Before Tree Skiing, Parks and Backcountry Skiing (freeskiing)

[Scruffy]

That leather boot, wooden skis, and crude bindings rig sounds so incredibly dangerous. I definitely feel more fortunate.

How so?

 

[mbedle]

How so?

The leather boots were very cold and a lot shorter than what they have today. I got to believe that the release mechanism on the bindings was not up to the standards we have today. And a broken leather strap sending a ski flying down the hill would not be a good thing.

 

[steamboat1]

The leather boots were very cold

Yes they were. I still remember the pain I used to have thawing out my toes.

My brothers old leather boots are still on top of the fireplace mantel at our ski house in VT., including the old metal boot tree.

 

[BenedictGomez]

The leather boots were very cold and a lot shorter than what they have today. I got to believe that the release mechanism on the bindings was not up to the standards we have today. And a broken leather strap sending a ski flying down the hill would not be a good thing.

Yes, all that. And the fact the rigidity and "hold" on your foot/ankle wasnt as strong or advanced. I have to believe there were many more foot, ankle, and lower leg injuries back in the day.

 

[Scruffy]

The leather boots were very cold and a lot shorter than what they have today. I got to believe that the release mechanism on the bindings was not up to the standards we have today. And a broken leather strap sending a ski flying down the hill would not be a good thing.

Yes frost bite could be dangerous, but let's not forget that SEH used leather boots to climb Mt. Everest.

As far as the bindings releasing, they didn't ( well, we really need to qualify the time period we are discussing ), but before the late 1930's and the advent of the Saf-Ski toe binding, they didn't release -

BUT - the safety of your lower extremities was not necessarily compromised. The skiers foot was much more able to move, not locked in, so in a fall, you might have flexed enough to avoid injury - not to mention the leather straps would sometimes break before the skiers leg. That's not to say there weren't injuries, esp if you caught a tree.

BUT - Skiing was done primarily in much better/safer conditions than we ski on today. Fewer people skied and the few trails that were open saw much less traffic, esp. before rope tows, where hiking for turns was the order of the day - the snow they skied in was not compressed by thousands of skiers in to ice.

And if your skiing in powder, you don't need edges.

 

[Scruffy]

Yes, all that. And the fact the rigidity and "hold" on your foot/ankle wasnt as strong or advanced. I have to believe there were many more foot, ankle, and lower leg injuries back in the day.

You never tele skied in leather boots and 75mm binding, have you?

 

[Scruffy]

Yes, all that. And the fact the rigidity and "hold" on your foot/ankle wasnt as strong or advanced. I have to believe there were many more foot, ankle, and lower leg injuries back in the day.

If it wasn't for the advances in release bindings we use today, the bolded above would be a BIG problem. It's still a problem with ACLs.

 

[BenedictGomez]

You never tele skied in leather boots and 75mm binding, have you?

And I never will.....

EDIT:

I really want that, "Nobody cares that you tele" sticker someone posted last year.

 

[Smellytele]

Yes, all that. And the fact the rigidity and "hold" on your foot/ankle wasnt as strong or advanced. I have to believe there were many more foot, ankle, and lower leg injuries back in the day.

Less knee injuries

 

[Scruffy]

And I never will.....

EDIT:

I really want that, "Nobody cares that you tele" sticker someone posted last year.

HAHA.. too bad for you. I guarantee you, that if you did, and even just mastered just the greens, it would take your alpine skiing a whole new level for you.

 

[Savemeasammy]

HAHA.. too bad for you. I guarantee you, that if you did, and even just mastered just the greens, it would take your alpine skiing a whole new level for you.

How so?


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[Scruffy]

How so?


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Can you say: Balance

Learning to dynamically balance the forces of skiing, through a wide range of forces, on skinny skis, with leather boots, only attached at the toe, and then taking that to your full on down hill alpine rig will make you rock on alpine.

 

[4aprice]

Just an observation on how tree skiing has become a hit. Stopped by a local ski shop and on the way picked up some ski literature to ponder over in the "office". Vermont Travel Guide has pictures of tree skiing in Smuggs and Q Burke ads. Ski NH has pictures of tree skiing at Sunapee, with ads featuring the same for Loon, Waterville, and North Conway (I will assume Attitash) and finally the Sugarbush Magazine has an article about skiing the woods with Dan Egan and particularly Slidebrook.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[mbedle]

Yes frost bite could be dangerous, but let's not forget that SEH used leather boots to climb Mt. Everest.

