Month: January 2016

One Footers for Better Turns

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One footers are one of my favorite drills for developing upper level skiers of any age. I also use them for teaching bumps and powder. You can do these on most terrain, but the easier the better to start. I usually start by doing  traverses standing only on the uphill edge of the uphill ski, holding the downhill ski off the snow. This let’s you start getting used to balancing on the little toe side of your foot. It will feel strange! After 4 or 6 of those I start angling the traverse a little more down the hill and finish the traverse with a small turn up the hill to stop. Again, I’m only standing on the uphill edge of the uphill ski. After some more practice, I start trying some shallow turns. Here is where you want to be on very easy terrain. Hands wide for balance and a flexed ankle with pressure against the boot tongue will help a lot! After some practice you’ll be ready to try the advanced version like Bode Miller in the video.

Take your time practicing these and pretty soon you’ll find you can turn left and right standing on either foot. Using more two footed steering, edging and pressure will help your powder and bump turns as well as carving on groomers. Have fun with these and making the jump to expert skiing.

See you on the hill, Chris

 

Nate Greenberg and the 20-year Transformation from Clueless Amateur to Practiced Backcountery Pro

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By Henry Dodge for TGR

Based in Mammoth Lakes, California, Nate Greenberg has been backcountry telemark skiing in the Eastern Sierra for nearly 20 years. He’s skied a lot of gnarly lines and covered an immense range of terrain throughout his time spent exploring and skiing, making him one of the most knowledgeable backcountry travelers in the area. Through his experiences, Nate has made huge contributions to both the Sierra backcountry community and the snow safety community at large, Greenberg co-wrote a comprehensive backcountry guide, Backcountry Skiing California’s Eastern Sierra, that provides people with beta and advice on lines to ski from two Eastern Sierra veterans with years of experience in the region.

Aside from writing, Greenberg also helped found the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, in 2006. The Center forecasts avalanche conditions each day and acts as a free platform for people to interact and share their experiences out in the backcountry. ESAC provides forecasts for a huge area of terrain and has become an invaluable resource for backcountry enthusiasts in the Eastern Sierra. TGR caught up with Nate last week to talk about backcountry safety, his personal experiences, and the future of skiing.

What was the motivation for restarting the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center?

Greenberg exploring the Eastern Sierra backcountry. Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo. 

It’d been about 20 years since there was an avalanche center in the Eastern Sierra and there was very limited snow safety information out there for backcountry users in the area. We felt the need to get the center operational again and felt that it could really provide backcountry skiers and snowboarders with the information they needed to make good decisions while traveling in avalanche terrain.

Our goal today is to act as a clearinghouse of information. We’re essentially a common resource which users can rely upon both to contribute data and have conversations with other users. We are also an authoritative source for snowpack and avalanche conditions in the Eastern Sierra. Since 2006, the center has spawned some really healthy and important decision-making factors in the community which we hope will continue.

Was there a catalyst that made you think the avalanche center was a necessity?

Nate looking out at an view in the backcountry. Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo.

I think the most striking moment for me was the third fatality in the Eastern Sierra during a 15 year stretch. Three off-duty ski patrollers, all of whom were good friends of mine, triggered a slide while skinning up Mt. Walt in the Bridgeport area. It was one of those ‘wrong-place, wrong time’ situations. A lot of wind had loaded that slope from the day before from a large fetch that was over a ridgeline that they couldn’t see.

It wasn’t a very big slide, but big enough to knock them off their feet. One was lucky enough to grab onto a tree and let the slide pass. One was carried through open terrain and partially buried with a head injury, and one dragged through a bunch of trees, which caused enough trauma to ultimately kill her.

It was a pretty chilling experience because it made us realize that there was a lot more going on out there than many of us considered. I look at a lot of other incidents that have happened in the Eastern Sierra over the years, even if they didn’t result in fatalities, and they’re very similar to that avalanche in 2006. The wind is a big factor for us. That incident really shook the community and left a lasting impression on me personally.

What’re the goals for the ESAC?

Greenberg and friends skinning up a mountain. CamelBak / Dustin Clark photo.

