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True confessions - What's your filthiest technique?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Inspired by @rob@rar's diss of the mighty powder elevator what's the filthiest non BASI manual way that you've gotten down the mountain?


I confess to an entire lap of Combe de Vallon trying to pull off the longest powerslides possible basically point em pick up speed then slam em sideways and ride it.

In my defence it was empty, somewhat soft, I was on that well known carving ski the Redeemer and I was being led astray by a snowboardist ( the wabbit).
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Inspired by @rob@rar's diss of the mighty powder elevator what's the filthiest non BASI manual way that you've gotten down the mountain?
It's only a diss if that's all the skier is capable of. For me, the fun of skiing comes from making turns. The ebb and flow of the forces as you flow gracefully from turn to turn. Straight-lining, whether in a lycra-clad tuck or a clown-shoe-shod powder elevator, is all a bit pointless.
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To be fair my best powder elevator was on a board - after a 2-3 day storm and a longish wait at the front of the line I was first into Sun Bowl at Whistler. In a deep choked chute just stood on the tail and rode it down. Still remember the feeling - complete weightlessness. Totally worth it.
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Love powder elevators. And helicopters.

I do kinda get your point tho', @rob@rar, I remember my first ever (partially) carved turn, I was probs about 14 - so around 1980 - on Dynastar wannabee junior race-like skis, on the home run from Cairngorm ... magical.
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Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
To be fair my best powder elevator was on a board - after a 2-3 day storm and a longish wait at the front of the line I was first into Sun Bowl at Whistler. In a deep choked chute just stood on the tail and rode it down. Still remember the feeling - complete weightlessness. Totally worth it.
Sure, fun if you find the right combination of gradient, snow and surface area of skis/board. But if it’s the only way that someone can get down the slope then there’s a whole lot of fun they are missing out on.
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@Dave of the Marmottes, cheating on a second run of a Eurotest at ADH by cutting a gate on purpose and not getting caught Toofy Grin Toofy Grin still missed the time by miles though Madeye-Smiley Madeye-Smiley
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@Dave of the Marmottes, what were you trying to do when I fired an insult at you which you've never let me forget? wink Embarassed Little Angel
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Is the "set off, fall over, stand up, repeat" technique in the BASI manual?
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adithorp wrote:
Is the "set off, fall over, stand up, repeat" technique in the BASI manual?


Yep, it's called self discovery rolling eyes
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@Hurtle, you fired an insult? He must have been a naughty boy. Happy
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GlasgowCyclops wrote:
@Hurtle, you fired an insult? He must have been a naughty boy. Happy
he wasn't, I was just rather rude. Embarassed
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
I may have a few.

One is to tell ski instructors I have absolutely no interest in carving whatsoever and watch their faces.

Another is to approach a complete stranger and tell them how beautifully they ski and ask them how they do it.
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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
The Boarder Slipstream Plus (TM).

The schuss is by no means a pretty pointless straightlining exercise as some may have hinted, but in fact a valuable technique to be learned and exploited, especially as a beginner, because it’s quite frequently the best way to get from a particular point A to a particular point B, when the alternatives are a lot of poling, herringboning, sidestepping uphill and the like. I learned that on my first day ever skiing, in Meribel, and the instructor made a point that we should go as fast we dared.

So I immediately knew that as well as being jolly useful, it is also terrific fun if done at Mach speed, and skiing is often about fun, Shirley?

For me, the joy of sliding is still the basic joy of skiing, not turning, per se, which is of course, sliding. I wonder if maybe people who don’t get that, aren’t in tune with the great majority, who do have inner children?

The schuss is also not so easy to do well, and there are videos that show that doing it better than others can even be the difference that gets a racer a gold, or failing to.

A fast schuss - especially one that’s a bit too fast - over a roller, combines the joys of speed, sliding and weightlessness. And there is also another joy, that of doing a fast schuss to an uphill slope, where the feeling of climbing for free kicks in Little Angel .

So, the BSP.

I first did it whilst skiing around with @jjams82 on the Sella Ronda when I’d never been there before. He was kindly showing me before we did some of the runs, where it would be a good idea to experience the joy of the schuss.

As is well-known, flat bits aren’t much cop for a skier and even less for a boarder. He’ll be far keener on getting to point B than you are, and if he’s really good, he’ll be trying to virtually straightline it at sufficient speed.

