Skiing in powder
While the allure of skiing away from the masses and making your mark in untouched snow is hugely attractive, skiing in powder and going off-piste is something that’s best left until you’re an experienced skier.
Both bring with them a whole new set of hazards and skills that must be learned in order to enjoy skiing or snowboarding injury-free.
Powder
Skiing in powder – or “white gold” as it’s often known – is vastly different from skiing on packed, groomed runs and the techniques you use on your usual runs, especially when turning, won’t work for powder. The main reason for this is that powder is much deeper than packed snow, so your skis are moving in or through the snow, rather than on the snow.
That ultimately makes it harder to negotiate, especially when turning because the snow pushes against your skis making them harder to control. The idea with skiing in powder is that you have to lift your skis out of the snow to make the turn, using your poles to lever your weight up as you turn your skis around the poles.
Here are some initial steps to keeping safe while skiing on powder.
- Think about buying or hiring skis designed specifically for powder. That’s not essential but will give you the best experience.
- Get lessons. If you’ve never skied in powder before it really pays to take a lesson from an instructor who can teach you the right technique.
- Keep your weight in the middle of the ski. A lot of powder skiers want to lean back, but don’t do that. This sacrifices a large part of control of the skis, and will also kill your thighs in no time. Nor should you lean too far forward because this could cause the tips to dig into the snow, and for you to fall.
- Keep your speed up. You want to be going carefully, but don’t go too slowly. Just as planes need to keep up enough velocity to fly, you also need to be going at a decent clip to float on the snow. Go too slow and you’ll sink.
- Learn to turn! This comes back to getting lessons, but turning in powder is vastly different to turning in packed snow.
Turning in powder
This is all about the weighting and unweighting of your skis. Plant your downhill ski pole, then push down with your ankles and hips into the skis as you go into the turn. Next, lift up by flexing and pulling your knees and ankles up as you turn your feet around pole, rising up out of the powder. Immediately prepare to do it all again on the other side.
Skiing in powder is about being able to do this movement over and over again, in fluid, overlapping movements.
Practice!
Along with getting lessons before hitting the powder, practice your technique in some deeper snow the snow-groomer has left behind, or some un-groomed snow. But that doesn’t mean you go off-piste to practice!
Going off-piste
Skiing off-piste basically means you’re skiing in unchartered – and often out-of-bounds – territory, and you’re doing so at your own risk.
There are no marked runs, no ski patrol, and possibly no danger signs. Consequently you run the risk of encountering avalanches, crevasses, unmarked streams and rocks. It also means that if you are skiing or snowboarding alone and are injured, if you can’t get yourself to help it’s unlikely that help will find you.
Usually it’s difficult to stray into these areas unintentionally. Most ski resorts mark them off well, and the un-groomed snow should give you a clue that you’re in the wrong place.
If you do have the skill level to ski off-piste, preferably go with someone else or at least make sure someone knows where you’re going and what time you should be back. Take equipment like avalanche transceivers, probes and a shovel in case you get caught out.
