Technique/drills for skiing chopped up snow?

[LauraVa]

Try lifting up your toes. That helps me, maybe because it helps me get over my skis? YMMV

 

[newboots]

My regular mountains are Mountain Creek and Camelback just because they're so close, but I've also spent some time up in Stowe (2 trips), Whiteface, and Killington. Do you find that there are skis that perform well in any or most conditions? Or do you typically have to get another pair of skis to handle specific snow conditions like that? I'll probably look into purchasing skis either at the end of this season or at the end of next. I want to try demo-ing a variety to see what works best. That said, I primarily ski east coast so I feel like I'd need something that can handle groomers, ice, and slush all in one since the conditions change all the time.

I’m not nearly as experienced as the others here, so if someone contradicts me, she is probably right! I ski at Okemo and Killington. My new skis (Black Pearl 82) have the rockered tip, so they are good for a bit of powder and piled-up stuff, and crud. They’re longer than my other skis. For ice (standard East coast stuff, boilerplate, man made, and ice) I go back to my Blizzard Quattros, that are cambered but no rocker to speak of.
when all I had was the Quattros, I skied them on everything. A relatively new skier, so I wasn’t laughing in six inches of fresh snow then.

 

[mustski]

Try lifting up your toes. That helps me, maybe because it helps me get over my skis? YMMV

Second this. It does help because it gets your ankle bending correctly and brings your weight forward. I live on the west coast so I don't have good suggestions for an east coast ski. However, I live in SoCal and come the end of February, we start with rock hard corduroy from a melt freeze cycle, start to soften up around 10:00 AM and are skiing full on spring crud by noon. I personally like Volkl skis for these varied conditions. A mid fat Volkl will be stiff enough for the slick groomers, wide enough to smear in the softer snow, and rockered enough to help in the crud.

I also agree with @SkiBam - you do want to weight your downhill ski more than your uphill ski but you do need to still control the uphill ski so the edge doesn't get caught by the crud.

 

[misfitgirl]

Just tried the lifting toes thing while standing in a "skier stance" and yes, it automatically caused me to bend and lean forward a bit - thank you!