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!