Just thinking about Sean Pettit and his crew when they made a potentially fatal error, failing to read the snowpack and heed the warning signs.
Mine?
Years ago, when not older and not wiser...l I arrive in Arolla having travelled halfway across Europe and I am NOT going to back down despite Avi4. Up we go, and off the top lift towards the back of the hill. There are tracks ... so no problem (???!?). Onto the big slope leading back to resort, and yep fresh tracks. But now committed, and two turns in I see fractures opening up across the face ..... shhhhhhhh++++tttt......if it’s possible to tip toe down a slope, we did it. Laying the smoothest turns ever, and no crossing tracks.
I learned something that day.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
My ski OSMs, too many to list but one involved my brother and I carving hard down a deserted, fairly steep piste, it was actually a black but not the steepest section, too late, I saw the patch of ice in front, we both hit it & both went down at high speed, in the tumbling, I caught a glimpse of orange approaching, lift pylon padding, padded or not, I didn't fancy hitting it!.
Fortunately we both came to a halt unhurt, total garage sale and a chant from the lift above "Losers, losers!!!!"
Tw@.s
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Taos NM has several small bowls with cat tracks arcing across them, I had learned that the cool 'hold my beer' way to ski the cat tracks is build up enough speed so you can drop in from the track then touchdown and ski back up to rejoin the track.
One day (only one) I launched and looked down to see nothing but big hard moguls....guess I got my locations mixed up, I managed to bounce hard across 2 or 3 before crashing. That half second in air looking down was def an 'oh crap this won't end well' moment.
Well I managed a ‘moment’ last weekend - cycling not skiing - and the geometry of my new bike unexpectedly saved me...
I overcooked a double in thetford and came down crossed up and flat - on my older geometry (Cannondale) I would have been ejected and hurt..I was thinking ‘ohhhhhh shhhhhiiiiit.....’ as I came down, but my new COTIC just landed, twitched, and carried calmly on....the 800+ wide bars, the slack fork angle, and fat fat tyres just shrugged it all off....
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Arguably one of my most dramatic incidents was a kid:
As an overconfident young teenager I'd finished my snowboard lessons and was racing down to meet my parents at the village base. I came in far too fast on a steep pitch of a red piste which pivoted 90 degrees and narrowed to a cat-track bridge crossing. Hit a mogul and lost control, which sent me flying into the netting on the side of the cat-track.
Just as I hit the net the snowpack below me gave way and I fell through a gaping hole. Somehow I ended up holding onto the the last few holes of the net with my body and board dangling over an icy rock face which at the time felt like death drop. Never have I screamed for help in so many languages! Two french/swiss parents from a family nearby saw/heard me and came to the rescue.
Many years ago coming down from La Cucumelle at Serre Chevalier after a guided trip (off piste bash) I was tail end charlie as we skied the lower level forest back home on a rounded ridge. One of those split second choices happened as I spotted a lovely steep slope down a gully side and decided to turn into it. What I missed was that the gully side faced south, it had fewer trees on it, it was a warm late afternoon and there was a massive terrain trap below.
As I made my turn I caught a glimpse of the gully side sliding about 1om behind me where I had skied over the top of the slope on a turn. I made a hocky stop and luckily for me the slide went past my legs without sweeping me away. I had turned my avi bag off for the tree skiing, although with hte terrain trap below it wouldn't have helped much.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Years ago race snowboards switched from glass to metal. The metal's sandwiched with rubber and provides damping, which is particularly important if you've only one edge. The effect is so important that no race has been won on glass since metal boards arrived.
I bought my first metal board, aware of the hype, but not really knowing what to expect. On my first day with the new technology I'd got the feel of the board (Kessler 156SL), but not really noticed a lot of difference from my previous slalom board.
I pottered down something steepish and launched into a small mogul field off the lip of a cat track, expecting to suck up the single-black-diamond bumps below. As I hit the first bump I immediately realized that I was travelling about twice as fast as I thought, and way too fast for my skill level to do anything sensible with bumps that size.... As it was happening I thought I was in very serious trouble, but in the end I staggered away with only body and ego bruised, and a deeper understanding about how I judge speed.
After all it is free
After all it is free
@valais2, in English?
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@Gordyjh,
You have to do the translation in the accent of Mark Steele emulating an English country gentleman....
Well I managed a ‘moment’ last weekend - cycling not skiing - and the geometry of my new bike unexpectedly saved me...
