Fig. 19.
Herring-boning.
If the slope is steep, herring-boning is too exhausting to be kept up for more than a short time by anyone but a trained athlete, but on a gradient which will allow the skis to diverge at only a slight angle it is easy enough.
Getting up from a Fall.—If during any of these manœuvres you should fall down, you may find some difficulty in getting up again.
The first problem is to disentangle the skis, if they have become jammed in a complicated position.
The best way to do this is generally to begin by moving your body as far away from them as possible. If, for instance, you have fallen with your head downhill, wriggle yourself still farther downhill. Next lift your skis into the air, either by rolling on your back and raising the legs from the hips, or by rolling on to your face and bending the legs backwards from the knees. It is generally possible to free the skis in this way, but occasionally one cannot move without unfastening them first.
Having freed them, place them parallel in the air, and roll round on your side so as to bring them to the snow on the downhill side of you and exactly at right angles to the fall of the slope.
This is important, for, if they are pointing either up or down hill, they will, of course, begin to slip the moment you put your weight on them.