How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

There is one difficulty about steering among obstacles which it may be as well to mention.

Suppose you are running down or across a slope with a tree straight ahead of you which you mean to avoid when fairly close to it, by swinging, say, to the left.

As you already know, you must, at the beginning of any turn, lean forwards, perhaps even a little outwards, never inwards. Now, if there were no tree in front of you, you would probably have no difficulty whatever in making the turn, but the fear of running into the tree will at first be almost certain to make you lean away from it as you begin the turn—that is, backwards and to the left. You will then, if you don’t fall down at once, at any rate fail to turn sharply, and so will probably do exactly what you were trying to avoid, viz. run into the tree.

Àpropos of trees, let me remind you that turns are mainly for steering, and that therefore, except just at first, they should be practised where steering is necessary—i.e. among trees or other obstacles. Unless you take every opportunity of practising them there, they will be of little real use to you. You should soon be able to make downhill turns on any open slope with ease, and will soon afterwards cease to find much fun in doing so, but there is no end to the difficulty and therefore the interest of turning quickly among obstacles, and anyone who is or wishes to be a good ski-er will not be happy unless he gets plenty of wood-running. Nor, for much the same reasons, will he be contented without plenty of bad and difficult snow, a fact which you should lay to heart at the outset.

I have already said that when running fast on ground that is covered with hard ski-tracks, you should try to avoid crossing them at a narrow angle. You will sometimes find that you want to run a traverse on a slope closely covered with hard parallel tracks, leading exactly the way you want to go and steeply enough to make running in them extremely unsteady. Your best plan here is to run almost or quite directly downhill across them for a short distance, and then to turn upwards with a Christiania and make a longish traverse at a less steep angle than the tracks; your low speed then enabling you to cross them at a narrow angle in safety. By repeating this process you will reach the point to which the tracks lead almost as quickly and far more comfortably than by following them. To make alternate direct descents and gradual traverses in this way is also convenient when you would otherwise have to run a steep stemming traverse.

By paying careful attention to all the above points you should soon be able to run safely and steadily, and to get down any ordinary hill with few or no falls. This also means that you will accomplish the descent in pretty quick time, provided that you never stop if you can possibly help it, and that after a fall you get up without either hurrying or dawdling.

This kind of running makes no great demands on your skill, and still less on your nerve. Its main object is the avoidance of falls, and at first this should certainly be your sole aim. But if you wish to become a really good runner you should not allow it to remain so for long.

The first-rate runner has absolute command of the various swings, &c., and can stop suddenly or dodge among obstacles at a pretty high speed with perfect steadiness (at very high speeds it is impossible to turn or stop suddenly; the curve of the swing is then bound to be more or less long and gradual). He never turns or stops if he can help it, however, but runs everything as straight as he can, and at the highest possible speed.

There is not the least doubt that to take a hill in this way not only demands the utmost skill, but gives the greatest pleasure that ski-running, pure and simple, can afford.

It is not unusual to hear a man who never takes the easiest slope without constant zigzagging, say that he does so because he prefers going slowly and spinning out the run to dashing down in a quarter of the time. He infers, if he does not actually say, that the fear of speed has nothing to do with his choice.