementary age girls in the class would have straight-lined a black if they had been able to persuade me to take them over. "Why can't we just race to the bottom and meet you there?" Just to be clear, these are not race background kids, either. They just know they are great, and invincible. & sometimes flat lazy. You have to keep tricking or negotiating their attention to make learning more interesting than their native feral instincts.

 

[crgildart]

If you look closely enough, a lot of them are really only plowing/scraping with their dominant foot and railing with the other.. That's why they go straight instead of turning.. I have no problem with anyone riding the wedge all the way down on any terrain if they're turning both ways across back and forth.

 

[Tony S]

You could catch me in a class some days looking/sounding exactly like that mom.

Kids know they have to cooperate with a class to some extent, and demonstrate certain proficiencies to get to certain terrain.
And then every now and then, one will just decide to bolt. Tune you out. See you at the bottom and pretend they did not hear, etc.
Next trip up after the lecture, some will do kid-perfect FU turns all over the hill. Half the early-elementary age girls in the class would have straight-lined a black if they had been able to persuade me to take them over. "Why can't we just race to the bottom and meet you there?" Just to be clear, these are not race background kids, either. They just know they are great, and invincible. & sometimes flat lazy. You have to keep tricking or negotiating their attention to make learning more interesting than their native feral instincts.

I love it when people acknowledge the actual triple black nature of dealing with children.

 

[scott43]

Seems to be an acquired taste. And then

Drink Caesars but don't like Vegemite - you Kanucks are hard to understand.

It's Canucks with a C!!! and YOU try living in a place where the ground is white from November to April and the most exciting thing is going to Tim Hortons!!!

 

[scott43]

I love it when people acknowledge the actual triple black nature of dealing with children.

It's a minefield of lies and Jedi mind tricks. And they win at least half the time..

 

[tx river rat]

I kept on hearing about these new "parabolic skis" around 2000 and how I had to try them. I had a pair of Rosignol 190s, but I decided to rent a pair of shaped skis to try them out. I remember explaining to a friend back home afterwards that you just have to think about turning and the skis turn for you. I don't know why they even teach the wedge technique anymore, as I always thought that was a way to make it easier to learn how to turn. With the design of newer skis, it seems like turning in a wedge would be more difficult.

 

[justplanesteve]

Back to the OP:

Is it just me, or do other old-timers notice this. Do you thing it's an effect of the switch to the gliding wedge? (on the plus side we see fewer parallel skiers with a perma-stem).

However, that's not what has been on my mind; it's a different topic. What is on my mind, is are there more people spending years in wedge, than there were spending years in a snow plow fifty years ago?

Not sure, since i was out of skiing for some 30 years, and have returned after the whole industry changed, including the shape of the skis and other equipment improvements.
However, my general impression is "yes".

After a bit of practice as balance improves, including gradually realizing that speed per se does not kill, the flying (sorry, gliding) wedge gives energetic skiers enough control to get around on almost any groomed slope at any speed their friends want to access. At that point, it can become difficult to change habits that work, for new ones that are initially awkward or uncomfortable, often scary, & temporarily upset their internal notion that they can ski, "including all the (groomed) blacks".

Teaching any subject tends to break down into 2 very different conceptual methods, though certainly there is plenty of overlap in process.
1.) defined short lesson plans that "most" students can "master" in the allotted time frame, or set of frames, before moving to a new lesson. Each lesson is the goal. The steps build incrementally to a distant goal. Student is lightly challenged each lesson to master simplified structured concepts.
2.) introduce a panoply of approaches/skills, superficially at first, and rotate among them while continually introducing yet more, again superficially at first, as the student gradually develops & unconsciously incorporates elements of each to reinforce skills in all, toward a larger goal. Student is challenged not least by technical skill, but by autonomy: for their own participation, analysis & connection to the ongoing learning process. They need to willingly question, give feedback, appreciate connections, and sometimes suggest interpersonal approaches that might feel better to them to facilitate a given goal.

I tend to find that the second approach moves engaged, non-timid, & motivated NE's with developed musculature & reasoning (say, older than 8 or 9) through the wedge relatively quickly. The problem is that it does not work with mixed groups that arrive with widely diverse skill. With people or small groups for whom it is effective, around lesson 3 or 4 before things start to come together, some students may feel overloaded. It tended to be my natural instruction style in other subjects & i was lucky enough to initially have good results and excited skiing students who had most of their lessons with me, that i neglected on a couple occasions to understand how disconcerting & deflating the approach can be to students who have had a 1/2 dozen prior type 1/conventional lessons. The type 2 approach requires a lot of encouragement, understanding, and continual explanation combined with 2-way dialog.

The first method is easier and the student stays validated, gold star after every lesson. If they are kids, easy report to parents.
Can take a long time to move the needle.

Either way, lack of continuity can be a factor: including lift discussion & review, the first 20+ minutes of any lesson tends to be discovering what the student already knows & how they move. Or an entire group where even chairlift time among all is limited or does not occur. That barely leaves between 1/2 & 1-1/2 hours to come up with a plan, work it, and include some time to summarize both concepts and motions.

smt

 

[Bolder]

I hiked our local bump today (Wachusett for those of you in Massachusetts). The hiking trail runs along side a ski trail for a bit so I watched for a few minutes.

Granted, it’s a holiday weekend that brings out everyone, but to my unpracticed eye, every person I saw was in the back seat and I didn’t see a single real turn.

What I did see though was a lot of smiles. They appeared to be having fun. Enjoying the little jumps on the side of the trails, waving at the curious hiker (ie, me), laughing at their friends’ falls, etc.

Could they be having more fun with better technique? Almost certainly. Is there any chance of them putting in the work required to improve? Almost certainly not.

Excellent observation. I try to improve even infinitesimally on literally every run, but I think most skiers just enjoy being on vacation, hanging out with friends, being on the mountain. Different strokes for different folks.

One reason a majority of skiers probably don't get past the low-intermediate stage is that they're not in shape. It's hard to build skills without a certain amount of muscle and flexibility. So while it might seem natural that you're having more "fun" when you can carve even a little or ski the whole mountain, getting to that point for most people is unrealistic without training and spending a fair amount of money on lessons/ski time etc.