• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

Skiing Ice.

Kimmyt

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
You've never skiied in PA, have you... ;)
 

Thatsagirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Kimmyt said:
You've never skiied in PA, have you... ;)

No, I haven't. And I guess I'll skip that next trip to the Poconos! :o

But I have skied in West Virginia and it wasn't like that. :smile:
 

Kimmyt

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Hmm yeah, I've heard that about WV as well. And to be honest, it's not all ice in PA. Just most of it. The rest is slush.

But it's better than living in Florida.

:D
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
But then again there were better skiing conditions last year ..... Maybe. But soft snow? I have a brain blockage.....

I loved it anyway.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Now you've really got me worried. Do I just not remember the soft snow days? I am getting old .....................

Then again, I don't have many years to remember; I've just been skiing three years.
 

Thatsagirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Liquidfeet :D

It's true that you do not have the best three years of snow to remember. But know that it is not ALWAYS like that. That way, you have something to look forward to! ;)

As the song says, "Your day will come!"

Maybe that day will be this year, maybe even at Jay...

Thatsagirl
 

Thatsagirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
liquidfeet said:
See you tomorrow. In the rain.

We did get to meet, but it wasn't raining! :smile: Of course, it did start raining at the end of the day. But I understand it's snowing at the mountain today... What's that saying? If you don't like the weather in New England, wait a few minutes?

Thatsagirl
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yes, it did rain, but not on us. The snow underfoot was fabulous, like spring skiing, but it did not melt at lunch! It just kept going...and going...and going, just like us. What a wonderful time we had.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I was just discussing the whys of the "hardy" label. There are whys for why we love it, too. So now I've started a new post just for praises of our Eastern snow uniquenesses! Check it out above.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Ski Diva said:
Yesterday was one of those days you get here in the east, when high winds blow all the loose snow off the surface and leave behind a bullet-proof sheet of impenetrable ice. So I thought I'd ask -- what techniques do our Divas use to ski in this type of situation?

Back to the original topic...
I skied ice yesterday at Attitash. There was only one trail open, narrow and winding at the top, somewhat steep, structured as a solid wavy boilerplate sheet beneath small-grain home-made that got shoved around very easily and stuck to nothing. At the bottom there was more of the same, only wider. It was a loud day (screeeeech, screeeeeeeeeeech.)

Some people skied a narrow line elegantly and fast down the stuff, not shopping at all for puddles of snow. Their skis were silent, their edges were sharp, their game was definitely in good form; they were carving the boilerplate. Little kids were wedging their way down in front of moms and dads. I was somewhere in between those two opposites.

I couldn't do what I did at the end of last season, which was intermittent ice carving. I screeched. I skidded. I shopped for puddles of snow. When there was no puddle, I shot across the trail in indecision about where-oh-where to turn.

However, by the end of the day skiers had arranged the snow in more orderly geometric patterns, and there were fewer huge plates of uninterrupted ice. I got better at looking ahead, so my aiming got better and my skiing got more turny. I placed the ends of my turns either on the uphill side of the puddles or right through their middles. Singing helped me maintain rhythm (sleighbells ring - are you listening?), and forced me to select a puddle NOW because the beat required it, thus eliminating the out-of-control traverses across the deserts of ice.

I have a lot of remediation ahead of me!
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Anybody else skiing ice out there, and want to describe how you handle it? Come on, you're out there lurking. You know you want to post your favorite way of getting down the icy hill. Tell all!
 

tcarey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Ok liquid,
I have not read through this entire thread so if i repeat anyones ideas I apologize in advance.There are many different types of ice so I will narrow it to the most challenging and that would be probably for most boiler plate or blue ice.It is at most times really hard to hold an edge on this type of ice unless you are a WC racer with a race tune.

Personally when I approach this type of terrain I will test my edges,if they don't hold I am not going to keep trying to get them to hold.I find just gently guiding my feet and keeping the turn round and skiided works quite well.If you were to approach a slippery sidewalk and had to walk across it all your moves would be soft and subtle.Jamming on your edges here is not going to work.The ski wont hold it will break free and the ski is getting away from you.Keeep moving you and your skis forward with finesse.Hopefully soon we won't have to worry about ice!!

Terry
 

Capucine

Certified Ski Diva
I am also from the East and I usually ski on the edges and avoid the center of the slope. That way I have fun doing short turns (good term?) while avoiding ice sheats. I never tried turning on ice. Maybe I'll try with my new skis...

It's true that snow here is hard but I remember many days of soft snow. Probably not as soft as in the West but not too hard either. I guess the way to get these conditions is to go early before the mob. The best snow I encountered here ine Qc is at Le Massif (Charlevoix). They often get fresh snow every day (not this year though!). I absolutely love fresh snow that was just groomed!
 

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
26,237
Messages
497,686
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top