Trees --- Words of the wise from ski school pros

snowman

Trees --- Words of the wise from ski school pros

1.   If you hit one, it’s going to hurt.

(Nick Herrin, PSIA National Alpine team, Creasted Butte ski & ride school, Colorado)

2.   Find a glade that gets a lot of traffic and study the patterns.

There will usually be crests above the trees and troughs below them. Use the crest to stall your skis before making a quick, pivoted turn around the tree and through the trough. If your eyes are constantly drawn to the trees instead of the paths between them, think of a pair of trees as a doorway. As you pass through each door, look for the next one.

(David Hartley, Steamboat ski & snowboard school, Colorado)

3.   The more turn types you master, the more success you’ll have in glades.

Practice on open runs by varying your turns. Try to ski three medium turns and them five short turns without losing any flow. Continue mixing up your combinations at random. Next, play around with different turn shapes by trying to skid the top third of a turn and carve the rest, or carve the top and skid the bottom.

(Mike Hafer, PSIA National Alpine team, Northstar-at-Tahoe ski & snowboard school, California)

4.   Think of each tree as being in the center of a bigger circle.

A glade is just a series of abutting circles. Follow the outer path of the circles. This gives you plenty of space to arc around the trees without getting too close to them.

(Mary Gibbs, Holiday Valley ski & snowboard school, New York)

5.   Having trouble getting your friend to ski in the trees?

Make it less intimidating by taking the lead. Make shallow turns through a corridor of trees, using no more than a third of the corridor’s width. That way, your friend will have the other two thirds - twice as much space as you needed - to make turns. Have your friend follow your path, spooning your tracks to the right or left. Start with just two or three linked turns at a time. Each time you stop, change your angle of attack across the fall line. Once your friends gets over that “I’m going to hit one” nervousness, increase the number of turns you make between stops and increase the distance between you and your friend.

(Rusty Carr, Whitetail ski & snowboard school, Pennsylvania)

6.   Need to slow down in the trees, but the spacing is too tight?

Look for lanes that run diagonally. There is no rule that says you must ski directly down the fall line. Even a slight angle across the slope will help with speed control while still allowing you to maintain a rhythm.

(Donny Roth, Alpine Ambitions, Boulder, Colorado)

vicboy™

学会啦.树林是最好玩的.

ski167

好累啊！

andrew

Thanks for sharing! It is very useful. And it is an obessively up-level goal of me.

Phoenixtear

I believe understanding and mastering the moguls before you go to the glades is important, do so will let you really "enjoy and play around in the glades" not just "surviving in the glades"