One of the main goals this year has been to get more people interacting with the Center. The core area that the Center forecasts for is between Lee Vining and Bishop–roughly a 90 mile stretch along Highway 395. It’s a huge territory, and with two forecasters, the only way we can effectively cover the entire area is to get good data and involvement from the community itself. We really have been pushing to get folks to contribute data by posting observations to the site or even less formally by having discussions online about what they’re seeing out there.

How has the job of the avalanche center changed this season with the El Niño winter?

Greenberg looking at some untouched pow! Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo. 

I think once we see the El Niño really turn on for us, the biggest thing that we’re going to be focusing on is that after 4 years of drought, people are jonesing and will want to go ski big lines that they haven’t been able to ski. A big change and focus for our forecasters is going to be really driving that awareness, so when a bunch of these shallow snowpack areas get a bunch of snow on them, people understand the risks and what could happen. In most areas, there is still less than a foot of snow on the ground, which is creating more of a Continental-like snowpack. Most backcountry users in the Eastern Sierra aren’t used to persistent and buried weak layers. So once El Niño starts to throw on a lot of load on these slopes with new snow, how’s that going to impact future stability? More importantly, are people going to be able to asses the conditions adequately?

How’s the Sierra snowpack different from other popular backcountry destinations? What makes it unique?

Shredding freshies in the backcountry. Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo.

For folks who haven’t been to the Eastern Sierra, we generally refer to it as the region between Bridgeport to just south of Lone Pine. That couple hundred miles is pretty unique compared to the rest of the Sierra in that it’s quite steep and has a huge elevation range, with Death Valley being the lowest point in the continental U.S. and Mt. Whitney being the highest, both within roughly a hundred miles of each other. The other thing that’s really unique about the region is the way the range is set up and the way the drainages more or less cross-cut it.

It’s predominantly a north-south running range with east-west running drainages. There are summer roads in almost every one of these drainages that head west from Highway 395. This gives the region a lot of really diverse terrain and there’re huge opportunities for ski touring and ski mountaineering between tree skiing in the lower elevation areas to high altitude opportunities on the 14’ers, and all within roughly 200 miles of each other.

How has your view of backcountry safety progressed during your time in the backcountry?

Nate surveying lines in the Eastern Sierra. Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo.

When I first started skiing in the backcountry, I obviously didn’t know anything and was kind of just poking around. There was a motivation to get away from the ski area and get away from people. I was aware that there was avalanche risk, but none of it really made sense to me.

Things really started to change for me in 2000 when I took a professional level 2 course taught by Ian McCammon and Don Sharaf. That course opened my eyes to the potential out there and in many ways it was those guys who inspired me to look at not only backcountry safety, but that experience also planted the seed for the beginning of the avalanche center and in some ways even writing the ski guide.

In terms of equipment, clearly the overall industry trend of equipment evolution and change has opened up opportunities for more people to get into the backcountry, and it’s made it easier and more enjoyable. You start to bring the airbag thing into the conversation, and that starts to change things. I think there’s this perception that “I’ve got this thing on my back and if something goes wrong it’s going to save me.”

I personally look at beacons and airbags very similarly, because by the time you have to think about using either one, something is very wrong that should have been avoided in the first place.

Is there anything lacking in the backcountry community in terms of safety?

Nate and friends skiing untouched pow. Dustin Clark/Camelbak photo.

I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily anything lacking, but there’s no replacement for taking a true avalanche course and having a mentor. Mentorship was one of the things that I sort of lacked during my skiing career, and it wasn’t until I had a few key people put me under their wing that everything started to make sense. I think that those of us who have been skiing in the backcountry for a long time or have experience in a certain range know that there’s a lot of opportunity for people to really impart knowledge on up and comers.

There’s a lot of excitement out there in the community and obviously the industry as a whole is trending more towards backcountry. And people should understand what it means to take that on. Not just going out and buying a handful of different avalanche tools and assuming that they’re good to go. It’s scary to see the number of avalanche deaths of skiers and snowboarders rise. I think that there needs to be a lot of emphasis put on the path towards becoming aware and educated and able to make good decisions on your own while traveling in avalanche terrain.

