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Mogul Skiing Forum

 Poster: A snowHead
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David Murdoch wrote:
Swirly, Skiers don't go over the tops...


Since when? NehNeh
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I ski over the tops - that's where I turn. Anyone who just skis in the troughs between the moguls isn't skiing moguls.
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petemillis wrote:
I ski over the tops - that's where I turn. Anyone who just skis in the troughs between the moguls isn't skiing moguls.


Are you saying if you can zipperline a mogul field you're not skiing moguls, or have i missed something Puzzled

I turn on the top of moguls but thats because I haven't got the skill or control to stay in the trough and keep the speed in check.
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Hehehe . . . ruffling feathers Twisted Evil

OK, I'll confess I'm fascinated by bumps . . . just can't do anything right on them. But I will argue from documentary films and casual conversations that historically, bumps are a natural effect of skiing techniques needed to slide down the slope on long narrow skis with old or freeheel bindings.

Today, some skiers actively pursue moguls and equipment has been developed specifically to slide on them. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong in saying they are an anachronism that with modern skis and riding techniques wouldn't necessarily develop in the same way as they used to.

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Well maybe my view is too simplistic but I thought they were created by skiers doing short radius turns in order to control speed on a steep(ish) slope. In fact I once saw 2 skiers in Murren create a mogul field from scratch by repeatedly going up the same T bar and down again. I don't follow how modern equipment is going to change that Puzzled If anything the turn radius is likely to be shorter with modern skis.
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Yoda,

Yep - that's what I always thought Puzzled
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Yoda, These guys were using modern kit to deliberately create moguls? My ? is, is that still essential? OK some boarders do scrape the hill clean but lots don't and we don't need these short 'hockey stop' type turns to get down the hill. I can see the point if the run is very narrow but why do you see huge wide mogul fields? One on Schladming a couple of seasons ago was near 60m wide! I do understand that some people like them, but are we now in a position where they have to be created rather than occurring naturally. Is it that skiing styles have not moved as far as the equipment itself has?
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Masque,

Can't get into technical discussion, but I am just starting to do moguls (hoping to crack it EoSB with lessons), and while I know that experts need expert terrain (and to keep out of our way) is there any good reason for a 60mtr wide mogul field? I woudl have thought half and half or 2/3 and 1/3 so that we can all have a go aroudn the edges but get out easily if we need to without upsetting/slowing up the experts - what do you think? I often look at a piste that I know I can do steep/width but not if it's all moguls Sad
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holidayloverxx, There was an equal amount of groomed next to it . . . but it was huge and bloody long.
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Masque, I have the luck to show up at the slope right after a snow storm TWICE this winter. I got to see how these moguls got developed. Not "created" in one go, mind you. But slowly got developed in the course of a few hours.

First, the slope is full of fresh (but heavy) powder, you can see the lines the skis created on it. Pretty soon, these lines of figure 8 starts to cross each other as more skier gone through. And the signature diamond shape starts to emerge.

That diamond shape pile of snow is heavy and slow, the ski has a tendency to slice through the edge of the pile rather than charge right into the center of it. That cuts the diamonds tighter, and tighter.

Now that pile of snow is compacted and much higher than the troughs, it's considerably easier to just flow around the (still wide) trough than try to climb over the top of the pile. So EVERYONE goes into the trough and that make them deeper and narrower.

Wala, you got a field of nicely rounded soft moguls!

Over night, it freezes rock hard. Welcome, mogul experts!
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rich wrote:
petemillis wrote:
I ski over the tops - that's where I turn. Anyone who just skis in the troughs between the moguls isn't skiing moguls.


Are you saying if you can zipperline a mogul field you're not skiing moguls, or have i missed something Puzzled

I turn on the top of moguls but thats because I haven't got the skill or control to stay in the trough and keep the speed in check.