So under those circumstance, get close in, right behind your favourite boarder/complete stranger, and slipstream him.

The flat base of his board will bash the snow really flat in a nice wide track, so with your skis close together and a bit of a tuck, you can stay completely on the perfect surface he is working so hard to create for you. You may even be going somewhat faster than he is. And smile. If he falters, just pull out and overtake. Keep the smile.

Boarder Slipstream Plus (TM)! Simples! Joy! snowHead
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Hurtle wrote:
@Dave of the Marmottes, what were you trying to do when I fired an insult at you which you've never let me forget? wink Embarassed Little Angel


Oh I dunno - some sort of camp wiggly turns. I think you were probably accurate.
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Variation on @Fat George,'s
schuss... On the very long flat at mid-station in Gressoney slipstream up behind an unsuspecting @admin, who's just got enough speed to make it over the flat. Then take "Madison sling" off him by grabbing his jacket tail and pulling. Thus giving myself plenty of momentum but leaving him with none and a long pole. He actually swore at me! Toofy Grin
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@adithorp;

Brilliant!

The adminslingshot(TM)

Can't wait to try it out Toofy Grin
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Apparently it's "A despicable trick!" snowHead
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@adithorp, Laughing Laughing
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Frankly it was worthy of a name-change off the harshest order but I was too incensed to think of one Evil or Very Mad
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The Single-speed Chair Shuffle.

This about going up rather than coming down. Nonetheless it fits the filthy category I think, and despite it’s already having been mentioned elsewhere several times I repeat it in the general interest as people need to know. I can’t find any BASI references to this technique.

On a Bash, @Husky Dave was the first to give an explicit demonstration and a definition as to this advanced technique.

Any low fast single speed-chair, the sort that hits you at the boot-top with enough speed and force.

At the last moment, distract the others, doesn’t matter how, but to be most effective it helps to take their attention away from the fast-approaching chair.

Shuffle forward a few inches.

They all take the impact and slow the chair down, and you sit down nice and peacefully.

The garnish: just remember to say ‘Ouch’, or words to that effect.

Wonderfully satisfying. Thanks, Dave.

Although Dave is a Ninja and makes it work on you even though you know it’s coming. Spooky.
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On pisted terrain that is “normal psychologically challenging”…
Actively stepping the uphill ski into a plough, turn early plough-parallel style, lose height via side-slip, traverse of death, repeat until terrain more “friendly”.

I KNOW it’s rubbish technique. I should (and could ) do better, but sometimes it’s about survival…
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To the uninitiated, what is “the mighty powder elevator”?
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@Gordyjh, when the powder is so deep and light that you can ride down cliffs like you’re in a lift.
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How small are the cliffs?
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Gordyjh wrote:
How small are the cliffs?
Not cliffs, but a slope which is at the correct gradient to allow the skier to ski down in a straight-line simply using the resistance of the snow acting against their skis or board to manage their speed. You'd press back slightly on the skis or the board and stand there, descending the slope as if in an elevator.

I've only done it once as all the factors need to be right for it to work. You need the slope gradient, the snow depth, texture and untracked consistency and the float you get from your ski kit all to balance out so you can straight-line at a constant speed. Of course, you can do this on flat terrain but there's not much fun in that. But if the conditions are right to do it on a steep slope then it's an excellent novelty.
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Of course if the snow is deep but heavy you sometimes need to straightline out of necessity to keep moving even on substantial gradients.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Of course if the snow is deep but heavy you sometimes need to straightline out of necessity to keep moving even on substantial gradients.
True. I think one of the things which is a bit disconcerting for people making their first turns in soft snow is how much more direct the line needs to be down the slope to maintain momentum.
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Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Of course if the snow is deep but heavy you sometimes need to straightline out of necessity to keep moving even on substantial gradients.
Indeed. As you'll know sometimes the tension between the amount of snow and the stability of the slope means that you just can't ride it no matter how big your board. That can be hard for some people to understand, so often they have to be taken out to learn the hard way. Boarders tend to quit quicker as you can't shuffle a board in those conditions, so once they stop they're paddling. It's harder to balance boards laterally at slow speeds too. At resorts the snow's always got a base, but the width thing still gets you if the fresh is deep enough and the slope not steep enough.

