Skiing

I've patrolled worse.

It’s literally the only piste that links Chatel to Torgon, it has to stay open even though it’s haggard. I skied it twice today, flat icey-snow, then late in the dat chopped up slushy ice with areas of very hard ice. I preferred flat icey-snow.

The soil area was larger in the afternoon, so presumably the piste bashers are giving it a comb-over each night.

I skied (or rather tried to ski) this piste today. My lack of talent combined with it being steep ice at this time of day resulting in my failure to turn turning into losing a ski, then sliding ever faster down the slope as I felt something pop in my left knee.

A very kind chap bought my ski and poles down to me, but sadly I didn’t know how to put skis on when the slope is too hard to get an edge in- as I tried to clip the boot in the ski slid off down the hill. So a fun, sideways walk it was, which seemed to take several hours but must have been ten minutes.

Left knee is feeling oddly week, but once I’d got to flat enough ground I got the skis on and skied back down to Super Chatel, where I am writing this with a chocolat chaud.

My desire to go back out has taken a bit of a knock, I admit.

I've not done much skiing on ice so my experiences might not be representative, but it always felt to me that blind confidence is the most important factor when turning on ice. If you hesitate or hold anything back, the ice wins.

Ahhh. Fond memories of skiing the olympic downhill piste at Nakiska in Alberta on a windy day, which had blown huge parts of the piste back to blue ice. Grrrrrrreat days.

Ice = use those edges and carve!

As soon as you come off your edges you are toast

Well- its more about a mix of things.
If you want full control- hard into the edge, and really power up the ski- this needs someone to watch you and tell you where you're going wrong.
On the other hand- ice patches happen, and you have to learn the skill of allowing a slip section, where you don't go full edge, but just slide through it, and then when you feel a good bite, you again power up the ski.

Easy enough to say, hard to demonstrate, hard to learn.

I got very used to ice in all its forms on Ruapehu. Especially sastrugi. The fucker.
I still wouldn't always say I was happy riding it.
I recall picking a client up from broken leg gully, after they'd had quite the slide.
literally hrs of step cutting to get them out with the ice axe.

Fair point, especially on the controlled slide part. It's difficult to describe how to do things on skis when you are used to doing them without breaking it down into parts so to speak. Though it is a great way of making sure you don't get lazy with technique. That's why a good instructor and lessons are key.

Assume that you are an instructor?

Fair point, especially on the controlled slide part.

This is kind of what I meant by the blind confidence required. Trusting your skis I guess.

Indeed. It’s about trying not to do too much. Control direction try not to keep accelerating but be patient and wait for some better s ow to turn and slow.
On a really icy/hard packed piste I ski right against the piste markers. It’s where the best snow will gather. Super short turns keeping speed well under control if it’s red or above.
If it’s a blue then I practice what I need to do on a steeper slope. Never waste a chance to practice.

Never waste a chance to practice.

Also, never miss a chance to curse your blunt hire skis.

Good times Neil! Reminds me of tumbling down seemingly 100s of metres of La Face in Val d'Isere, in full view of everyone on the lift, after failing to control 2m+ skis. Twice.
Was one of the main reasons I took up boarding.

Was one of the main reasons I took up boarding.

Because boards, having only one edge, are so good on ice :'-D

Left leg won’t bend beyond about 70 degrees and neither will it straighten fully. Taken an ibuprofen and crossed my fingers that it’ll be fine when I wake up tomorrow.

The piste I fell on is fine if you turn cleanly and get your edge to bite in, I just fluffed the turn and was a passenger from then on. Left hand side of the piste is (currently) frozen soil, right hand side is very hard packed snow/ice right up to the poles. Beyond the poles is chopped up, frozen snow.

I got to watch a couple of ski schools come down past me- and whilst three of them ended up at the bottom of the slope without skis the majority made it, so it’s clear that this was a talent test that I failed.

I’m going to avoid that route for a while/the rest of this holiday.

ah man, sorry to hear that. Fingers crosssed it'll be good tomorrow!

That said though, you ski with bent knees so sounds like you have the range needed?

Yes- just getting on and off the chairlift is a bit interesting. Which is a glass half full problem

Left leg won’t bend beyond about 70 degrees and neither will it straighten fully. Taken an ibuprofen and crossed my fingers that it’ll be fine when I wake up tomorrow.

Ice ice ice! And make sure you keep the ibuprofen regular to give your body a head start on the inflammation.

Hopefully you'll be fine in a day or two but if your knee is "splinting" itself with inflammation, it could be a sign that you've pinged something. Being unable to bend my knee beyond 70 degrees was pretty much what my knee was like after tearing my ACL and meniscus!

Yeah, I am indeed concerned about that. But YOLO.

Lol - well, true. I avoid ice more assiduously on a board. Wait till it warms up and gets slushy if that is the conditions.
Was amazed by coming back to shorter, carving skis many years later (in order to make it easier to help my young kids) at how good they are. Though had a few comedy hours remembering how to ski with associated sense of humour failure and much swearing at how seemingly impossible it was to control 2 edges at first.

Shit, please get it checked out. Schoolfriend on a ski trip had a fall, bad knee with swelling but teachers thought she was making a fuss and wouldn't take her to hospital. By the next day she was walking and she thought she was ok, back on skis for the last day. Of course her knee never got really better and it turned out she had messed up her ACL after all. She wore a brace for years and eventually had to have an op. I'm sure there will be a drop in clinic in Chatel, get it checked.

Sugarloaf mountain in Maine...about -20 and basically scraped ice at the top. I fell, not hard, on a cat track and simply could not stop or stand up because the board and my arms were sliding everywhere. I sort of glided along on my hands and knees, rotating slowly, until I fetched up against a small bump and had something immobile to push against.

https://www.youtu.be/duAf6iIs5yY

You can tell it's an old video because the grass doesn't really grow back on that piste in the summer now. It's basically just aggregate.

Your periodic reminder that if you are a ski fan, a trip to the Wengen downhill, preferably with 5am start and carrying a case of beer to the top, is a must. One of the most fun sporting spectator events in Europe.

Working on a plan to go to Wengen, then onto the Kitzbuhel ski festival followed by the Schladming night slalom…