David_Parker

I'm finding I need more hip angulation too, especially at higher speeds on flatter slopes. I know I'm angulating enough if I feel my beer gut spare tire above my hips squeezing together and getting pinched. If you are washing out, you're not unweighting soon enough. With the shaped skis, it's harder to get them to stop turning and start coming back around the other way. Skiing on one ski in tele gear is the ultimate challenge.

The good thing about todays monster, plastic tele boots is that you can get in the back seat and recover just the same as alpine gear. Bode Miller does ski on 165's and is totally on the edge most of the time of being too much in the back seat. Acceleration coming out of a turn happens when the tail of the ski flexes and then sligshots you as the turn is completed and you unweight for the next one. One milisecond too long in the back seat will cause you to miss the next gate or at least have to crank really hard causing excessive edge pressure and lose speed. Bode is the king of recovery and it blows me away how he can recover on 165's. The guy is just plain friggin' strong and a master of the modern ski racing dynamics. I guess when I was talking about coaching ski racing, I wasn't thinking of teaching skiiers at Bode's level. I was thinking more of kids or any skier learning to ski race. For me, I attribute ski racing to taking my skiing to the next level and really understanding the dynamics of a properly executed carved turn. All skiing and boarding is about carved turns (if you want to be an expert). You still have to find the sweet spot to initiate and maintain a solid carve all the way through a turn and that still means finding that balance point between too far forward and too far back. It begins with forward pressure and ends with back pressure and not going to far either way. There is a "range" in the middle to work with and perfect. My only point to all skiers is that doing parallels on teles will help you find that much quicker. Interestingly enough, I feel I am once again "learning" to ski. I have just moved into plastic boots and shaped skis for the first time. The dynamics to perfect my skiing with this new equipment is making me think again. Eventually it will become second nature and I will not have to think, but just do it! I am enjoying the challenge though.

Yeah, you're right, T-1's aren't very stiff. And since they don't make releasable bindings for tele skis, you definitely have a point. You should be the coach! Actually, skiing in less stiff boots will only teach you more about edge pressure, weight distribution, angulation and other subtleties of skiing.

I wish I could assess routes from that far away. I usually have to stick my face in it to really know.

Hmm, some of you AT guys seem to think it's special to do a parallel turn without your heels locked down. I don't think it is. Thinking back to the days when I was racing and knowing what I do now after years of tele skiing, if I were a ski racing coach, I'd make all my students run gates on tele gear (or AT w/o heels locked) to figure out exactly where they need to be standing on their skis. I think I was a little too far forward and this would have revealed it quite quickly. Then again, this idea may no longer be appropriate for today's racing since Bode Miller seems to be way in the back seat quite successfully! Short, parabolic skis, breakaway gates and hockey gear sure have changed ski racing from the good old days where you actually had to go around the gates, not through them. I still think Ingemar was the best ever and the Maher bros right behind! Still, not much room for error doing parallel turns without fixed heels. A great teacher to perfect your skiing.

Ok, so I tele pretty much exclusively. But unlike popular opinion, for me it's not just so I can do tele turns under the lifts and calf streches in lift lines. I ski resorts as well as the BC (and also in British Columbia!) because it's what I've done my whole life and at resorts I like getting in lots of turns in all types of conditions all day long. It gets me in ski shape and I like the "practice." But when I'm skiing lower angle groomed runs, I don't feel compelled to make tele turns and actually enjoy a good solid parallel carve like when I used to alpine race. Anyway, yesterday at Crystal Mt. I saw a guy on AT gear making "tele" turns on an intermediate groomer and I had to ask, why the hell is he doing that? It's not really a tele turn when all your boot can do is hinge in front of the toe. He was pretty good at it, but still it made me wonder. Do any of you AT skiiers ski down with your heels unlocked? If so, Why?

I always wondered about you Parker. Yup, I do! I can tele ski, fixed heel ski, or board with girls and boys! Yee-hawww! Had a great day with my son. I kept asking him where he wanted to go and he just kept saying "I'll just follow you Dad!" Took him down Powder bowl face, hiked a little for freshies in Green Valley and through his first narrow little chute. Gotta love the fearlessness in some kids! He's my new ski bud for sure!

Right now it's in New England! Over 40" at Sugarloaf!