Yep, you're skiing around the moguls if you stay in the trough rather than skiing the moguls themselves. Anyone can ski in the trough by going diagonally too and fro across the whole width of the piste, then as they become confident doing shorter turns they might change direction every half dozen moguls. Then when they can do really short turns they'll turn every mogul and stay in the trough. But they still ain't skiing the moguls Laughing
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Also, it is my opinion that it's the snowboarders who need to catch up on their technique to enjoy mogul (and help create them). Skier learn to do short turns, partly to deal with moguls (and trees). Boarders typically don't bother until they're quite advance. They just make lazy big turns. Skiers can make big turns too, but most intermediate skier starting to learn short turns because it's fun to dance from one foot to another. Short turns make moguls. Short turns are NEEDED for mogul. They kind of feed into each other. Boarders just don't get the point.

The opposite example are parks. Are they naturally occuring? Nop. They're man made, by boarders using shovels! Laughing Not their board. So, why is it so wrong even if skiers WANT TO create moguls just for the fun of it? We don't even need shavels, we just ski the freshies a few times, we have our playground! Very Happy
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Masque, they did it deliberately because (I understand) there was a mogul competition coming up and they wanted practice.
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petemillis, so back to the question is zipperlining moguls, skiing moguls then?
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rich wrote:
petemillis, so back to the question is zipperlining moguls, skiing moguls then?

Yes, because you're abosrbing the bumps and extending into the troughs (which is what I meant by skiing over the tops of the moguls). That's different to staying just in the troughs - which isn't skiing moguls, it's skiing around the bumpy obstacles.
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petemillis, I guess the crux of all this is actually which trough on which side of the bump you're talking about. If its the side you've approached from that is real bump skiing.

I'm not a real bump skier Very Happy
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I'm still hearing skiers justifying the creation of moguls because they need to retain old techniques . . . which are self-fulfilling in the creation of moguls . . . I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that these elderly skills have been superseded by modern equipment and that skiers are now deliberately using inappropriate techniques to force modern equipment into creating hill furniture that their fathers had no choice in dealing with and that moguls and mogul skiing are as fake as the snow park that people have used as an example.

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I like the big machines they use for creating mogul fields.

Masque, have the old skills of mogul skiing really been superceded by modern equipment? Even with so called modern shaped skis, there is still a practical use for the skills that you learn through skiing moguls - i.e. making use of the terrain to help with executing very short non-carved turns - always useful when in the steeps when long carved turns might be out of the question.
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Masque, yeah yeah yeah, if skiing was easy they'd call it snowboarding...
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Yup, still getting 'the old way is the only way' message cos we can't be bothered to think about it message Confused

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Masque, nope, it's the "you're just still talking p1sh" message...

Look. Moguls form because skiers and those fecking annoying boarders (when they aren't splayed out across the hill after a blind summit) make turns.

End of story. In an ideal world there would be no piste bashing other than that required to make the snow last longer and there'd be bumps EVERYWHERE!!! Wooo Hooo wouldn't that be fun!!
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David Murdoch wrote:
Look. Moguls form because skiers and those fecking annoying boarders (when they aren't splayed out across the hill after a blind summit) make turns.

End of story.

Sorry David Murdoch, you're defo wrong there. Any Morzine local will tell you that the moguls are formed by the cows over-wintering on the pasture...

(...and duck wink )
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PhillipStanton, I guess they're invisible cows as all I've been able to see on the Pleney website all season is grass Twisted Evil
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My boarder mate makes reverse moguls by taking off and landing on his backside.... *bbuummpp... buummp...bummp...bump* Laughing
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Masque wrote:
I'm still hearing skiers justifying the creation of moguls because they need to retain old techniques . . . which are self-fulfilling in the creation of moguls . . . I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that these elderly skills have been superseded by modern equipment and that skiers are now deliberately using inappropriate techniques to force modern equipment into creating hill furniture that their fathers had no choice in dealing with and that moguls and mogul skiing are as fake as the snow park that people have used as an example.

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I'm afraid you're badly mis-informed. The more skiers carve, the faster the moguls form. In the good old days, skiers just skid their skis down the hill, wiping the snows to the edge of the run like the snowboarders. Now that they're (attempting to) carving, moguls form very quickly.

