We have so far talked only of hard and soft snow, but the snow surface is sometimes a breakable crust, into which the skis cut, and in which no sort of stemming is possible. Your only way of going slowly in this is to traverse at a very slight angle; if you then want to stop, you must step round—that is, you must lift the upper ski, put it down again pointing horizontally across the slope, and instantly lift the lower and bring it down parallel with the first. Be careful to throw your weight well upwards and forwards as you put down the upper ski, and not to let the lower remain on the snow for a moment after the first has been brought to it again; it is safest to give a little jump from one to the other.
Either by stepping round, or by any sort of stemming, you can of course make a change of direction when traversing if the gradient of the slope varies; as you pass on to steeper ground, for instance, you can weight the heel of the stemming ski for a moment until it is again horizontal, at the same time flattening the running ski a little and letting it slip down to the angle at which it was pointing before. This is really an embryo swing, as you will see later; one important reason, in fact, for learning all the methods of braking thoroughly is that they are the elements of which the swings are composed, each variety of swing or turn being either a development of one method of braking, or a combination of one with another.
When you become more expert you will not often have to stem while traversing if the ground is open, though even then you will often find it convenient to brake in one way or other when going straight downhill. In thick wood, however, you will find it indispensable to be able to go at a moderate speed in all sorts of snow and at any gradient. It is also worth remembering that to stem straight downhill at an ordinary pace is a comparatively fast process. It is not so pretty and needs much less skill, but it is quicker than running freely in tacks of an ordinary gradient and connecting them by downhill turns (explained later).
When running down a narrow path or the like it is sometimes impossible to brake effectually, as there is not room to put the skis in a wide [V] position or to Telemark-stem; it may then be permissible to use the stick or sticks as an aid. [Plate XXI.] shows a way of doing this. The arm supported against the thigh gives a firm purchase—firm enough, in my experience, to hurt the wrist a good deal if the points of the sticks catch something hard. This manœuvre is hardly ever necessary unless the path is very icy; if there is much of this, and you want to go slowly, you may just as well walk with your skis on your shoulder.
When you can do all that has been explained so far, you may (if you have steadily refrained from using your stick except as I have directed) consider yourself quite a respectable ski-runner in a small way. There will be nothing to prevent you from going for any expedition of which the uphill climb is within your powers, for whether you are going uphill or downhill, there is no sort of ground that cannot be negotiated by one or other of the manœuvres that I have described.
But, though a perfectly efficient tourist, you will not be a very fast one downhill until you have learnt how to stop and steer yourself in any sort of snow, when running fast, and will tire yourself unnecessarily on steep or difficult ground until you can run in zigzags without coming to a standstill between each tack.
The different ways of doing these things are described in the following sections.