Tips for skiing wind affected snow

[Karl_H]

This is my first full season skiing in the Colorado Front Range and it seems that most snow that isn’t sheltered by trees tends to quickly become wind affected, with the formation of sastrugi.

As much fun as it is to ski powder in the trees, I would like to occasionally venture out onto the open (wind affected) faces and bowls, in the backcountry.

So, I am looking for tips on making the most of skiing the wind affected snow in the Colorado Front Range.

[mtskibum16]

Buy some Billy Goats

[Dee Hubbs]

Or the Praxis Sastrugi.

[XXX-er]

think light thots get skis with early rise, ya anybody can ski powder but what challenge is that ?

[rip]

Go old school.. weighting and unweighting

[Core Shot]

Equal weighting.
Dominate the skis.
Drive hard on every weight down turn initiation.

I skied punchy ice crust last week and the whole family actually enjoyed it, sad to say, since life’s been too busy to get real fresh turns. We all adapted to crushing it. Literally.

You can’t go easy and relax in shit conditions. You must drive the ski.

Ps, faster is better, within reason. It’s hard to noodle or meadow skip shit snow

[3PinGrin]

Or the Praxis Sastrugi.

Snort. Praxis Quixote is a close second.

What Core Shot said.

[east or bust]

You can’t go easy and relax in shit conditions. You must drive the ski.

Ps, faster is better, within reason. It’s hard to noodle or meadow skip shit snow

Can confirm.

[skibrd]

Fat skis and the quicker the better. Drive the skis like a euro, don’t swish your turns.

But really stay in the trees where the snow is soft. Soft snow is better.


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[Reformed]

Accepting that this is a troll or that y’all have changed, I offer up the obvious response. Red 5 flex veneer praxis rx. Bend ze knees and speed is your friend!

[Gepeto]

Like to say "the question is what I expected to see more of when I came to tgr 7 years ago"


sastrugi and crust are 2 different things...

Sastrugi is one of my favorite - just drawn to it.

Affirming other maggs... traditional posture, drive the ski through the entire turn instead of relying to much on feedback. A good analogy for me would be - imagine you have the wrong wax or no wax and you need to force the ski to perform.

For starters - initiate turns with care and determination and finish turns earlier.

Sastrugi affords you added abilities to control speed... using the grabby'ness and density to your advantage.

A lighter touch will become apparent with confidence.

It ain't cold smoke but, it's damn fine


eta; err just do Red 5 flex veneer praxis rx

[rob stokes]

think light thots get skis with early rise, ya anybody can ski powder but what challenge is that ?

I think the opposite, think heavy thoughts and ski strong. Old school technique with weighting/unweighting but when you are weighting...you better be weighting.


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[MakersTeleMark]

Get some Rax. They cut right through that shit. Red preferably.

[Karl_H]

So, just to confirm my understanding, the consensus seems to be:
1. Maximize time with skis carving on edge (heavy and equal weighting), as much as possible.
2. Go fast (within reason).
3. Minimize time with bases flat (i.e., hop during edge-to-edge transitions and don't slarve / skid turns).

I am also curious what aspects of ski design improve performance on wind affected snow (other than weight and width). Obviously for backcountry touring, there is a big incentive for going as light and narrow, as feasible. Otherwise, everyone would be taking heavy, metal laminate "all-mountain" skis out for skiing variable backcountry conditions.

- Stiff tips and shovels?
- Little to no tip taper?
- Reverse camber?
- Minimal sidecut?
- Heavily tapered tails?

[2FUNKY]

“Skiing wind effected snow doesn’t suck to ski, it just shows how bad you suck at skiing.”
-wise old ski bum

[Gepeto]

oof

[MakersTeleMark]

Just tele, you'll be fine.