I overcooked a double
I cycled a bit too fast into one of those interesting bumps used by those mountain biking chaps - two of the little devils close together
in Thetford
A jolly little wooded area in East Anglia
and came down crossed up and flat
And when approaching the ground after jumping found I was landing rather heavily on both wheels rather than elegantly on my rear wheel - and my front wheel unfortunately was somewhat unaligned with the bike’s direction of travel
on my older geometry (Cannondale) I would have been ejected and hurt..
My older bike is built using different geometry, and at this point I would most likely have been forcibly thrown from my bike with risk to life and limb
I was thinking ‘ohhhhhh Shiiiiiiiit’
I was thinking ‘bother....how tiresome’
as I came down, but my new COTIC just landed, twitched, and carried calmly on....the 800+ wide bars, the slack fork angle, and fat fat tyres just shrugged it all off..
But as I landed my new bike, built by a certain Simon Turner in Sheffield from the finest Reynolds tubing seemed to possess, by virtue of its wide handlebars, careful design, and considerably large tyres, an ability to recover itself rather than throw me
Which was all jolly nice.
And don’t tell me that skiing doesn’t have it’s own patois......
..
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
I understand skiing jargon and expect to find it on a skiing forum...
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Although some of the freestyle expressions need a bit of explanation - nose butter et al!
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
& what does COTIC stand for & is it important for the narrative?
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
You just don't know how to gimlet your tortilla
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Dave of the Marmottes,
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@Gordyjh, ...you’re right to expect skiing patois on a skiing forum and bike nonsense and jargon on a bike forum...my head gets a bit tangled at this time of year.
COTIC is simply a brand like FACTION - but with a back story - Simon turner started to make mountain bikes with two radical features - they were steel, and had extremely long top tubes. His forename was abbreviated to Si which became Cy, and then the ‘insane’ geometry gave birth to the name COTIC - psychotic - in other words the humble obscure pun is alive and well in the world of mountain biking.
The geometry is now a norm in mountain biking - the same kind of evolution which has occurred with wide waists in skiing - once radical now normal.
As I have mentioned here before, mountain biking becomes my summer version of skiing, and we make the transition just after Easter when the sliding stops and the rolling begins....
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
OK, thanks. I had no idea push-bikes were so complicated!
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
valais2 wrote:
@Gordyjh, ...you’re right to expect skiing patois on a skiing forum and bike nonsense and jargon on a bike forum....
Or in the mountain bike thread in Apres
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Gordyjh wrote:
OK, thanks. I had no idea push-bikes were so complicated!
That's because it's really not a "push"-bike no more.
OK, thanks. I had no idea push-bikes were so complicated!
That's because it's really not a "push"-bike no more.
Yes, I gather that these velocipedes have developed quite remarkably in recent years.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Mon 3-06-19 20:05; edited 1 time in total
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Ok so I should have defined an ‘oh sh’’t’ moment.
It’s not one where you just have an almighty disaster.
It’s one where there is enough time to process the reality of the situation moving from one where everything is fine to one where everything is potentially very bad indeed. Enough processing time for the phrase ‘oh shxxxt’ to run through your brain.
I’ve had plenty of nasty things happen. Quite a lot of those were not ‘oh shxxxxt’ moments, since everything happened so fast I was just a passenger in the process.
Genuine ‘oh shxxxxt’ moments are those where the horrible recognition that something is going wrong is very tangible.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Must have been hundreds, but the one I remember was as a confident beginner (a fatal combo of adjectives) I was in a group whose lesson had finished for the morning and we were crashing back down hill to lunch. We came across the inter group, who were apparently being taught how to jump, so one by one they'd swoop down into one side of a small (2m deep?) gulley, up the other side, get air, and land.
That looks a laugh, I thought. So I waited until one had finished, then bombed down into the gulley.
Note no-one had taught me how to jump and where your bodyweight should be on the upswing. So I just kept my body perpendicular to the skis, as it usually was.
It was at the gravity defying point of the end of the upswing, as my body hovered, skis vertical and body laid back horizontal, that I thought "oh sh=t".
A friend told me later that at around the same moment, perhaps milliseconds earlier, the instructor supervising the group had observed to them laconically "He will crash."
I crashed.
After all it is free
After all it is free
As a poorly paid ski instructor working at dry slope back in the late 90's, I was lent a pair of slalom skis with wonderful Marker Rotomat bindings to take on holiday to Killington VT. All was going well until I started to wipe out and remembered the bindings where MRR Race with DIN settings 12-24 and ridges in the toe cup to hold the boot securely, no matter what those bindings werent going to release. They didnt, and I didnt injure myself. Oh to be young and carefree again.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
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