skier langauge

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Pista vs off pista, Bowl vs back bowl, back country vs front country,
fat ski vs shaped ski vs craving ski, powder vs whatever?TIA

Dan

On 16 Feb 2005 15:16:37 -0800, wrote:

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Pista vs off pista,

Should actually be "piste", which is French for "trail". A piste is a
maintained ski run, usually groomed, which makes the surface more
predictable and easy to ski, but also means it rarely, if ever, offers
deep snow. "Off-piste" is everything else within resort boundaries,
and can have a much wider range of snow conditions; it's usually more
rewarding (unless you're flatboarding) but also usually more
challenging.

Bowl vs back bowl
"Bowl" is an alpine cirque, generally carved by a glacier, which often
tends to accumulate more or better snow than more exposed areas of the
mountain do. "Back bowl" is a marketing term, usually used to describe
the back side of Vail.

back country vs front country,
"Backcountry" is what's outside resort boundaries; no ski patrol, no
avalanche control, nobody to blame but yourself if you get hurt.
Don't even think of skiing there until you've had appropriate
avalanche training and a lot of ski experience; even though you would
have nobody but yourself to blame, other people would still be putting
themselves at risk to rescue you or recover your mortal remains.
"Front country" would be the in-bounds areas, where there is ski
patrol and avalanche control to reduce (but NOT to eliminate) the
inherent danger of the sport.

fat ski
A relatively wide ski, intended to make it easier to ski powder (see
below).

shaped ski
A ski with a noticeable hourglass shape, wider at the tips and tails,
and narrower in the middle, which makes it much easier to turn.
Applies to almost any ski made these days, including any ski you're
likely to be on as a beginner.

craving ski
What I'm doing looking at snow forecasts for this weekend. Drool,
drool, drool.....Can't wait! Gimme gimme gimme!

powder vs whatever?
Powder is new-fallen lightweight fluffy snow; you tend to sink into it
rather than float on top; fat skis or high speed will reduce the
sinking effect. (whether you WANT it reduced or not varies from skier
to skier).

HTH,
bw

lal_truckee wrote:
wrote:

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.


Ah! A troll! I'll take the call. (Seems like we just had each of these
arguments - is it time again, already? OK, here goes - first shot over
the bow.)

Pista vs off pista,

Def 1: Pista is with pepperoni, Off Pista is with anchovies added.
Def 2: "Piste" ("e" not "a") is a) a designated ski run b) a groomed ski
run c) where the majority of skiers choose to ski; all three definitions
are in current use. "Off Piste" is the rest of the ski area - i.e. the
parts not identified above as Piste.

Bowl vs back bowl,

A "Bowl" is a glacier carved partial bowl shaped mountain valley,
usually small, with steep sides flattening to a flattish bottom, often
containing a lake. Called a "Cirque" in the Alps.
A "back bowl" (lower case) is a "Bowl" that is on the other (back) side
of the mountain relative to the main lodge area.
A "Back Bowl" (upper case) is a stupid advertising gimmick by Vail to
promote their back side watershed which contains absolutely no bowl of
any description.

Please use the proper reference, which is "Back Bowls[TM]", in
recognition of Vail Resorts' legal trademark of this term.

Dave

wrote:
Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Ah! A troll! I'll take the call. (Seems like we just had each of these
arguments - is it time again, already? OK, here goes - first shot over
the bow.)

Pista vs off pista,

Def 1: Pista is with pepperoni, Off Pista is with anchovies added.
Def 2: "Piste" ("e" not "a") is a) a designated ski run b) a groomed ski
run c) where the majority of skiers choose to ski; all three definitions
are in current use. "Off Piste" is the rest of the ski area - i.e. the
parts not identified above as Piste.

Bowl vs back bowl,

A "Bowl" is a glacier carved partial bowl shaped mountain valley,
usually small, with steep sides flattening to a flattish bottom, often
containing a lake. Called a "Cirque" in the Alps.
A "back bowl" (lower case) is a "Bowl" that is on the other (back) side
of the mountain relative to the main lodge area.
A "Back Bowl" (upper case) is a stupid advertising gimmick by Vail to
promote their back side watershed which contains absolutely no bowl of
any description.

back country vs front country,

"Back country" is the part of the mountains you have to hike to ski; no
lifts, no ferry vehicles. Therefore there can be no such thing as "lift
served back country" or "inbounds back country," both of which are
stupid advertising gimmicks once again. (See "Off Piste," above. Off
Piste is what these wienie ski resorts really mean, but they figure
their clientel is too stupid to know what it means, cause there's that
ferrin word in the phrase, so they try the above misnomers.)

fat ski vs shaped ski vs craving ski,

"Fat Skis" are skis that are very wide under the foot, too make skiing
powder and soft snow easy enough for doofuses who can't learn to ski
those conditions without technical assistance.

"Craving Ski" is what all of us feel every moment of our lives. There's
no cure.

