Snow Skills

In driving, your responsibility is to avoid what’s in front of you. That’s basically the Cardinal rule in skiing and riding, too; you should ignore what’s above (behind) you and avoid only what’s below you. Unlike a road, however, there’s usually little organization to a trail and there could be skiers/riders overtaking you from any direction while you are overtaking others from any direction. With so many moving objects (and no rear-view mirror), you’ll want to make every effort to know what’s around you including uphill.

A good image for how to look uphill on the slopes to look is the way the pilot Maverick in the movie Top Gun was constantly craning his head in all directions while in flight, shouting; “Where’re they at, Goose, where’re they at?” A fighter pilot looks backward alot, and it’s a good idea for a skier/rider to do so as well in some situations. One ideal situation is when making direction changes that take you more across the slope than down it. Your sudden “changing of lanes” could place you and another skier/rider on a collision course that the uphill guy can’t avoid. Wide trails with lots of traffic are another location where keeping an eye out for overtaking traffic would be helpful. And when merging at trails, it’s your responsibility to look uphill for oncoming traffic and that’s part of the Skier’s Responsibility Code.

One other thought; looking uphill shouldn’t be in exchange for paying attention to what’s in front of you. If you can develop the confidence to be looking in directions other than where you’re headed, you can increase your awareness for what’s around you and possibly encourage safer situations.