Style

[mca80]

What's everyone's definition of "poor conditions"?

We had 0 snow, the it snowed 10" in about 24 hrs then got warm and rained and it was 3" of total slush--you took a step and your boot splashed everything to the side and hit the mud--then it all re froze. I got to xc ski flattish terrain in that crust which was tough enough but I sure as heck wasn't making turns downhill in that.

[lowangle al]

To know what poor conditions are it helps to know what good conditions are. In good conditions the snow is smooth and consistent, there is nothing to deflect your skis or prevent them from turning. You can ski with reckless abandon without fear of crashing, and if you do crash, it's your own fault. As conditions deteriorate they prevent your skis from doing what you want them to do.

Poor conditions range between being very skiable with some caution, extra concentration and proper technique to totally unskiable. Your gear and skill level will determine how bad the conditions are. It's good to know when you are overmatched so you don't get injured skiing something you shouldn't have.

When skiing for fun I judge conditions by whether they are worthwhile to ski or not. When I get to the bottom of a run, if I would like to go back up and do the run again, they're worthwhile, if once was enough they weren't.

Different conditions require different strategies. Sometimes, if my first few turns don't go as planned I have to stop and think to come up with a game plan that will work. I spent my early years trying to master poor conditions and my later years trying to avoid them.

[Lhartley]

All over it. So apparently one of the resorts local to Calgary, Fortress Mountain, is potentially reopening. Hoping it will create a more competitive season ticket pricing environment. Now just need to do something about fuel prices. So hard to ski these days. Easy to to talk hard to ski

Ha! You think ski resorts operate by free market principles?! My guess is their reopening _raises_ prices everywhere!

I'm a dreamer like that. Oh well. Maybe sell a kidney for a pass next year I guess

[Lhartley]

To know what poor conditions are it helps to know what good conditions are. In good conditions the snow is smooth and consistent, there is nothing to deflect your skis or prevent them from turning. You can ski with reckless abandon without fear of crashing, and if you do crash, it's your own fault. As conditions deteriorate they prevent your skis from doing what you want them to do.

Poor conditions range between being very skiable with some caution, extra concentration and proper technique to totally unskiable. Your gear and skill level will determine how bad the conditions are. It's good to know when you are overmatched so you don't get injured skiing something you shouldn't have.

When skiing for fun I judge conditions by whether they are worthwhile to ski or not. When I get to the bottom of a run, if I would like to go back up and do the run again, they're worthwhile, if once was enough they weren't.

Different conditions require different strategies. Sometimes, if my first few turns don't go as planned I have to stop and think to come up with a game plan that will work. I spent my early years trying to master poor conditions and my later years trying to avoid them.

That pretty much summed it up nicely

Yesterday, the conditions were not worth it. I'd like to blame it all on the skis and my ability. The guides are not good on hard snow, and worse on breakable crust. I think I could have found something skiable with I got really creative, but with the long approach, mid size ascent, and then traversing all over the ridge looking for something skiable I was pooched.

The weather has been a Rollercoaster ride. I'm not going to complain, I see out east some people's seasons have been a complete flop. Very hard to watch. Here it's very strange in that we will get a huge dump and then you have two days to hit it before we see plus 10 degree days and it'll see sun or wind effects. So if you work during those magical two or three days of good snow then go try and get leftovers you're left with disappointment. It's more consistent in the alpine I'm sure, but that's a much bigger time investment.

This why I find Lo-fis skiing so inspiring. There was something skiable out there yesterday for me, and it was probably somewhere in the woods

[lowangle al]

What I got out of his videos is to keep your skis weighted throughout the turn and skiing with both skis equally.

Agreed that this is actually the only thing that really matters. How to get this done is subtilely different depending on conditions, speed, ski flex, boot stiffness, binding activity, etc.

I also agree about weighting skis equally throughout the turn. At the same time, I will also admit sometimes I have more weight on the front ski, especially during initiation, and more weight on the rear ski as I finish a turn. That isn’t always, more so on big, fast, steep turns. Short, snappy, turns are more balanced.