I'm heading to either one fairly early Monday morning 12-8. I can go either way. Anyone is welcome to join me if they want a ride. best to call 206-714-4300

Yo, Radon, I like skiing Hurricane Ridge bc, so let me know any time you want to hit it. One thing is that they seem to be very conservative about opening it if there is fresh snow and it's windy. It's difficult to predict but Mondays and Tuesdays are not good unless it's perfect weather. They do make a best effort to get it opened Fri, Sat and Sun. The real problem is you can't find out until about 8:30 in the morning and usually you want to be well on your way by then.

TLG, what you say may be true for fixed heel and knuckle dragging, but for tele, you won't gain anything on the bunny hill. It's not like the blue runs are very steep or anything, but you need some steepness/speed to drop a knee. BTW, do you tele?

I have a literally brand new pair of Rottefella Hot Chilis with risers. These are normally about $125. You can have them for $75. PM me or better call me 206-714-4300.

Monarch icefield this summer. There were a lot of classic moments I'll never forget. When the 2 season Walrus tent blew down and he kept mumbling "hmmmm. I don't know about this Walrus stuff, I think we shoud send it back!" But the real classic was when after being tent bound most of the trip because of a broken rib he finally went for a walk one morning. He sauntered over to below a dirty rock face where shit obviously came down. It was the only spot on the whole glacier not to go and he sat down right in the debris pile and just hung out for awhile. Not sure what he was thinking at that point but we had a good chuckle over it!

Grab some of those old wood and gut snowshoes while you're at it. They are suddenly worth big bucks too.

For Alpine climbs in winter, wart-hogs work in frozen dirty, mossy cracks. I carry a baby angle, a kb, 2 tricams red and purple) and one of those russian ice screws on my harness regardless if I'm leading or following. I figure one of them will work in an emergency.

It's a slide and I still have it somewhere in one of my slide trays. I should find it and make it into a digital image. I'm with Matt. I do not plan to ever fall ice climbing and I don't want to climb with anyone who thinks falling while ice climbing is no big deal. It is.

I might take em. Bring them to the next event.

I held a leader fall on the last pitch (pillar) of Stairway to Heaven in Provo Canyon. Partner popped and went hard on a snarg. It held fine and another guy with my camera caught him in mid air. Haven't seen too many photos of ice climbers logging air time...classic! I got to finish the pitch after that. I always wondered about snargs, but that proved they were ok.

i believe they dont. www.borealusa.com You big Lummux, YES they do! I know because my high tops were ripped off. I tried to get Kaukulators but couldn't find them, didn't like the megas so ordered Boreal Ballet Gold from Feathered Friends. Go talk to Todd, he'll get you dialed. Not many other options I was able to find.

Dryad, skip the bunny run. Advance directly to blue run, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You'll learn faster. Flat sucks on tele skis. May as well parallel.

I heard Will Glaad will be giving a mixed cock and ice clinic over in Ouray too. Party in the hotsprings after!

E-rock, it just aint so. As an ex-Utah resident, it can say it is the greatest snow on earth. (Colorado is for people who haven't discovered Utah yet). There are cons though so what you say is valid, Our snowpack is more stable and predictable which means we ski safer and steeper shit. The Wasatch is crowded and competes with heli-skiers and resort expansion. But damn, I'll take the best fluffy light chest deep run down Cardiac bowl anyday over our best coast range snow. You never get up to your tits and need a snorkle to breathe in snow here.

Moved on to Heroin, eh Billy!

Hmmm, just realized cookies may be a good way to cross the border! Do you think they'd figure it out if you co-mingled them in a bag of (brand name) cookies. You could even play russian roulette with them!

The waterfall stop is before Yelapa which is not on an island, but the mainland penninsula where no roads go. Yeah, the waterfall trail was covered in horseshit, but I guess I had fun cause I was with my kid. I agree, the beach was better. I ordered a red snapper off the menu and the next thing I see is the waiter running down the beach. I think he went to find a fisherman to get one! An hour later I got the meal, but it was cool cause all I was doing was drinking cervesa under an umbrella. I couldn't find a decent sea kayak in all of PV, but if you could, that would be most excellent. I did take out a squirt sea kayak and went through some caves and tunnels at some sea stacks just off shore where they like to take tourons snorkling. The scuba diving was ok but the Pacific is never as good as the Carribean.