skiing a bowl
 

Hi,

I am an advanced skier, not expert. I tried to ski a bowl at Copper, Union
Jack, it's a single/double diamond, and I got onto a steep portion of wind
blown crust. I broke through the crust with about 3 feet of soft shown under
it - my skis stopped and I didn't, and you can guess what happened - I went
downhill a ways and had to fight my way through that deep snow to go back
and get my skis.

What is the proper way to ski a steep with crust like that?

Thanks,

--Randy Starkey

skiing a bowl
 

luckier wrote:
Randy Starkey wrote:
Hi,

I am an advanced skier, not expert. I tried to ski a bowl at Copper,
Union
Jack, it's a single/double diamond, and I got onto a steep portion
of wind
blown crust. I broke through the crust with about 3 feet of soft
shown under
it - my skis stopped and I didn't, and you can guess what happened -
I went
downhill a ways and had to fight my way through that deep snow to go
back
and get my skis.

What is the proper way to ski a steep with crust like that?

First, may I point out that there are no bowls at Copper. Or Vail. Their
publicity departments have decided to apply a well defined term "Bowl"
AKA "Cirque" AKA a glacier scooped steep-walled hollow shaped like a
cereal bowl to their common drainages because they believe it will
attract Eastern skiers - apparently it works?

don't. In other words, know your conditions. My home mountain
has many green trails down from the top. By 3:00PM they are
no longer "green" and we have lots of calls for transports
from skiers that should have been able to ski the "green" but
because of conditions, could not.

Well, if he does get into nasty crust with no bailout available, a few
possible techniques suggest:
On relatively strong surface crust sometimes a very light touch keeping
the full running surface of both skis in contact with the crust layer
allows the skier to stay on top of the surface.
Sometimes the old (1950s era) Austrian heel-thrust technique works in
crust - just ignore the crust and power the turns pushing hard on the
tails of the skis.
When all else fails, leap and land - leap completely out of the crust
and land turned, hard enough to crush through the crust; repeat - make
ugly z-turns all the way down.


By the way, crust is not wind-blown. It is snow that has
been rained on or melted at the top layer only and refrozen.

I've encountered wind-blown firm surface over softer snow - not often,
but occasionally. But you're correct - usually windblown is a wonderful
surface - easy skiing.

Windblown is FIRM loose snow which is lots easier to ski
than the breakable crust you got into. How badly cut
up were your shins after your experience?

Thanks,

--Randy Starkey