Balance in Skiing

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BALANCE IN SKIING: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACKWARD

What is balance in skiing? It depends on who you ask. The only limitations seem to be the imagination of the various authorities in skiing. Typical explanations of balance don’t differentiate between balance associated with staying upright by any and every means and the sophisticated, subconsciously mediated, processes of balance responsible for the maintenance of upright postures and locomotion. The latter involves the management of forces in the feet or foot between the soles of the feet or foot and ground. The coordination and orchestration of these forces by the CNS, maintains the position of center of mass (COM) within the physiological limits of the base of the support in a state of dynamic equilibrium. In laboratory environments, where balance has been studied so throughly it can be analyzed and quantified, balance is expressed by the relationship of the center of pressure or COP (the point center of ground reaction force) with COM. The location and excursion of COP is indicative of the position of COM as expressed by the gravity line, G, or resultant force, R. No physical forces associated with balance activity are present in the sagittal (side-to-side) or coronal (front-to-back) planes. The balance process is mediated entirely by the central nervous system (CNS) at a subconscious level. Given the extreme sophistication of the hard-wired  mechanisms of balance we were born with, there is no valid reason why balance in skiing should be any different.Without knowing where the forces in the feet should be and how and where they should move, we have no idea how to balance perfectly on our outside ski as those such as Marc Giardelli and other world class racers and elite skiers have alluded to for decades; let alone have any idea of what balancing on the outside ski should feel like. Two studies done in 1998 by a team from the University of Ottawa provide some insights.

ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRESSURES UNDER THE FEET OF ELITE ALPINE SKI INSTRUCTORS: Dany Lafontaine, M.Sc.1,2,3, Mario Lamontagne, Ph.D.1,2,3, Daniel Dupuis, M.Sc.1,2, Binta Diallo, B.Sc.1,2,3. Faculty of Health Sciences1, School of Human Kinetics2, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Anatomy program3, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

“Thanks to recent developments in biomechanical instrumentation, research on alpine skiing can now be performed in on-piste situations. Therefore it would be of interest to determine what is happening under the feet of high level non-racers, such as ski instructors (my emphasis added).

“Three highly skilled ski instructors (CSIA level IV) consented to serve as subjects for this study. Their usual ski boots were fitted with pressure sensitive insoles linked to the PEDAR mobile system which they wore on their backs (Novel corporation, Munich). With their boots so equipped, the subjects performed a variety of turns of controlled radii on a groomed piste. The turn radii were controlled by markers on the snow surface, and were consistent with the guidelines of the Fédération Internationale de Ski, for turn size. Subjects skied on a groomed piste, while the PEDAR system recorded pressure data (sampling rate 50 Hz) onto a memory card. A video (60 Hz) recording of their ski runs was also made to facilitate analysis.

Results:

“What has come out of the results at this point of the study, is that the pressure recorded under the feet can be quite high. The highest pressures are measured on the medial parts of the heel, as well as the medial parts of the forefoot (under first metatarsal). The centre of pressure travels from under the first metatarsal joint down to under the medial part of the heel of the skiers, as they make their way through the turn (my emphasis added), These highest pressures reach up to 30 newtons per square centimetre. Force-time histories reveal that forces of up to 3 times body weight can be attained during high performance recreational skiing (my emphasis added).

Conclusions/Discussion:

“It is quite likely that the type of equipment (skis and boots) worn by the subjects had an effect on the values obtained (my emphasis added). The individual technical adjustments of the skiers may have also had an effect on the measurements. One thing is certain, the centre of pressure moves from the front medial part of the foot, back towards the medial side of the heel as the skiers progress through the turns.”

 

ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRESSURE UNDER THE FEET OF ELITE ALPINE SKI INSTRUCTORS: Dany Lafontaine, Mario Lamontagne, Daniel Dupuis & Binta Diallo, Laboratory for Research on the Biomechanics of Hockey, University of Ottawa, Canada – Proceedings of the XVI International Symposium on Biomechanics in Sports (1998), Konstanz, Germany, p.485.

