Aggression . . .

A snowHead

On the odd occasion that I've managed to find some powder and been on skis rather than a board . . . I really couldn't get it right . . . All the skills by some miracle I'd managed to aquire on piste were certainly not happening here . . .and after finding that if you hit powder hard enough repeatedly . . . Snow can find itself as a semi fluid melting lump in your underpants. It has to be some sort of quantum entanglement thing. My crotch is warm, therefore it must attract the cold rolling eyes

Anyway, getting back to sliding in powder. It finally clicked when I started skiing like I snowboard in the soft stuff. Smooth, gentle, slightly back footed and as responsive as possible to changes in snow density. . . Can I say gentle again?

Then I watch this . . .

http://youtube.com/v/Tp5A5YRd43E

All I can see is someone hammering a shear focus point at every turn. Is this still the way you two plankers approach powder?

A snowHead

1. No.

2. “ slightly back footed” - wrong.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I think what's key is checking avalanche risk before heading out. If in resort that will be risk scored by experts. I'm guessing the risk was quite high that day as that's not particularly steep ground. Sun baked making pack top heavy.
By the fact there are no trees in that zone but there are both sides you'd think it's avalanche prone. I would have been inclined to ski along the edge of the trees to reduce risk.
The guy/girl filming is lucky where they were stood, that's a wide area sliding and not so fast because it's not steep.
Don't think there's much wrong with the skier's technique, looks a good skier to me -11 oclock 1 oclock with tips and those turns are pretty smooth, that avalanche was going to slide soon enough. Just bad decision making or inexperience wrt snow pack/risk.

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Yeah, don't ride the back of your board or boards, that's probably why you're getting snow in the wrong places.

Otherwise, we don't know the conditions when that slide occurred. That the thing's an avalanche path is obvious, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't ride it. Props to the guy for leaving his group on an island of safety and riding it one by one. He appeared to have gear and may well know what he's doing. Certainly he called it incorrectly, but we don't know the circumstances so should not conclude much from it.

And here's one of my trolls

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Question from inexperienced skier off-piste here:
Doesn't the skier go across a crack visible in the very first frame?
(Easier to see in full screen.
Edit: reading the YT comments, someone points out it's probably animal tracks that's seen rather than a crack.
In later frames after the slide, the tracks can be seen crossing further upslope to the right.
The tracks creating a weak point maybe?)
Any thoughts?

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@Klammertime, bit more on that slide here...

http://youtube.com/v/5s2HTV3dwXA

35deg at point of release apparently so well into the window.

After all it is free

Trolling . . . MOI! Shocked

Shame on you Evil or Very Mad

Sorry for the delays, my work and schedule for the last couple of months has been a bit fraught and required me to surrender my phone and IT for much of it . . . And NO. . . I WAS NOT IN PRISON!

Yes, the muppet could have done all the avi' checks but we don’t know if the slope he was on was 'in-bounds' or not . . . My point is that hard 'punch (for want of a better term) turn' at the end of the traverse. It has to initiate a shock load into the track he's just cut across the slope.

That type of turn is not something I've ever achieved in powder, got there in slushy moguls at long last, but for powder I have to revert to a neutral, centrally aligned position over my skis with the option of pushing them forward to keep the tips in the sunshine . . . Anything else and I eat snow or end up trying to finger it out of my waistband.

I used the word "aggression" since I see the body movement as being aggressive and damaging to the snow/ski interface. Is it just the pleasure of feeling the bounce as the snow compresses under the ski and rebounds you out of the turn?
The other point is . . . why all the effort? One of the unmatched joys of a snowboard is that feeling of effortless relaxation on a board in powder.

It is just a great feeling to let your skis do the work and just let them turn one way then the other. You feel like you’re floating. Snowboarding always looks hard work.

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I don't see anyone hammering a "punch" nor much muppetry. The other video tells you the slope went bevause of a short convexity/higher angle but he was well clear of danger and the rest of his group very sensibly skiing apart.

Perhaps he was skiing so as to kick up a little fluff on turns. You don't get faceshots without. People aren't generally going to pure carve through powder not without very buoyant skis anyway.

snow reports

@Dave of the Marmottes, yep, I think you're right, the buoyancy of a snowboard and my fat skis lets me stay much higher in the snow plane. My point here is that with that bounce mid turn, does it send a shock wave along/across the boundary layer to the weakest point on the slope and trigger the avalanche? Can different sliding techniques lessen the risk?

On the punch - it may just be a physical cue to get him into the rhythm of skiing.

As to technique to avoid triggering avalanches, maybe but if stuff is on such a hair trigger that your technique makes a difference you need to rethink your decision making processes

Help!!

Aggression . . .

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