Although, as I have said, the skis need never be quite parallel at the middle stage of the turn, you must take great care to bring the first ski far enough round to prevent the least chance of its slipping. On a steep or icy slope, where the skis at this stage must be brought nearly parallel, the kick-turn becomes difficult for the stiff-jointed; I have even known two cases in which it was apparently impossible. If, as is highly unlikely, your case is similar, you can always roll round on your back with your skis in the air—a simple but snowy process.
If you dislike this, and if, though the joints of your legs are stiff, the muscles are strong and active (a not unusual combination), you can as a last resource jump round, facing downhill as you turn. The main difficulty in this is to prevent the heels of the skis from catching in the slope when half-way round, and the best way to prevent them doing so is to jump as hard as possible not directly upwards, but out from the hill, so as to land below where you take off. In order to bring round the skis close beside each other, press the knees together throughout the jump. Hold the sticks near their middles, and jump from the toes, not the flat of the foot, with a free swinging action, not a hurried jerky one. This jump needs little skill and is easy enough on a moderate slope, but on a steep one becomes very hard work, for there the skis have less room to turn, and a powerful spring is necessary. The jump round, therefore, being most difficult under the same conditions as the kick-turn, and much more tiring, is hardly a satisfactory substitute for it; I only mention it as a perfectly possible one.
Fig. 16.
Zigzagging without turning.
The accompanying [diagram], which is practically the same as one in Mr. Richardson’s book, “The Ski-Runner,” shows how, by walking alternately backwards and forwards, one can climb a steep passage, just wide enough to allow zigzagging, without wasting time in turning at the end of each tack. A description is unnecessary. It is, of course, possible to make the tacks of any length, but the number of steps in each must always be an even one, as the tack must be started with the upper foot and finished with the lower.
Half Side-stepping.—In tacking uphill among obstacles you may want to traverse at an angle so steep that the skis would back-slip if you tried to move straight forward in the ordinary way. You will then have to step sideways as well as forwards with each ski, the upper one starting the process and the lower one being drawn up to it, and then advanced. [Fig. 17], a, shows the track that will be left.
This must of course be done without pointing the skis uphill more steeply than the angle at which they could traverse in the ordinary way. In lifting the upper ski sideways you are sure at first to point it uphill too much ([Fig. 17], b 3), when, if it does not slip back at once, you will tread on it with the heel of the lower ski at the next step ([Fig. 17], b 4). To avoid this, do your best at first to place the upper ski horizontally across the slope, lifting its heel well upwards and away from the other, pointing the foot downwards and inwards, and turning your body so as to face a little downhill.