If they are quite level, and your feet are exactly below your body, you have merely to push yourself up with the arm which is underneath you and stand erect. If you want to help yourself up with your stick, do not poke it vertically into the snow and try to climb up it, for if the snow is deep and soft you will only plunge it farther in without getting any resistance. Lay it horizontally on the snow, and it will then give you enough purchase to push up from.
On level ground it is harder to get up again than on a hill side, owing to the difficulty of getting the skis underneath one in order to get to one’s feet. After freeing them and placing them parallel, lie on your side, draw your knees as close to your chest, and your feet as close to your thighs as you can, lay your stick flat under your side, and, with a vigorous push on it, you ought to be able to get your weight over the skis and stand up.
Never hurry, or try to struggle frantically to your feet without any definite method. You will merely exhaust yourself. It is impossible, as a rule, to get up without going through the various manœuvres that I have described, but these take a very short time if they are performed smartly and accurately.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF STEERING, Etc.
This chapter is mildly theoretical, and may be skipped by the reader who believes in nothing that is not, in the ordinary sense of the word, practical; for in it he will find no definite instructions, but only a description of the behaviour, under different conditions, of the skis when in motion, and an attempt at an explanation of it.
I advise him, however, to try to read it, for I think that what I have to say here is, in a broad sense, strictly practical. I am convinced at any rate, that if, when I began ski-ing, some one had given me the information which I am about to try to impart, and which, for the most part, I have slowly collected for myself, I could have reached in a month the very moderate degree of skill which it has taken me five seasons or so to arrive at.
If the reader can thoroughly grasp the few facts with which this chapter is concerned—and he can take my word for the facts, whatever he may think about my comments on them—he will, I think, find it far easier to understand, remember, and put into practice the instructions which he will find in the subsequent chapters, as to the various swings, turns, and other manœuvres for controlling and steering the skis, and keeping the balance while running downhill.
Before proceeding any further, I had better, in order to avoid any chance of being misunderstood, explain certain terms of which I shall constantly make use throughout the rest of the book. These terms are the “edging” and “flattening” of the skis, and the “inside” and “outside” of a curve.