Snow Skills

Develop mental toughness by skiing new terrain in small doses. To develop glade terrain skills, start with a glade where the pitch is relatively gentle and the trees are generally spread out. Ideally, the glade would be parallel to a cleared trail where you could enter or exit the glade as desired. Pick out your route two turns at a time; then stop, scout two turns, and start again. Add move turns as you become more comfortable skiing in limited area. To improve short turns, ski a narrow trail that goes straight down gravity; an abandoned t-bar line would be ideal. Like a roadway, imagine a centerline that creates two lanes reaching to the treelines. Make your turns so that each turn uses one lane by beginning and ending at the centerline. You’ll use all the trail from treeline to treeline; start by doing sets of five turns slowly. With practice, you’ll be able to increase speed and ski the entire length of the trail without stopping. This is called “corridor” skiing and you can set up a similar situation on wider slopes using the same imagery.

The creation of mental toughness is surely not achieved by skiing fast or placing oneself in dangerous situations. It’s changing your skiing and riding through developing self discipline and improving control in almost all situations. Expand your comfort envelope as gently or aggressively as desired and the rewards will be great. Remember, if you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got!