How do you define "fresh powder"?

[abc]

not like powder or moguls skiing which you can go on perfecting more and more and take multiple lessons for it..

Funny, I felt the same way about powder, once one figure out ONE WAY to ski it, it doesn't take multiple lessons to perfect it.

Cruds, yes, chopped up powder too. But fresh powder is actually quite easy to ski...

 

[gardenmary]

Cruds, yes, chopped up powder too. But fresh powder is actually quite easy to ski...

The freshly-falling snow on Friday was WAAYYY easier to ski than its pushed-around self on Saturday. I still need lots and lots of practice to ski powder halfway decently but at least I got the floaty feeling - and I can see how addicting that is!

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Yeah - maybe ice sideslipping skills are one of those things where you don't have much to improve once you've got the basics down...

And I'm frankly amazed at how many I see out there - who likely began skiing post-straight ski who don't have or haven't mastered this skill...

Conversely, to those who have a single definition of ice and how to ski it – I can name at least 6 different kinds, because we have to deal with so much of it in the east, and there really ARE significant variations - not only in appearance (and detection) but how to deal. Might merit its own thread!

 

[diymom]

MSL, I for one would like to learn about the variations of ice and what they are called. And if there are more ways to detect (and avoid) the ice before I'm on top of it, please tell. So far I've been looking at the runs from the lift for dark spots, and listen to the skiers below me.

Same goes for common conditions in other parts of the snow world- I'm all for building up my ski and snow related vocabulary. And how big does a lump of frozen crud need to be to classify as a death cookie?

 

[geargrrl]

And how big does a lump of frozen crud need to be to classify as a death cookie?

Are death cookies smaller or larger than chicken heads?

 

[MaineSkiLady]

I’m taking it over the “ice hating thread.”
Page 3.
https://www.theskidiva.com/forums/index.php?threads/ice-hating-thread.15766/page-3

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Are death cookies smaller or larger than chicken heads?

Bigger.
Chicken heads are what we refer to as medium size crushed ice pellets > ha. The knee-jarring stuff.

 

[Magnatude]

My observation would be that a skilled ice skier would master powder skiing faster than a powder skier would do so on ice. Anyone who can ski well on ice is a good skier, IMHO (spoken as someone who avoids icy surfaces like the plague).

 

[geargrrl]

Beg to disagree- powder is a really different skill set and I've seen more than one eastern skier completely flail in powder until they figure it out.

 

[pinto]

Ultimately, most people want to ski powder, most people don't want to ski ice.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Beg to disagree- powder is a really different skill set and I've seen more than one eastern skier completely flail in powder until they figure it out.

Ultimately, most people want to ski powder, most people don't want to ski ice.

Agree, agree. It's almost as if they verge on being two different SPORTS in terms of technique! And there are some (like DH) who can just switch over, like flicking a light switch (and we do have occasion to do that here, when we go from a wind-swept, icy summit into "pockets"). I need to re-boot my whole brain!

 

[snow addict]

My instructor always tells me that I have to ski the terrain. When I have a lesson I get really scared at least once. Powder or ice is just the condition. I found skiing ice easier in general. Powder has to be mastered. That's why it feels so great when I manage to put a few really nice turns and get the flow going. I skied thigh-deep powder for the first time in my life this season. And I hit an icy patch or even have to ski an icy slope every time I ski. And trees in powder is always a challenge, you can always go steeper and tighter. No such WOW factor with ice, you got out of it, job done. But terrain is the main thing. And the largest part of it is crud And this can be perfected forever.

 

[segacs]

Beg to disagree- powder is a really different skill set and I've seen more than one eastern skier completely flail in powder until they figure it out.

Yes, this. That'd be me.

I think skiing on icy conditions is actually much less physically challenging -- easier on the leg muscles, sort of "lazy" skiing. Powder skiing not only requires technique, but it requires a lot of physical conditioning.

 

[pinto]

Yes, this. That'd be me.

I think skiing on icy conditions is actually much less physically challenging -- easier on the leg muscles, sort of "lazy" skiing. Powder skiing not only requires technique, but it requires a lot of physical conditioning.

See, again, it depends. I consider untracked powder to be the absolute easiest thing to ski. Crud, yes, that takes some conditioning, but untracked is so simple. You just float around and use gravity, not muscles.

It is tiring if you are not skiing, ie, falling and having to struggle up, searching for a ski, breaking trail, etc.

I wouldn't know about icy conditions, because I don't (won't) ever ski them long enough to need any conditioning, lol.

 

[segacs]

And again, I think we need to take climate into consideration when we define "fresh powder". That sort of lightweight dry powdery stuff that you Divas see in Utah and Colorado doesn't exist much elsewhere, in my experience, since there's just too much humidity everywhere else and the powder, even when it falls fresh, is thicker and heavier. The humidity content in the air is also what makes our winters bitterly cold and our summers unbearably hot, at times.