What you're mistaken, I think, is you don't get the point of short radius turns. Snowboarders don't because they can't. Skiers can so they do and it's fun. So we got moguls as a result? Big deal, we can handle it too. Keeps the snowboards away. Perfect world.

Without parks, there'll be at most half as many snowboarders. Without moguls, half of the skiers would have stayed home.

Man made? Of course, Unnatural? You bet. So are lifts and groomed slopes. You got a problem with them too?

Time to get a free heel kit and ditch the lift lines! wink
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abc, Hmmmm wink I'm not arguing against moguls per se and you're definately wrong about boarders not being able to pull together a string of short radius turns . . . even a lardy old f@rt like me can do that, and I REALLY think that you'd be hard pressed to find more than 20% of skiers who get a woodie when looking at a bump-field. You, we, us adapt our turns for the run, so why the lauding of tight z's or eights on a hill that are pressed deep into the snow creating hard ridges that can knock you a-over-t when you cross them?

Good carving to completion on a board or skis doesn't move much snow around even on soft snow so how do you say that 'carving' creates moguls?

But I think we're getting to the nub of the subject. Some people LIKE moguls and I'm sure, encourage their creation . . . but . . . as you say, they are a result of one style of skiing . . . that requires a second and complimentary technique to cope with when the bumps are formed by the spray of snow when the tails of the skis are released early in the turn sequence.

I still say that they are a result of inapropriate techniques for modern equipment and would not develop to the same extent if we learned to ride the hill iin a manner that used our equipment to it's design criteria. It's the way we slide that is fundamental to the creation of bumps and from apocraphal tales, the way that we are taught to slide hasn't changed a lot for 50+ years?
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Just my own (stinking) opinions .....

The radius of some snowboards are really small (ca 10m). Some snowboarders can really carve well, although normally while wearing hard boots. Only a select few boarders can really put down clean arcs in soft boots although similar things could be said of skiers.

There's no such thing as the perfect carving turn, ruts are created even by the worlds best skiers in slalom races.

The snowboard is a fantastic tool, esp for powder but not the best tool for tackling moguls. I've seen very few snowboarders get down a challenging mogul field with style and control.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen to a piste if only boarders or skiers skied it all day. The "ski" piste would mogul up but what would happen to the "Snowboard" piste?

When something is too easy the interest generally dies (be it computer games, snowsliding or women Wink ). Moguls give that added challenge.
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Not many people are interested in skiing bumps anymore. In fact they actively avoid them and expect the nocturnal groom of the Pistenbully to eliminate them.

Last time I was up on Triftji - Zermatt's classic bump field - there were about 3 people skiing it, on a gorgeous day.
Last time I was up on the Solaise - Val d'Isere's one-time monster mogul slope - they had smoothed two-thirds of the face.

Both these pistes were big draws for bump skiers back in the mid 1970s.

Nowadays people want big open carve skiing and powder skiing. The problem is that the Pistenbullies (along with so many other aspects of our sport) cause huge air pollution, so their use ought to be scaled back.

We need to get back to the concept of natural ski terrain, skiing a bit slower, enjoying the unexpected. Taking the rough with the smooth.
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David Goldsmith, spot on.
But why do people avoid the bumps so much? Bet they're just too lazy.
I like bumps. I like fluffy bits and I like open bits and fluffy open bits and smooth open bits. A nice variety throughout the day/wekk is what makes it interesting.
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Quote:

Not many people are interested in skiing bumps anymore. In fact they actively avoid them and expect the nocturnal groom of the Pistenbully to eliminate them.

Nowadays people want big open carve skiing and powder skiing.


Powder doesn't require pistenbully, nor the pollution accompanies it. So the more the better.

But last week, I was totally baffled (and angry) when I found the resort choose to bash the piste to perfectly flat icy sheets at night immediately following a 1/2 metre of freshies! Are skiers these days really so one-dimentional that they can't even enjoy freshies fallen between the piste markers???