"Carving Skis" are skis that are narrower under the foot and very wide
at the shovel and tail, to make carving turns on groomed snow easy
enough for doofuses who can't learn to carve a ski on the groomed
without technical assistance. "Shaped Ski" is what those carving skis
are sometimes called (note that skis have had "shape" for a century or
more.)

powder vs whatever?

"Powder" is Heaven. Everything else is either practice snow or Hell.

TIA

No Problem.

wrote:

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Pista vs off pista, Bowl vs back bowl, back country vs front country,
fat ski vs shaped ski vs craving ski, powder vs whatever?TIA
^^^^^^^^

Carving you mean.

All skis carve when manipulated properly by their (ab)users.

In the olden days skis looked completely straight (though in reality they
were not just it was hard to notice the shape) but now skis have distinct
hourglass shapes.

Good skis are now busty on top, thinly waisted and have beautiful curved
hips. Whooooaaaa! I think I am slightly confused here, oh yeah I am.

Actually in all seriousness modern skis now have noticeable shaping to them
you don't need a micrometer to measure it anymore. Go into a ski lodge and
look at the old skis on the wall or ceiling and notice how both edges of a
given ski look to be parallel. Well they were not but it is hard to tell,
now a days you can not miss the fact the edges are not always parallel.

--
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text.

lal_truckee wrote:

wrote:
Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Ah! A troll! I'll take the call. (Seems like we just had each of these
arguments - is it time again, already? OK, here goes - first shot over
the bow.)


Ahhhh but a mouse without its skinny tail is very graceful indeed!
Hahahahahaaha! I couldn't resist!


--
E-mail decoding instructions. Your keyboard is the key. Shift the letter on
the keyboard one position to the right for the plain-text. If the letter is
a w,s, or x then shift one position to the left for the plain text. For
example: "srg" (the first three letters of the host) is "ath" in plain
text.

wrote:

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Pista vs off pista, Bowl vs back bowl, back country vs front country,
fat ski vs shaped ski vs craving ski, powder vs whatever?TIA

Other Terms
*Full on yard sale: When you wipe out so bad your gear is scattered all over
the hill.

*Typewriter: One who takes long and wide traverses with little vertical
descent for each traverse.

*Goomba: Typically a snowboarder with more piercings than years

*Suzey or Stanley Scraper: A not so good snowboarder who uses his/her
snowboard like it was a paint scraper and scrapes all the snow off of the
hill (i.e. goes down the hill with an edge set that is perpendicular to
their motion). Good snowboarders are poetry in motion.

*Mashed potatoes: Very soft snow due to melting temperatures.

*Groomers: Groomed runs akin to piste.

*Dive Bomber: One shushing straight (going straight down without even
thinking of trying to make any sort of turn, often incapable of turning at
the speeds they are travelling, out of control or on the verge of being out
of control) down the hill, typically a newbie.

--
E-mail decoding instructions. Your keyboard is the key. Shift the letter on
the keyboard one position to the right for the plain-text. If the letter is
a w,s, or x then shift one position to the left for the plain text. For
example: "srg" (the first three letters of the host) is "ath" in plain
text.

bdubya wrote:
On 16 Feb 2005 15:16:37 -0800, wrote:

Hi:

New to skiing, can someone translate this into common English.

Pista vs off pista,

Should actually be "piste", which is French for "trail". A piste is a
maintained ski run, usually groomed, which makes the surface more
predictable and easy to ski, but also means it rarely, if ever, offers
deep snow. "Off-piste" is everything else within resort boundaries,
and can have a much wider range of snow conditions; it's usually more
rewarding (unless you're flatboarding) but also usually more
challenging.

That is the Merkan version, anywhere else A piste is a Marked run (usually
groomed and patrolled) Off piste is anywhere else

Chris *:-)

"Mark A Framness" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Good skis are now busty on top, thinly waisted and have beautiful curved
hips. Whooooaaaa! I think I am slightly confused here, oh yeah I am.

Carving skis are something that make us all confused.

Two weeks ago I was watching the telly and saw the measurements:
(Note I'm Finnish thus the metric thinking...)
173 cm, 96-68-90
Thouhgt, that it must be giant slalom skis, but it was
the national beauty contest... (It'd be something like
5'8" 38-27-35 for you Overseas folks, the beauty, not the skis...)

-Tero-

Tero Ahlqvist wrote:
"Mark A Framness" wrote in message
...

wrote:
Good skis are now busty on top, thinly waisted and have beautiful curved
hips. Whooooaaaa! I think I am slightly confused here, oh yeah I am.


Carving skis are something that make us all confused.

Two weeks ago I was watching the telly and saw the measurements:
(Note I'm Finnish thus the metric thinking...)
173 cm, 96-68-90
Thouhgt, that it must be giant slalom skis, but it was
the national beauty contest... (It'd be something like
5'8" 38-27-35 for you Overseas folks, the beauty, not the skis...)

OK; but what skis does she use?
Does she go off-piste or do it in the piste?
Does she go down or does she tele/rando?
Does she like the backcountry?

Vital questions: the world awaits additional details.