As far as the bindings releasing, they didn't ( well, we really need to qualify the time period we are discussing ), but before the late 1930's and the advent of the Saf-Ski toe binding, they didn't release -

BUT - the safety of your lower extremities was not necessarily compromised. The skiers foot was much more able to move, not locked in, so in a fall, you might have flexed enough to avoid injury - not to mention the leather straps would sometimes break before the skiers leg. That's not to say there weren't injuries, esp if you caught a tree.

BUT - Skiing was done primarily in much better/safer conditions than we ski on today. Fewer people skied and the few trails that were open saw much less traffic, esp. before rope tows, where hiking for turns was the order of the day - the snow they skied in was not compressed by thousands of skiers in to ice.

And if your skiing in powder, you don't need edges.

I'm wasn't talking about skiing back in the 30's, I was talking about skiing in my mom's old leather boots in the early to mid 70's. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Scruffy]

I'm wasn't talking about skiing back in the 30's, I was talking about skiing in my mom's old leather boots in the early to mid 70's. Sorry for the confusion.

No confusion, someone else mentioned a picture of older skis ( than the 70's ) I was as much responding to that.

 

[jimk]

I find it interesting how many require challenging terrain options that were not available prior to 1990. The late eighties started the trend of opening the trees as not being off limits and the 90's parks started to appear. Also in the 90's more steeper faces were opened.

I have skied when skiing was pretty much limited to trails. How many of you who require challenging terrain options of today remember those days when there were not as many options? Were you bored out of your minds or was it all you knew so you "took what the mountain gave you!"?

As another old timer, skied every season since 1967, I would agree with much of the above. The lack of glades and diverse terrain was particularly noticeable in my early years. I have always lived in the mid-Atlantic, where we have maybe 20 ski areas within about four hours of Wash DC, but to this day most are 100% reliant on runs with snowmaking. Only two areas down here offer good glade skiing, Blue Knob PA and Timberline WV, and only when mother nature complies, which we're lucky is 2-4 weeks per winter. A few others like Snowshoe and Seven Springs offer limited, less interesting glades. I have seen Wintergreen VA (only gets about 20-40" of natural all winter) actually blow manmade snow guns into a small glade there, very novel down here.

So what did we do? Bump skiing was the main thing that kept advanced level recreational skiers challenged in the 60s and 70s. We also built lots of little kickers on intermediate runs and would play on them until ski patrol found them and mashed them back down. I do remember skiing about a 300 yard glade at Blue Knob in the 70s, and I'm sure others were doing more exploring, but the vast majority of weekend recreational skiers never left marked trails - there was no snow, or there was the threat of getting your ticket pulled. I think people also got into snowboarding and telemarking in the late 80s down here to raise their challenge quotient. NASTAR was also a way to challenge yourself, but I never got into it.

Having said this, I am a big proponent of the idea that if you get really skilled at skiing a little 500-1000 vertical foot ski hill you can do quite well at many of the bigger resorts around the country. Even down here we have short pitches that are as steep as longer steep runs in New England or out west and you just have to ramp up your mental aggression level to tackle the bigger scope of things.

By the time parks became big (1995?) I was already in my 40s and only dabbled with them lightly. Around that same time, however, glade skiing started to become more wide spread when I'd travel to New England or out west and it really added a fun, new area of interest for me, although I'm still a plodder in the woods.

 

[4aprice]

Having said this, I am a big proponent of the idea that if you get really skilled at skiing a little 500-1000 vertical foot ski hill you can do quite well at many of the bigger resorts around the country. Even down here we have short pitches that are as steep as longer steep runs in New England or out west and you just have to ramp up your mental aggression level to tackle the bigger scope of things.

Agree with this statement 100%. There is nothing that beats being in "skiing shape". I use the Pocono's as my training ground. Its practice, practice, practice. Its the same muscles and the stronger they are the better I ski. Allows me to get more out of my New England and Western trips.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[witch hobble]

I really want that, "Nobody cares that you tele" sticker someone posted last year.

No one cares about the Nobody Cares That You Tele sticker that you wish you had. What is this? 2007?

 

[Savemeasammy]

No one cares about the Nobody Cares That You Tele sticker that you wish you had.

New sticker idea right here?


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[Cannonball]

New sticker idea right here?

HA! Perfect. Or how about "I don't care about this so much that I went through the effort to actually purchase this sticker and put it on my car. That's how much I don't care"