I can understand why carving is enjoyable and even additive. So the effort of bashing SOME of the irregular piste surface into some semblens of smoothness to enable fluid carving can certainly be commended. But to banish ALL bumps from the piste is to reduce the vast variety of skiing to one single obsession in the pretense of carving.

When nature fails to deliver the powder bits, things get even more tricky. First, the snow cannon and the chemicals. And then, the piste basher. Both upsets the environment.

I've been told, skiing in the US in the late 80's was way down due both to poor snow and the boredom of perfectly smooth and unchallenging terrain. Thanks for the coming of snowboarders to bring the younger poppulation back onto the mountain before many more of the resorts went bankrupt (quite many did closed for good). Then came the carving skis which brings some of the skiers back as well. As of now, bump fields in the states still has huge draw to skiers. And mogul clinics are still in great demand. Thank goodness for that. Perhaps the Alps will follow in the next few years?
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abc, sounds like you were in a different resort to me Puzzled last week.
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As a boarder I enjoy bumpy choppy pistes but having spent most of my time with skiiers I notice that they struggle a bit in variable conditions due to what seems like having used 'forgiving' carving skis and well groomed pistes. Recently my mate hired some skis that were not his normal top of the range carvings skis and he really struggled with turning. Do skis make so much a difference?
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Smokin Joe wrote:
abc, sounds like you were in a different resort to me Puzzled last week.


They did smooth out most of the piste on Manlichen and Inner Wengen on Wednesday, even though it snowed all day Tuesday. I got to slice through at least 10cm of powder on the pistes on my "home" run back to Wengen on Tuesday afternoon. And since it continued to snow all night, I was expecting more freshies there. But on Wednesday morning, I was unprepared to found they've bashed all the snow into hard pack ice sheets! Sad

The same on Lauberhorn. The snow between the piste markers were totally compacted. Not that it prevented any of us to go outside of the marker. But technically, that's considered "off-piste", doesn't it? And in poor visibility, one can easily loss sight of the piste marker and end up in some gully way down below.

Where did you find the un-bashed pistes? Murren, perhaps?
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abc wrote:
But on Wednesday morning, I was unprepared to found they've bashed all the snow into hard pack ice sheets! Sad




Puzzled Puzzled Puzzled


I didnt see any hard packed ice sheets after Monday.
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Quote:

I didnt see any hard packed ice sheets after Monday.


Matter of definition? It wasn't exactly ice. But it was definitely hard pack.

I would have expected softer snow even on piste after so much freshies.
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My son (who can ski bumps well but hates them on a board) said he saw a snowboard instructor in the Espace Killy, going down a piste with the most enormous bumps. He swears they were so big that the guy sort of embraced them as he slid round them. "Hug a bump" .
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Sorry I forgot about this one when I went away

David Murdoch,

Quote:
Skiers don't go over the tops...


It's a long time since I skied (the long and straight days) but I was taught to use the top of moguls to turn, and to use a similar technique in soft rutted stuff or even powder although sliding the skis first to create a bump to turn on. With new skis techniques may have changed but it appears others turn on the bumps.


DB,

Quote:
Some snowboarders can really carve well, although normally while wearing hard boots. Only a select few boarders can really put down clean arcs in soft boots although similar things could be said of skiers.


True it's the alpine freecarvers that will put down the best lines on a board but I can definately do it in soft boots and there's nothing select about my boarding, in fact I doubt I'll ever be as skilled on a board as I was on skis but that doesn't mean I'll go back.

Quote:
The snowboard is a fantastic tool, esp for powder but not the best tool for tackling moguls. I've seen very few snowboarders get down a challenging mogul field with style and control.


I definately agree with this, I find te bumps fun on my board and certainly a challenge and although the control is there the style is definately lacking, there's probably a few boarders who can carve down in the troughs but my method works for me and makes the bumps bigger for those that like them.

pam w, I got stuck between some in La Plagne last year rolling eyes
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