It's not so much about keeping your skis weighted equally as it is about just keeping both skis weighted. There's nothing wrong with having more weight on one ski than the other. From a balanced position you can weight each ski as needed to stay centered. Being centered doesn't necessarily mean your skis are equally weighted.

[Krummholz]

FYI - I have created a Tele-B page in the TELEWIKI, taken from Telehiro’s info on his YouTube and webpage.

https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6640

[tkarhu]

I would say A Tele, but I come from a PSIA Alpine background. Now I believe @lowangle al would say B Tele. Also I saw some nice tracks from @tkarhu made on Gamme’s with B Tele technique
I would still say A Tele !

@fisheater Thanks for remembering me! I had a couple of months break in skiing because conditions were way better for nordic ice skating here. Yet I had now an opportunity to spend one week in Lapland, so I have something to say about skiing again.

On Monday I went to check if there was any soft snow left in the fjells. Winds were heavy, but temperature was some degrees above freezing, with light rain. So I thought a lee side a of a fjell may be soft. Well it was, I could wade almost to the top of the fjell The snow was way too wet and heavy for any downhill skiing, though. I was out there on FTX's that time.

On Wednesday I went out on my XC classic track skis. I skied some parallel turns in icy skate lanes. That was practical for speed control.

On Friday I went out again on the Falketind Xplores. Monday's wet snow had frozen. Going down a skate ski track, this time I skied some b-tele turns.

Surprisingly, I also found a spot of soft snow up in the fjells. There I skied some a-tele turns because the BC snow had icy spots, which made skiing unpredictable. A longer stance is nice, when sudden changes of speed may happen.

Personally I have never been a big fan of telehiro's style. It can look a bit too clean for my taste, like a very good and technical classical guitar player. Yet good skiers seemed to be his fans, so I decided to give b-tele a try, when he published his instructions in English.

I think learning b-tele has improved my skiing a lot. Most important, it has given me great down-unweighting skills. That has been useful for many kinds of turns, like skiing parallel turns on XC skis. Further, the unweighting lets you make tight curves. Then you can ski turns in a 3 m wide skate ski track on NNN-BC or even SNS Profil.

I have also learned a lot from you people here, thanks! By the way @lowangleal, nice to have you back.

[Stephen]

Reposting this in an attempt to bridge the next six months…

Came across this account "ma in" by a Japanese skier and master of the selfie stick:

https://www.youtube.com/@main7055/videos



I want to be able to tele wet chop like that.
Lots more excellent videos on their channel.

I noticed a few things that caught my attention:

- Seems like a nice example of a lighter front ski in deeper snow to maintain a reserve for fore / aft balance;
- He’s on a fairly narrow ski for powder and I’m wondering if that heavier rear foot / lighter front foot in powder thing is as necessary with a wider, powder-specific ski?
- Looks like he is more balanced fore / aft when on firm snow;
- Seems like he is skiing with bindings set fairly “low activity,” since I’m not seeing much flex in the bellows and he is in that “tippy toe” stance.
- Anyone recognize the boots and bindings?

[lowangle al]

I think it shows a good example of staying centered over his skis as his body is not getting thrown around at all.

He is charging hard and staying tight to the fall line doing little to control speed.

I think his fore /aft weight distribution is pretty even. He's definitely not front ski heavy.

His boot/binding system looks to be pretty rigid, giving him more stability then a light 75mm boot/binding combo. This gives him the stability needed to carry those speeds.

[fisheater]

I agree with LAA, but will add that you can really see him weight the lead foot more with his heel. It could be his style or perhaps his style and the flex of the ski. I agree that the boot is probably stiff, as well as the binding. I see exactly what you are talking about Stephen, in regards to the bellows not breaking much. However without a strong spring in the binding, I doubt he would be able to power the ski as much as his body position and speed indicate.

Oh btw, @Stephen i saw an avatar photo of you skiing. Man, you looked good! I can’t believe you didn’t post that in the photos section. Was it taken by a world famous videographer, and BC Skiing star?