The Wisconsin Skier

 
 
 
Crashing is an inevitable part of skiing. For most people most of the time though the only thing hurt is pride. Crashes can be (or look) quite minor or they can be (or look) very nasty. I found an interesting article by Charles Robinson on ski crashing at Yahoo:

Not only do champions crash, they spent years learning how to crash – a set of ground rules to draw upon in the split second when an inevitable fall is coming. It’s a sort of emergency guide to engaging catastrophe, then figuring out how to control the ensuing chaos.

I have yet to see any sort of ski instruction or guidance on what to do in the event of a crash, what I do see is usually found on sites dedicated to ski medicine and the advice is not to try to get back up until you are completely still.

My quest is slightly different than all of that. I am interested in the following quandary: If the choice is between certain and serious (possibly life threatening) injury from running into someone or something versus the lower risk of injury from taking a digger into the snow: what is the proper way to take that digger? I have not seen any discussion or advice on that.

Back to Charles’ article.
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Cruising the links I find the following at Ski=MC²:

Then, sometime between Shane McConkey’s death and now, skiing got really, really, really boring. Look around the lodge now. Where are the partiers? Where are the chicks in stretch pants? Where are the zany antics? Where are the mustaches? All I see now are Transpacks and Ski Totes, corporate ownership of big mountains, contractors doing food service, and lame people doing lame things on lame mountains with lame rules. Did you know that there’s a state law in Vermont that says you can’t drink your own beer on a deck outside of a ski area bar (or the bar loses its license)? WTF? The state where Fred Pabst founded multiple mountains (including Bromley) can’t tolerate a cooler full of PBR on a warm spring day? If the people from 80’s ski movies were subject to these rules, the movies would have been 15 minutes long.

Yes, the Fred Pabst referred to is Fred Pabst Jr. the son of the man who turned a small Milwaukee Brewery into Pabst Brewing.

Anyway, is skiing lame?
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When listening to ski commentators or read someone write about skiing, they will often say something like: Ooooh, and Anilik is in the backseat and she is now offline. What is meant by backseat in this context?

Quite simple, it is being off-balance to the rear of the skis. Often times, it happens when one hits an unexpected and unnoticed bump and that bump forces one backwards. Being in the backseat is not a good thing. Why?

• It is never good to be off balance on skis
• The pressure is on the rear of the skis and one drives & steers with the tips of their skis
• Having the weight on the rear of your skis puts one at greater risk for knee injury

Skiers initiate turns by engaging their tip’s edges into the snow. If your body is not in a well-balanced position to work from it will be hard to direct the skis in a proper fashion and it is near impossible to do from the backseat.

Skiers often appear to be in an unbalanced position as their butts are often behind their feet. Note, those skiers are often in a squat position, and their center of mass is in balance, with shins driving into the tongues of their boots; whereas, backseated skiers have their calves engaging their boots (or more likely their boots are driving their calves).