bdfreetuna
New member
Made it up there with my friend and got on K-1 gondola around 10:00AM. First run down I believe we hit Rime. We found out right away that things were going to be very scratchy with a lot of boilerplate. My skis had a fresh tune up with 1 degree / 87 degree edge and as this was my first day out for the season I quickly found out my legs were going to get a workout just trying to keep an edge today.
Confindence on the skis increased over the next few runs, as we stayed on the North Face area and took some laps on those trails. My skis like to go fast and hard -- they are great for long arcs and also great in the woods where you can swish them around -- but as for trying to make short turns to control speed on boilerplate they leave a lot to be desired.
So the problem was that I wanted to go fast and make long arcs to maintain stability on the scratchy hardpack, but there was a fair amount of trail congestion and also areas like the bottom of Rime and several other areas were so slick it would be fairly sketchy to try to slow down from speed. My skis don't carve quick turns on boilerplate... they're 185cm and I weigh 160lbs. So the best way to drop speed fast in those conditions is to dig in sideways. I wanted to avoid doing that as much as possible so the morning involved a lot of going fast combined with very careful planning of my line ahead to avoid slower traffic and keep an eye out for patches of soft snow where I could better control my speed (and try to get in as many turns on the soft while it lasted).
Skiing like this on the first day out for the season killed my legs. Basically trying to make long GS turns on skiied off trails all day.
There were a few trails that had more snow, which mostly involved patchy small moguls, or more accurately small random piles of soft snow in between the scratch.
The snow softened up slightly in the early afternoon but soon after that the sun was down over the back of the mountain which made some sections a little sketchy as it was harder to see the details in the snow, and also knowing that a majority of the trail was likely to be slick.
Probably the last time I skied that many green circle runs I was like 6 years old. But these trails tended to be less skied off and not requiring many turns anyway and much safer in these conditions to go along at a good clip.
Over the course of the day I believe I improved my skills at skiing the kind of conditions I really do not enjoy. There were a fair amount of good skiers and riders on the mountain today and a few of the racers were able to carve impressively through the hard stuff. This reminded me of some lessons from my high school race days and I believe my technique was pretty good, but ultimately it was the strength of my legs which gave out.
Just before 3:00PM I hit a series of big dips up and down on one of the trails.. the bottom of whatever that trail is below Mouse Trap (this trail was not at all enjoyable to ski..) and with each dip I felt my legs give out more and more. I had to pull a sudden stop because I was suddenly in a fair amount of pain.
Skied down to the lodge and my friend and I agreed we should call it a day, no need to punish ourselves any more.
Wish I had a more bad ass report but it is what it is! peace
Confindence on the skis increased over the next few runs, as we stayed on the North Face area and took some laps on those trails. My skis like to go fast and hard -- they are great for long arcs and also great in the woods where you can swish them around -- but as for trying to make short turns to control speed on boilerplate they leave a lot to be desired.
So the problem was that I wanted to go fast and make long arcs to maintain stability on the scratchy hardpack, but there was a fair amount of trail congestion and also areas like the bottom of Rime and several other areas were so slick it would be fairly sketchy to try to slow down from speed. My skis don't carve quick turns on boilerplate... they're 185cm and I weigh 160lbs. So the best way to drop speed fast in those conditions is to dig in sideways. I wanted to avoid doing that as much as possible so the morning involved a lot of going fast combined with very careful planning of my line ahead to avoid slower traffic and keep an eye out for patches of soft snow where I could better control my speed (and try to get in as many turns on the soft while it lasted).
Skiing like this on the first day out for the season killed my legs. Basically trying to make long GS turns on skiied off trails all day.
There were a few trails that had more snow, which mostly involved patchy small moguls, or more accurately small random piles of soft snow in between the scratch.
The snow softened up slightly in the early afternoon but soon after that the sun was down over the back of the mountain which made some sections a little sketchy as it was harder to see the details in the snow, and also knowing that a majority of the trail was likely to be slick.
Probably the last time I skied that many green circle runs I was like 6 years old. But these trails tended to be less skied off and not requiring many turns anyway and much safer in these conditions to go along at a good clip.
Over the course of the day I believe I improved my skills at skiing the kind of conditions I really do not enjoy. There were a fair amount of good skiers and riders on the mountain today and a few of the racers were able to carve impressively through the hard stuff. This reminded me of some lessons from my high school race days and I believe my technique was pretty good, but ultimately it was the strength of my legs which gave out.
Just before 3:00PM I hit a series of big dips up and down on one of the trails.. the bottom of whatever that trail is below Mouse Trap (this trail was not at all enjoyable to ski..) and with each dip I felt my legs give out more and more. I had to pull a sudden stop because I was suddenly in a fair amount of pain.
Skied down to the lodge and my friend and I agreed we should call it a day, no need to punish ourselves any more.
Wish I had a more bad ass report but it is what it is! peace
.. but in reality some skiers prefer to go hard, some prefer to take it easy, and everyone has a different style.
