[BUMP FROM JANUARY]
It’s common when skiing hiking trails to encounter eroded uphills with obstacles where the stride and herringbone aren’t the only tools you need. You need a special new trick that’s not mentioned or taught anywhere but here. (Dang! Where do we keep coming up with these finds? Why, the Real World, and nowhere else!)
You need a compact side scamper, or “skidaddle” as RadNord got us to calling it. And if you don’t practice it, you won’t do it well. If done right it can be fast and easy. Done wrong, it’s slow or worse. In short, in gullies a herringbone doesn’t work AT ALL, but the “skidaddle” works great.
UPDATE: Here’s a goofy little video showing what I mean:
It’s like striding side-stepping. You rotate both skis enough to one side to get grip and compactly tread your way up. Since it’s often on a slope that tapers to the center of the track in addition to back downhill the best ski angle isn’t obvious: rotate ’em a bit farther than you think is best — they should almost slope down toward the gully-middle. One leg and pole lead the way. Take small leap/steps, keeping skis and poles low to the ground. Don’t reach up far otherwise you lose all hustle and start laborious side-WALKING/straining/floundering. Don’t step up too far, either. Keep a forward couch-tilt with ankle-flex. And don’t go too hard — it’s easy to go under. (I wonder if compactness is also key to herringbone?)
I haven’t skied hills enough yet this season to be expert at either move but pal RadNord is the master of the skidaddle. It’s very easy to find yourself left far behind him on steep uphills. I’ll try to post pics and a video to YouTube sometime soon to show the details.
True trail skiing uphills often twist around, with several features, and commonly include roots and shelves at various angles. So you’ll want to continuously change what you’re doing if you want smooth flow up such a hill. You’ll stride a bit, herringbone, skidaddle — sometimes jumping sideways and up to clear an obstacle while using your poles to “stick” hold your position. Skidaddling lets you get close before you leap, making all the difference — herringbone, again, just doesn’t work. Heads-up! –Look ahead and see which side of the trail slopes best, works best with root angles, drops, etc. Doing all this without using too much energy is part of the joy of trail skiing. Keep practicing!
Stinchfield has a killer but straightforward pitch gully where you can work on the basics of just the skidaddle. You won’t need or want anything else to get up it. Well, for parts of it anyway.
We just finished the Potto Raid 2012. A fit young guy joined us and did really well until his ski broke in half — and he did fine after that, too, since the base didn’t shear. He was hanging in there great, cleaning the dicey downhills, and who knows what kind of motor he could’ve laid on us if his racing ski hadn’t imploded on a drop-strewn uphill at the halfway (fragile skis don’t make good bridges). But the main thing was he said we were killing him on the uphills. He knew about the skidaddle but it was baffling him. He said he tried doing it but we’d still leave him in the dust even though we were just chugging along in “long steady” mode. So there’s a knack to it!
