How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

Since the edge of a skate is, in shape, the arc of a circle, a skate, when edged, cuts cleanly round without side-slip, and so in a sense does a ski, when simply edged, for its heel then follows in the track of its point. An edged ski, moreover, like a skate, turns more or less gradually, according to the angle at which it is edged. But while a skate, the edge of which is curved throughout, touches the ice with only a very small part of this edge, and is able to make a curve of very small radius, a ski touches the snow with nearly the whole length of its edge, the greater part of which is quite straight. This straight part so far neutralises the turning action of the curved point, that a ski made to turn simply by edging is unable to make anything but a very long and gradual curve—so gradual, indeed, that for practical purposes of steering the edging of the ski, unaided, is absolutely useless.

Fig. 21.

But though, contrary to what one might expect, the edging or flattening of the skis may practically be disregarded as primary factors in a turn, they are, as we shall see, of the greatest importance as secondary ones.

Before a ski can be made to turn at all sharply, its heel must be got out of the track of its point and made to travel faster on a curve of its own (as in [Fig. 21], b). The ski as a whole, in fact, must be made to side-slip more or less as well as move forward.

The first question, then, is how the ski-heel is to be got out of the track of the point in order that the side-slip may start. If the ski is pointing nearly directly downhill, whether flat and running straight, or moving edged in a long curve, there is—apart from the help of the other ski, which we will leave out of the question for the present—only one possible way of doing it. The runner, by means of sudden—though not necessarily more than a very slight—muscular effort must jerk it more or less broadside on. How he makes this effort need not be considered here; we will also defer the consideration of the other ways in which the side-slip may be started. Supposing it has been started, it must then, by edging or flattening, be encouraged to continue, if the ski is to go on turning.

It depends on the quality of the snow as to whether a ski side-slips more freely when flat or when more or less edged. If the surface of the snow is hard and icy, or if there is a mere shallow layer of loose snow on a hard crust, a ski will slip sideways either when quite flat or when slightly or even strongly edged on the side from which it is moving.

The flat position would in this case be the more favourable if the hard surface were perfectly smooth; this, however, it seldom is; it usually has small projections which, when the ski is quite flat, strike its side and check or stop it, while, if the edge is raised, they strike its sole obliquely and affect its motion but little.

The flat position, then, is not advisable as an aid to side-slip even in the case of hard snow; on snow of any other kind it is still less advisable, for if the ski sinks deeply into loose soft snow, or even but a little way into dense soft snow or into a thin crust, it can hardly be induced to side-slip at all when held quite flat, while when more or less edged, it can usually (if already in motion) be made to do so without much difficulty.