Basic Skiing Overview

By Author: Groshan Fabiola
Total Articles: 2678
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Snow can be the best plaything on Earth. One can have a snow ball fight and make a snow man with it. One can spend a chilly Sunday afternoon sledding down it until it is nothing but muddy mush and the snow clothes need cleaning. One can use it for a home like the Eskimos and polar bears do. One can snow ski on it, either for recreational purposes or for a professional competition. Regardless of what one is skiing for, it is always fun, until someone misses getting off of the chair lift! Watch out for that skier, it is a sign that they are a beginner and will run into you, if you are in their way.

In order to ski, one needs the right equipment. No one should be skiing in shorts and a tank top, but it has been done (and not well). If you are a beginner, you will be falling a lot, and mostly on your rear. Strapping a pillow to it will not help because it will just throw your balance off. So, get some warm, cushioned snow bibs, or a snow outfit, a nice warm jacket, woolen socks, because the electric ones do not really work all that well especially when they get wet, gloves, hat, ski boots, and skis and hit the slopes, preferably ...
... the bunny hill.

The bunny hill is the hill where people learn to ski. There will be ski instructors there with classes made up of kids who are in 1st grade to grandparents who have never skied in their lives. This is the best place for a beginner to be because it is a gentle slope with minimal trees and a very slow ski speed. Here, the beginner will be taught to ski by using the "snow plow" technique. This is where the skier begins moving and has their feet in a V shape. When they want to go faster, they move their legs a little closer together. When they want to stop, they push the V out farther. This gets them ready for the next stage of heliskiing, the green hill.

The green hill is still for beginners, but also for novice skiers. Not too many instructors will take their classes here because skiers are working on getting the techniques of starting and stopping down, taking a chance on how fast they can go, and gaining confidence. There may be a few more trees to line the green hill or runs, but they are not in the way of the skier. They are more of a natural fence than anything else.

The blue runs are for advanced skiers. Novice skiers should not try these runs until they are skiing down the green runs without stopping, falling, or feeling afraid. The blue runs contain steeper slopes which allow the skier to "slice" down the mountain instead of using the "snow plow" catskiing technique. There may be moguls which are bumps in the snow that a skier can either ski over or ski around, but these can throw a skier off balance and into the snow, if they are not careful. The moguls here are usually visible, to give the skier time to decide what they want to do to get over the mogul.

The black diamond and double black diamond runs are the hardest runs. They contain moguls, a steep slope, sharp turns, and other obstacles that an expert skier would know how to negotiate. The thing to remember about skiing is to never leave the trail. It could kill you.

For more resources about heliskiing or about catskiing, please review these pages.