[3PinGrin]

Just tele, you'll be fine.

lol

[old goat]

There's all kinds of wind affected snow. Wind buff that skis like a groomer. Snow that skis like heavy powder--no big deal. And the hardest snow to ski IMO--breakable wind crust that locks your skis. The latter can be skied two ways--very light and and delicate on the skis to stay on top of the skis (I watched a friend of mine do this at Kirkwood one day when absolutely no one else was able to keep from breaking through--some of the most impressive skiing I've ever seen) or with a lot of power and big time unweighting. It all depends on how hard and thick the wind-packed snow is and what's underneath the top layer. Can be delightful or awful. Get used to it if you want to ski in the alpine zone.

[SB]

Equal weighting.
Dominate the skis.
Drive hard on every weight down turn initiation.

I skied punchy ice crust last week and the whole family actually enjoyed it, sad to say, since life’s been too busy to get real fresh turns. We all adapted to crushing it. Literally.

You can’t go easy and relax in shit conditions. You must drive the ski.

Ps, faster is better, within reason. It’s hard to noodle or meadow skip shit snow

This

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I found out that Ravens ski breakable rime crust over a foot of facets with remarkable aplomb. Absolute shit snow. But, I was smiling at the bottom. Be dynamic and finish your turns.

[toast2266]

Super fat, heavily rockered skis make breakable crust as easy as its gonna get.

[swissiphic]

Around here we get a lot of Sastrugi during arctic northerly outflow wind outbreaks. We've changed the word to Stratagucci.

My personal methods of dealing with upside down wind/soft slab, breakable or supportive wind crust, temp crust or rain crust =

0.5 Use really fat skis. 128mm underfoot k2 darksides and 132 volkl kuros are good toolz for the job.
1. I modded my dynafit vulcan boots so that they offer basically unlimited adjustment of forward flex stiffness, from fully locked out stiff to super soft, full ankle flex and everything in between. The flex mod was conceived specifically to address varying demands from differing snow conditions down the same ski run. Set the boot forward flex stiffness adjuster to medium stiffness so you can feel a bit of ankle flex but still have forward support. I've found that stiff boots send me into the back seat pretty quickly after aggressively initiating a turn. At medium stiffness, the turn initiation can be more relaxed, nuancy, subtle and smooth.
2. Ski light on the feet, focusing on ball of foot weight balance for turn initiation
3. Initiate turns with actively thinking about projecting weight to the the inside edge of the tip/front rocker contact point of the inside ski. If it's a semi supportive breakable crust, it will allow for just a bit more float and less punching through as opposed to weight the downhill ski or simply thinking about even ski weighting...ime, anyways. As the turn takes shape, the natural progression of g forces will send weight to the outside ski resulting in an evenly weighted, inside/outside ski turn finish.
4. Do longer slarves if you have fat skis that don't punch through the crust
5. Do shorter pivots after micro traverses if the snow is really punchy...at this point it's pure survival and there's no sense in trying to be a hero charging the shit out of potentially season endingly poor snow conditions...'specially if the light is really flat in an alpine bowl.
6. If the light's really flat and the snow is punchy, let all yer buddies go first, then ski in their tracks. The snow will be chopped up a bit, giving better visual reference and allows for easier and safer turns in certain conditions.
7. There are certain worst case scenarios where heinous, wind affected, flat light, upside down punchy snow interspersed with boilerplate, white ice, to breakable wind crust, etc....where all rules get thrown out the window. At this point it's pure survival...descending traverses, i.e. 'drawing contour lines' in the snow with a descending kick turn at each apex works to basically just dump vert as opposed to actually 'skiing' the run.

[Ville]

Greetings from the land of wind!

Crush, kill and destroy. That's the mind set for skiing wind fuck*d snow. Push through and fly to next turn. There's something very satisfying to ski fast and fluid on the shittiest possible snow

Lähetetty minun LYA-L29 laitteesta Tapatalkilla

[skaredshtles]

Super fat, heavily rockered skis make breakable crust as easy as its gonna get.

Agreed. Breakable crust sucks...