 

[pinto]

True, but as geargrrl said, that isn't powder.
"There's a tendency to call any new soft unskied snow powder, and find it laughable at times. We get wet heavy snow frequently, and I just laugh at the people skiing "powder". If it ain't fully from cold temps, it ain't powder."

I have skied slurpee snow at Whistler, and it was more taxing, a bit (once I figured out not to finish my turns quite so much, it was much easier). It was untracked, and it was fresh, but it wasn't powder.

Gear and terrain makes a difference, too ... skiing fresh deep snow on skinny skis where there isn't a lot of pitch can be very difficult, too. Keeping the skis off the bottom and moving is a struggle. It's sort of the opposite for icy conditions, I guess.

 

[altagirl]

See, again, it depends. I consider untracked powder to be the absolute easiest thing to ski. Crud, yes, that takes some conditioning, but untracked is so simple. You just float around and use gravity, not muscles.

It is tiring if you are not skiing, ie, falling and having to struggle up, searching for a ski, breaking trail, etc.

I wouldn't know about icy conditions, because I don't (won't) ever ski them long enough to need any conditioning, lol.

Same here - real powder is virtually effortless once you have it figured out.

And with regards to how difficult it is to learn? Yes, the answer probably is that it depends. Hahaha, I remember taking a clinic with a guy who we skied with a lot previously, and he basically told me that since I had grown up skiing in Michigan I was wasting my time trying to learn to ski powder really well, because if you didn't grow up skiing it (i.e. were not a "real" local like him, not us "fake" locals who only moved here), you would NEVER really get the feel or the rhythm to it, so I might as well not bother. Gee thanks, jerk.

Needless to say, it made my day that when we were skiing beautiful fresh powder with our instructor a couple days later, the instructor told grumpy local guy there that he needed to watch me because after some coaching I had figured out the nice floaty rhythm that he was trying to get us to achieve and my local "friend" there had not. I laughed... and laughed....

Anyway - powder is not necessarily hard to learn, the problem is that it takes a degree of patience and fearlessness in your skiing. You can't force things, you can't rush turns, you have to let them happen, you have to point your skis more down the fall line the deeper the snow - meaning you have to ski it in a way that would lead to skiing terrifyingly fast in non-powder conditions without the snow to slow you down - you just have to trust that it will happen and adjust as you get a feel for how thick the snow is. That just clicks for some people and for others it's like fighting their very nature, so it takes a while. I, however, obviously don't buy that people can't learn it.

 

[altagirl]

True, but as geargrrl said, that isn't powder.
"There's a tendency to call any new soft unskied snow powder, and find it laughable at times. We get wet heavy snow frequently, and I just laugh at the people skiing "powder". If it ain't fully from cold temps, it ain't powder."

I have skied slurpee snow at Whistler, and it was more taxing, a bit (once I figured out not to finish my turns quite so much, it was much easier). It was untracked, and it was fresh, but it wasn't powder.

Gear and terrain makes a difference, too ... skiing fresh deep snow on skinny skis where there isn't a lot of pitch can be very difficult, too. Keeping the skis off the bottom and moving is a struggle. It's sort of the opposite for icy conditions, I guess.

Yeah - not only that (and we get wet storms too, particularly in late spring) but there is such a thing as snow that's TOO light and fluffy (when there isn't enough of it). A foot of normal powder is plenty to have fun in. A foot of ultra dry "blower" - all you're doing, even on fat skis is skiing the surface under it but now you can't see what's under there - ice, bumps, rocks, you'll find out when you hit it... Now 3' of blower? That's what you want. Or a nice "right side up" snowpack - where the storm came in warm, so it started out with heavier snow and got colder and lighter as time went on. That's what gives you the feel of it being bottomless.

 

[pinto]

^^ I think I told this story before, but the worst powder day I had was late spring at Steamboat, where one day it was in the 50s (ie, SLUSH) and then that night a big cold front blew in, froze all that slush into ridiculously awful 3D ice, and snowed 7 or 8 in. of champagne on top. It looked like beautiful fluffy awesomeness, but it was so light that you dropped right through to the unspeakable horridness underneath. lol. We found a good run or two in trees, where it hadn't gotten as sunny, but the combination of it looking so good but feeling so bad, ugh, that was so sad.

 

[geargrrl]

And again, I think we need to take climate into consideration when we define "fresh powder". That sort of lightweight dry powdery stuff that you Divas see in Utah and Colorado doesn't exist much elsewhere, in my experience, since there's just too much humidity everywhere else and the powder, even when it falls fresh, is thicker and heavier. The humidity content in the air is also what makes our winters bitterly cold and our summers unbearably hot, at times.

It exists in the Northern Rockies of Idaho, Montana, parts of Washington and of course British Columbia. Powder Triangle, anyone?