I'd not come across "powder elevator".
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You know it makes sense.
philwig wrote:
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Of course if the snow is deep but heavy you sometimes need to straightline out of necessity to keep moving even on substantial gradients.
Indeed. As you'll know sometimes the tension between the amount of snow and the stability of the slope means that you just can't ride it no matter how big your board. That can be hard for some people to understand, so often they have to be taken out to learn the hard way. Boarders tend to quit quicker as you can't shuffle a board in those conditions, so once they stop they're paddling. It's harder to balance boards laterally at slow speeds too. At resorts the snow's always got a base, but the width thing still gets you if the fresh is deep enough and the slope not steep enough.

I'd not come across "powder elevator".

I have skied in Val D'Isere during a prolongued snow storm - where the combination of considerable accumulation on Piste, combined with very strong winds blowing uphill - meant that you had to pole down some Blue Runs, as otherwise you didn't move.
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So straight lining because the slope is too shallow = mighty powder elevator?
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Skiing effortlessly with near weightlessness in fresh powder in practically whiteout conditions. What the BASI manual overlooked saying was “don’t turn, from a track onto a piste, a good 10m before the piste starts, thus avoiding a 10ft ‘sail’ through the air before dropping 10ft into a pile of fresh….”

Courcheval, sometime a long time ago. Powder elevator going down.
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Not me.... But I did see someone ski the Swiss Wall making only 4 turns. Later in the season it gets quite wide and they just traversed from one side to the other at a shallow angle. Chapeau!
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This is not quite fair because the technique is elegant but I still think it is dirty because it is SO inappropriate in its setting:

To be fair, I think teaching standards have improved so you don't see it as much but I used to see a lot of ESF instructors doing follow me teaching with intermediates when most of the instructors turns were down unweighted compression turns on little ripples in the piste. To an intermediate it looks like magic and gives them nothing to copy!
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My worst stuff would come out in breakable crust - too many desperate hops and tenuous traverses
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The best skiing technique for breakable crust is renting a snowboard.
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Powder elevator in purest form.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWcppONjWaZ/?utm_medium=copy_link
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Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
The best skiing technique for breakable crust is renting a snowboard.

Years ago I broke my front ankle in breakable crust when I was laying down big euro-carves to show off on a Burton Supermodel. The "dirty" bit came next, as I needed to get somewhere I could be extracted from. We didn't have the good drugs, so I had to ride down a big old steep slope of crust on my back leg and adrenaline. As you will know with a snowboard you can get away with just weighting the back leg and "weather-vaning" the front, so it was ugly but survivable.

Top tip: when doing laid-out carves at high speed, ensure that you know the snow is consistent ahead of time.
If you can't do that, favour the back of the board to ensure you don't "auger in".

Quote:
Powder elevator in purest form.

Oh, we would call that "powder 11s", but you have to know what "powder 8s" are to get that reference.
I reckon that doesn't count unless you lean right back, mono-ski style.
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gorilla wrote:
Powder elevator in purest form.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWcppONjWaZ/?utm_medium=copy_link


I would be really upset if I had just made those tracks, turned back to check my turns and someone had erased them with an elevator though Very Happy
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I kinda thing technique applies to situation. On a bright sunny day, ski the best you can. On a crappy, wet snow day, with crappy viz, getting down becomes the priority.

My dirtiest technique from that point of view is 2-3 turns, pause, 2-3 turns pause. On moguls I would add. And icy moguls even more so.
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Nickski wrote:
I kinda thing technique applies to situation. On a bright sunny day, ski the best you can. On a crappy, wet snow day, with crappy viz, getting down becomes the priority.

My dirtiest technique from that point of view is 2-3 turns, pause, 2-3 turns pause. On moguls I would add. And icy moguls even more so.


On big steepish, narrowish icy moguls off piste (good powder above though), we were instructed to do jump/stem turn, stop, look, jump/stem turn. The instructor was basically doing the same (even after the last of us had cleared the hardest bit); The difference was he looked far better and smoother because the stop section in the middle was fractions of a second rather than several seconds...

Random people following us ended up side slipping with back and forwards rocking and lots of falls, after trying a couple of turns without stopping and under less control than we had stopping every turn;




On the original topic; Using one ski as a sledge while you try to find where the other one stopped after a fall + release in powder and missed dive for it...

(I believe it was @snowheid who spent a good half hour waiting for me at the bottom (a good chunk of it just out of view) last PSB)...
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