“In alpine skiing, the feet are used as both a steering device and an important source of sensory input (my emphasis added). It has become quite common for instructors and coaches to ask their pupils to feel pressure under certain parts of their feet in order to ski better. It has also been a trend in skiing to inform students to initiate turns through the application of pressure in the forefoot area and to progressively “roll” from the front to the back of their feet. All of these instructions rely on master instructors’ perceptions of what they feel while executing a ski turn. Historically, it has been quite complicated to perform biomechanics research on alpine skiing on-site. This fact is so because of the environment where the sport is practised which does not lend itself well to biomechanical measures using traditional equipment.

“The trajectory of COP was consistent between both feet for all turn types (my emphasis added). Results showed the COP following a near linear trajectory for the Dynamic Parallel, Short Radius and Basic Parallel turns. This trajectory had the COP move from the head of the first metatarsal at the beginning of the turns, and progressively migrate towards the medial aspect of the longitudinal arch near the end of the turns (my emphasis added). However, the COP travelled from the head of the first metatarsal to the medial aspect of the heel during Giant Slalom turns

“A factor that was not controlled during data collection was the equipment worn by the subjects. The skiers wore different boots, and used different skis, although two of them had the same brand and model of skis and boots. It still has yet to be determined if that factor had any effect on the results. A point that all the skis that the subjects used had in common is that the skis were all sharp side-cut skis (also called shaped skis). Another equipment variation which may have affected in-boot measurements, is that some subjects (n=5) wore custom designed footbeds, while the other did not (my emphasis added). As was stated for the skis and boots, it has yet to be determined if this piece of equipment affected results or not.”

 

– The Skier’s Manifesto

Working Out Essential to Skiing

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Klaus Obermeyer as active as ever at 96 years young

Age-defying Aspen icon Klaus Obermeyer celebrated his 96th birthday Wednesday by — how else? — yodeling, eating apple strudel and trading tales with friends.

Obermeyer, who created skiwear manufacturer Sport Obermeyer in Aspen in 1947, hosted a party at his firm’s headquarters at the Aspen Business Center. He joined the Bavarian band Alpine Echo for a couple of songs and treated the audience to a few yodels. The strudel was topped with generous heaps of whipped cream.

“It’s just good to see some friends,” he said.

Prior to the party, Obermeyer told The Aspen Times that he remains in good health and gets out on the slopes as often as possible. Conditions were excellent Monday after six inches of snow fell, he said.

Obermeyer’s fitness routine grabbed the attention of The Wall Street Journal, which ran a feature story about him Monday. The headline on the story in the “Life” section was: “At 95, a Lifelong Skier Says the Source of His Vitality is His Workout.”

Obermeyer talked about his regular routine of swimming at the Aspen Meadows resort or the pool at his office building, practicing the “peaceful martial art form” of aikido and, of course, skiing.

He told The Aspen Times that he swims a little more than one-half mile every day. “In one year, I swim (the equivalent) of Aspen to Denver and then the next year I swim back,” he said.

It’s little wonder that some of his employees have stickers or patches that say, “Be Like Klaus.”

Obermeyer remains in the thick of running the company he founded to keep skiers warm and coming back to the slopes when he was a ski instructor at Aspen Mountain in 1947. He is credited with creating the first down parka.

Sport Obermeyer’s business grew 15 percent in dollar volume last year, he said. They are looking for 15 to 20 percent growth this year.

He credited the success to Sport Obermeyer’s focus on skiwear. “There are few companies left that specialize in ski clothing,” he said.

The company’s motto is: “Technical and stylish ski clothing designed and tested in Aspen, CO.”

Skiwear is continually getting lighter without sacrificing waterproofing, he said. It’s breathable but also warm. “We just keep making things that work better,” he said.

Success also depends on good snow. While California suffered through another drought last ski season, there was decent snow elsewhere in the country. “Most Mom and Pop specialty shops are in the East, and they’ve had a lot of snow the last two years,” Obermeyer said.

Early-season snow throughout the western U.S. helped spur sales this year, he said. Obermeyer is always fond of saying snow makes people in the ski industry look smart.

He’s looking smart after nearly 70 years in business, and he’s definitely still having fun.

 -Aspen Times