Snow Skills

When moving down a slope, control requires turns and turns need to be efficient and efficiency comes from strong turns and strong turns come from good balance and good balance comes from steady edges and steady edges make a turn round and round turns give you control. As in all things in life, everything goes full circle! So, how do you accomplish any one of those factors? Forget that goal; you can have it all if you use the mental image of a train while making turns.

Consider that trains are made up of several units, each linked to the next with a joint. Those joints have only a limited range of motion, so trains generally move on tracks that have turns that are very broad. From the air, railroad tracks and highways look similar except that the tracks will have softer curves since they can’t turn as sharply as a motor vehicle. If a train moves at too high a speed for the degree of turn or becomes herky jerky in its movements, the joints are overwhelmed and the train derails. So, trains rely on making a number of methodical, precise movements of its individual units to produce an overall effect of a sweeping, steady arc of the entire train.

This is an awesome mental image for making a turn on snow in any gear! It’s up to you to make methodical, precise movements that allow your gear to produce a turn to give you control. If you push, brake, jump, stem, twist, shove, or otherwise force your gear, you’ve essentially derailed your own train. By holding a mental image of the sweeping motion of a train, you’ll be more focused on letting the gear do the work and will produce a round turn. And from the long line of reasoning listed above, round turns are controlled turns.

Use your tracks in the snow as a visable clue as to whether you’re making round turns. If there’s any part of the track where the edge skids or breaks away, you need to get on the train!