Skiing the moguls

CS2-6 said:

This is interesting. Being TX-based, I'm always interested in reading material to improve my game and maximize my quality time on the snow.

DiPiro's book really resonated with me, how closely does The Invincible Mogul Skier track with Everything the Instructors Never...? Not that I'm concerned that the information would be redundant, but I'd be more inclined to pick up Mead's book if it teaches a similar style (I'm assuming it does).

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Mike’s book is substantially higher level. It’s also much more current in terms of approach.

Watched a kid bail into a mogul field at high speed today..guess he didnt know it was a mogul field as he almost bounced into the trees..where he would have..not gone home...he did well though..catching himself before he ate shit..scared the hell out of me..

kingslug said:

Studied the shape of the moguks today..very chopped sides..very hard to get a rythym in there..

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When you're picking up to much speed in the troughs, get on the top and slide down the side. A more advance move is to skip across the chopped side if that is along the path of the line. Martin does that skip a lot in the vid attached, IMO, it best to watch that vid at 1/4 speed to watch those moves he uses. Same with any vid from Jean Luc Brassard..... amazing vids.

I keep trying to get the rythym i see the good skiers get in there..Goat us a pretty steep run..and my favorite.. its pretty banged up in there..i end up going wide and stopping at the edge to regroup...

Don't try to emulate other skiers. Work on speed control, without it everyone ends up on the edge to regroup. Trying to control your speed on a steep run is best learn on a lower angle run. A general freestyle drill to control speed is to go down a run moderate bump run at 3/4 speed.

The drill I used to do when learning as a kid was to simply look at a series of five bumps. Visualize what I needed to do to execute those five bumps perfectly. Ski those five bumps then stop. Pick the next five and repeat. Once I could nail five moguls, I'd expand it out to ten. And so on and so forth

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deadheadskier said:

Ski those five bumps then stop

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This is a great drill that does two other things: 1) forces you to move at a slow, steady, controlled pace (like jack97 suggested), 2) shows you that you can stop anywhere, anytime with good form, which goes a long way psychologically towards letting you be comfortable with speed.

I'm sure it's been said before in this massive thread, but the biggest tip for ski control for me is to actively maintain as much ski-to-snow contact as possible. If your skis are in the air, you are speeding up.

jaytrem said:

Good stuff, 2 weeks til Squaw!!! Hope they have a few bumps left for me.



That's odd, where was that? I think in all my years of tree skiing I saw an injury once, and it was relatively minor.

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Last saturday and sunday. I think the windblown crust was catching people...patrol was lining up sleds.

dlague said:

So in the past, some people here posted about how they liked skiing frozen bumps. So at Vail, I opted to give them a try. I did not like frozen bumps in NE and it turns out I do not like them in CO. Yesterday was our first refreeze of the season with pretty warm temps the day before followed by a cold front, made for teeth chattering skiing. Really needed to drive the edges and it was fast.

Back to frozen bumps - only skied one run and that was interesting. So never liked scraped off bumps either but better than frozen.



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I 've been skiing at your old stompin ground, Pat's Peak. Hurricane is a great bump trail, yeah it has funky bumps at the entrance but the double fall line at skier's right is great. The troughs can get deep but they really didn't develop this year because we had that rain that followed a snow storm. They did an expansion recently but never explored it. Maybe they will allow bumps to develop in a low angle trail. IMO, they should because Hurricane is a 'you either have or don't' proposition, not a place to develop the skill and coordination to ski bumps.

As for 'icy' bumps, to state the obvious, some skis have better grip than others. Not sure about the latest trends for other skis but for mogul ski, I found that the models with more material underfoot holds a better edge. Metal is a big no-no in these skis so the only thing to make a ski torsional rigid is to make the underfoot thicker and taper the tip and tail to a thinner dimension. The latter allows the tip to flex when loading the front part of the ski but still keeps a solid grip underfoot. As much as I love my Twisters, it under performs on hard pack to hard granular bumps. And getting to the bump field when the only access is a steep boiler plate trail becomes 'interesting' to say the least.

jack97 said:

As much as I love my Twisters, it under performs on hard pack to hard granular bumps. And getting to the bump field when the only access is a steep boiler plate trail becomes 'interesting' to say the least.

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Do you know which current production models have a rep for performing well on hard pack and ice? I found my Twisters to perform a lot better in icy bumps than my Hart F17 STs, but maybe that's attributable to the softer tips.

When the bumps are hard granular and the formation is spread out, I can feel the Twister loosing it underfoot and prevents me from approaching my next target the way I planned. That said, I have a old Volkl rebellion, 89/63/78 and is beefier underfoot and gives me better precision in skiing to the next bump, the flex pattern is still close to the twister, soft tip but a stiffer tail. The Elan Bloodline, 89/63/77 feels the same as the Volkl but it has a flat tail and flairs outward, that tail can catch the side to backside and throw off the approach to the face of the upcoming bump. What I found was to release a little sooner and that resolved the tail catch problem. I recall seeing a 2018 Bloodline model, it has a Cameo topsheet and may still be available. Of all three skis, the Twister does have the softest tip to slow you down and can pull you around really quick.

As for others, never heard skier's feedback but from vendor's description, the Rossi Hero and Faction Mogul claims to be stiff. Both skis are on the narrow side, 92/63/81 and 95/61/84 respectively and not wide as the Harts. My thinking is that its like the Volkl and Elan models, beefier under foot so the tip can still be soft.

Thanks! Spring bumps are awesome, but there’s nothing like icy east coast bumps to expose flaws in your technique. Also good for working on speed control.

"Long Skis Only" in moguls

Timely 'old history' article given our 'what snow devices do what to moguls' discussion...

https://www.parkrecord.com/news/way-we-were-long-skis-only-please/

kingslug said:

For those who have never seen upper Goat..this is a good shot.

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Theo on Goat!