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Self Arrest Techniques?

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Here's what it might look like.
SelfArrest4.jpg
 

ski skuhl

Angel Diva
I've never had the experience of sliding down a hill (perhaps I will if I keep snowboards ;-)) but feel like I've seen more of it this year than in the past (and I've skied dozens fewer days this season). I imagine it makes sense to arrest with a pole plant (next level!) but can't help but wonder if I would have the presence of mind to do that. I feel like my effort would be to try to dig a boot heal or tip; especially since I don't use pole straps (my Leki poles don't have them and I'm not always diligent about using the clip-in feature they are equipped with). I scanned pages 1 and 2 of this thread, don't think I'm saying anything new or different.
 
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newboots

Angel Diva
I wonder how anyone figures out which end is up in a fall. My last fall left me rolling. I kept seeing dark long things that I was sure were the posts of the lift tower (posts is not the right word; I can't remember). When I stopped I looked around and was nowhere near the nearest set of posts. Possibly these were my skis; one ejected before the other. I only remember one fall where I slid down the hill. It was my first year and I had no idea what to do; I tried to claw the snow (belly down, head uphill) and it did seem to slow me down and I stopped. The ski pole method looks quite advanced to me!
 

nopoleskier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Haven't read the whole thread-
I'll add DO NOT TRY TO STOP SOMEONE IN A SLIDE!

While your instinct may say- Go help- try and block them. Don't do it.
I watched people trying to stop a slider on Wilderness at Whiteface (Steep black)
The people trying to help all got taken out and got hurt!!

Shout helpful tips- Yes, dig in with your poles, hands feet anything.
My niece burned a hole in her gloves after a slide at Gore- Rumor and Lies are open at Gore and already some harrowing slides..
 

Jenny

Angel Diva
@Susan L - Looks scary - glad you're OK.

I remembered the bit about the poles, but I couldn't manage to make it work. I think I couldn't get the right angle to make any part of it dig into the hill. And I can tell you my elbows weren't working at all - surface was much too firm.

Beyond that, I was clueless, so I just kept sliding, and sliding, and sliding . . . . I'm still not sure how I managed to stop. Also, I seemed to be laying ON my skis, so periodically it would feel like they were edging underneath me, and then I'd speed up, so THAT wasn't much fun!

This is something I really need to learn.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I tried using my pole tip once with pretty decent leverage and it barely slowed me down.

I have had to crash into a sliding student once. While I would generally agree with @nopoleskier that it is a bad idea, one of my local group's ladies in her late sixties took a spill on a blue on her second turn, and even though we had discussed self arresting ad nauseam and the others had used what we had preached, she did not make a single move to arrest herself and was sliding ever faster head first towards a steep black with a tree island in the middle at the end. I matched her speed side slipping and literally skied into her shoulder and while we both fell, we both stopped about 20 feet from the roll over. She was fine and told me she was too stunned to react. Many ski resort fatalities are from people impacting a tree. Some ski into them, but at our area, many fall and then slide into them. I will take mutual injuries if I trust that my skiing into a slide for lifer might save that person from likely death.

I have also once been saved my my dear husband on his snowboard, on a much steeper icier run in CA, when my tele binding pulled off the ski on the first turn and I was also so stunned that I did not react. This was also long before I had ever heard of self arresting. Not sure how he was able to keep good edge hold on his board, but he did.

Watching the scary video of the slide through the bumps reminds me of how many students I have had that think the moguls will stop them. They won't! Had a young woman student cross her tips after the crux, almost at the bottom of a double black diamond. Again, a man came in and stopped her.

The most memorable intervention, wish I had the video, was a snowboard instructor who happened to to be almost directly in the path of a young woman sliding in another double black. He literally reached out and grabbed her as she was heading for a fairly big cliff band. Good thing she was tiny. The video was unbelievable, so was her luck.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
@Susan L : Glad you're okay!

I had a fall like that at Taos my first time on a double-black (with a relatively inexperienced instructor) in very good snow conditions. My ski buddy and I did a 1-shot group lesson that ended up just the two of us. I tipped over going pretty slowly on one of the first bumps at the top. Was sliding head first. My main focus was to get my feet below me since my skis were still on. Once I did that, slowing down was possible. The trail has a steep section at the top, followed by a flat section, and there was deep snow that season so no danger of hitting any rocks. I stopped before the flat section.

Picture from where I stopped. Slide started about where my ski buddy, in blue jacket, is standing.
TR top of Longhorn.jpg
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Susan L : Glad you're okay!



Picture from where I stopped. Slide started about where my ski buddy, in blue jacket, is standing.
View attachment 15017
YIKES! I think the important part was that you kept trying and it eventually worked, but after a long distance.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I tried using my pole tip once with pretty decent leverage and it barely slowed me down.

I have had to crash into a sliding student once. While I would generally agree with @nopoleskier that it is a bad idea, one of my local group's ladies in her late sixties took a spill on a blue on her second turn, and even though we had discussed self arresting ad nauseam and the others had used what we had preached, she did not make a single move to arrest herself and was sliding ever faster head first towards a steep black with a tree island in the middle at the end. I matched her speed side slipping and literally skied into her shoulder and while we both fell, we both stopped about 20 feet from the roll over. She was fine and told me she was too stunned to react. Many ski resort fatalities are from people impacting a tree. Some ski into them, but at our area, many fall and then slide into them. I will take mutual injuries if I trust that my skiing into a slide for lifer might save that person from likely death.

I have also once been saved my my dear husband on his snowboard, on a much steeper icier run in CA, when my tele binding pulled off the ski on the first turn and I was also so stunned that I did not react. This was also long before I had ever heard of self arresting. Not sure how he was able to keep good edge hold on his board, but he did.

