I had an interesting experience this week. I went to Killington with some girlfriends for 2 days of skiing. I brought only my alpine gear because this was a social trip and I wanted to ski with my friends. Well. The first day out, I realized I wasn’t having that much fun (fun company aside). As we took our runs, I mentally contrasted the alpine turn with the tele turn and how those two moves felt different to me. The alpine turns make my left hip feel weird. It’s like I can’t find enough range of motion to work out a kink or something, and then that translates to IT band irritation later on. And the fixed heel prevents me from stretching my achilles’ tendon and for some reason that ends up making me feel out of sorts. It was like my body was rebelling.
So, I ended up renting tele gear from Base Camp Outfitters in Killington. LOL. It drove me a bit nutty to spend the $ on rental gear that I had and foolishly left at home, but oh well. I rented the same boots I have - Scarpa TX Pros - albeit not dialed in like mine, but good enough, and some Atomic Vantage skis with Rottafella Freedom bindings. So hey, I get to use a different NTN binding.
Immediate relief. I spent the first part of the morning on the magic carpet at Snowshed, a nice learning area that was blissfully quiet. I worked on drills to increase the pressure on my inside ski and after a bit, was making turns down that little slope. I then went to the chairlift. On the green run at Snowshed, I noticed how the increase in slope brought out my deficiencies, which was good. I had some decent turns and some crap ones,, and I alternated between tele and alpine turns to give myself a rest.
Now the main issue appears to be getting enough spread between my feet (pics taken by a friend showed that I didn’t have my front foot far enough forward/rear foot far enough back), and I had some difficulty pressing into the boot tongue on that front foot. Facing downhill and putting my hands forward in that direction helped some. But I need a lot more time on snow to figure it out. It’s easy to get into the tele “stance” at a standstill, pressing into the boot cuff, but balancing in motion is more difficult.
Nevertheless, and this is the key part: I had a ton of fun. Even when I felt I was flailing around a bit, it was FUN. I could move around and stretch out the bits that needed stretching. I could skate uphill easily. Despite starting to feel fatigue in the early afternoon, I didn’t want to quit. So I headed back over to the magic carpet to take it easier.
It ended up being a great day. I even got to see
@Tony S in the Snowshed lodge.
My snowboarding friend who went on that trip with me told me, “When I first was learning to board, I’d switch back and forth between that and skiing so I could ski with my friends. Then I realized I’d never learn to board if I didn‘t focus on it. So I spent 2 seasons on beginner terrain and working my way up.” Her advice was for me to try the same. So that’s what I’ll do. I don’t mind being relegated to learning terrain to be able to do something that already feels like a lot of fun.