Watching the scary video of the slide through the bumps reminds me of how many students I have had that think the moguls will stop them. They won't! Had a young woman student cross her tips after the crux, almost at the bottom of a double black diamond. Again, a man came in and stopped her.

The most memorable intervention, wish I had the video, was a snowboard instructor who happened to to be almost directly in the path of a young woman sliding in another double black. He literally reached out and grabbed her as she was heading for a fairly big cliff band. Good thing she was tiny. The video was unbelievable, so was her luck.
This reminds me I did have to grab a beginner student once to stop him from ramming into a lift station. That crash might have killed him. This was an adult, a big guy, whose brain went totally blank on the bunny hill after his first turn. He headed straight down the trail towards a lift station, gaining speed. He was frozen in panic. I sped down to catch up with him, grabbed his arm near the bottom, and blocked his travel with my skis. We both went down all tangled up, but no injuries thankfully. That was luck.

I've had nothing happen as dangerous as what @snoWYmonkey is describing. Skiing is inherently risky.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Haven't read the whole thread-
I'll add DO NOT TRY TO STOP SOMEONE IN A SLIDE!

While your instinct may say- Go help- try and block them. Don't do it.
I watched people trying to stop a slider on Wilderness at Whiteface (Steep black)
The people trying to help all got taken out and got hurt!!

Shout helpful tips- Yes, dig in with your poles, hands feet anything.
My niece burned a hole in her gloves after a slide at Gore- Rumor and Lies are open at Gore and already some harrowing slides..
That reminds me of my first ski experience at Stowe. It was the 8th grade 3-day ski trip so I'd been skiing for two seasons (straight skis) and was an adventurous intermediate. The only other place I'd skied with chairlifts was Whiteface. It was frigid that day. I was skiing with my classmate who grew up skiing out west. We were taking a lap, then going inside to warm up, then riding up the gondola for another run. We were skiing the wide groomer under the gondola. She fell and started sliding. She wasn't moving that fast so I could keep up with her and even get ahead of her, but I had no idea what to do. I was surprised she wasn't slowing down but was instead picking up speed. The worry was that she seemed to be heading towards one of the gondola towers. She got her feet below her (skis were on) and came to a stop not too far from a tower. I think we didn't bother to do another run.

How can you safely practice self-arrest?
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@liquidfeet I had to take one down (sounds terrible, but it felt that way) once as well. We had to teach never ever college students in 3 hours how to telemark well enough to go on a backcountry ski camping week long trip. Yes, it was always my most dreaded lesson as the incoming freshman class would all show up eager to learn in not enough time.

One young man took off with amazing balance and increasing speed towards the base. I had him hand me the end of his pole and swung him sideways into a big high speed tumble....eeeeek. This was in the days when we used a snowmobile with a trailer behind it to get guests part way up the easiest slope. There were too many students to use the rope tow, like 30 plus, on top of our normal work day FDBs (first day beginners).

I think this goes into actually teaching people how to fall if they can't seem to stop which I now do as well as teaching how to self arrest down the road when they are on blues.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@marzNC at our ski area we practice self arrest with steep and deep camp students on the bottom quarter of a steep black run with a gentle rollout to flat with zero obstacles. We take their skis and and have them slide down on the side of the run after coaching them on the steps to take. Varying degrees of success. This is usually done the first morning of the four day camp.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
@marzNC at our ski area we practice self arrest with steep and deep camp students on the bottom quarter of a steep black run with a gentle rollout to flat with zero obstacles. We take their skis and and have them slide down on the side of the run after coaching them on the steps to take. Varying degrees of success. This is usually done the first morning of the four day camp.
Do they keep their poles?

After I fell, my ski buddy did too. (I was with Jason.) But he popped off both skis pretty quickly. He came to a stop pretty quickly after losing the second ski. His fall made the instructor a lot more nervous than mine because it looked more spectacular. We were both fine. Neither of us are worriers, so we enjoyed the rest of the run.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@marzNC I believe that they do. I seldom actually have my students practice as I have to weigh the consequences of a guest getting hurt practicing how not to get hurt. When I do I prefer no poles for safety, and really focusing on getting feet below, onto belly, and push up to slow down. Again, my own pole experience was so minimal in speed or rotation change that I think it only works well with an ice axe. Even then I have a friend who tried to self arrest for over a 1000 feet was unsuccessful. But by all means, my thought would be try with any and all tools at hand or underfoot.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Back in 2014, @Ursula posted a couple of videos in this thread. The first is a demonstration using one pole. The first fall in the second video put together for EpicSki Academy shows a self-arrest on very steep terrain after popping off both skis. The rest of the second video are general crashes by hard chargers or racers.

Just uploaded a short clip about self-arrest. Let me know if you have any questions,
Ursula
And if you want to see some spectacular crashes, some with arresting, see Bob Barnes video on "Ragdoll"
Yes, the first one is me. It took me about four tries to finally come to a stop! Things happen fast when you go over on an over 40 degree slope. ;o)
Ursula
 

newboots

Angel Diva
@Susan L - That is one frightening video! Long fall, trees nearby. And although it might not be worse than any other icy steep trail, it almost looked like you were being tossed around by the bumps!

As always, I recommend Epsom salts. Even if you're not in terrible pain, a hot bath is so comforting!
 

BlueSkies

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I have managed a ski pole arrest on steep slopes on snow shoes in my younger days. Snowshoes back then did not typically have snowshoe crampons and the technique was the same. You do need to dig in with the pole tips. All my ski falls on steeps (in the east) have been on short enough slopes where needing an arrest hasn't been an issue and I could wait for the runout to stop.
 

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