I haven’t gone xc skiing in two years, and i’m excited to finally get out to royal gorge tomorrow. but i’ve never been any good at turning or stopping when i get speed going downhill. this is a problem because i love the uphills but don’t go up them too much because i risk crashing on the way down every time. help me out here guys. how do i get better at this?
Most of us have the same problem. My husband says that his heartrate is higher on the downhills than the uphills for this very reason.
I’ll let the experts chime in here (kurt and dev?) but when turning, it always helps me to focus on quick feet and keeping my weight centered and balanced. And, oh yeah, you don’t need to stop. Just ski all day!
Good Luck, and send some snow my way.
-Brian
some quick points, before I head out to roller ski:-)
- soft knees, you want to be able to absorb anything your skis might hit
- nice and neutral on the ski, do not “squat” back or lean to far forward
- IMPORTANT…Hands out front, do not drop them to your side or let them get behind you. Imagine a small steering wheel between them, “turning” through the downhill turns
- look where you want to go, and dont fixate on where you dont want to go
…lastly, point them and have fun!
Kurt
I’m certainly not the best XC descender, but I can usually hold my own on most descents. In additions to what Kurt says:
Look at where you want to go, not the rut in the snow 4 feet in front of you Be super light on your feet and turn by making many very small steps, not by “carving” the snow or skidding out Point your belly button at where you need to go next (hips square to where you want to be. Picture a slalom skier, whose hips are already pointing at the next gate as soon as they make the apex of the turn at this gate (as Kurt says, keep your hands in front of you pointing towards where you need to go and this will force your hips from getting twisted out of alignement)
Man, I am jealous. Royal Gorge is my favourite place to ski in the world, despite the 7000 foot altitude.
Dev & Kurt have the best points for this. The hands out front thing is HUGE. Many new nordic skiers just drop there hands at their sides. Keeping the hands out front and low changes everything for the better.
I second, or is it third, the hands LOW and out front and looking where you WANT to go, not where you don’t.
I also say take a lesson. Royal Gorge has some great teachers and the conditions today will be good for trying and falling. But seriously, lessons are always worthwhile.
as was said by others most important is to keep your upper body square to the fall line and your weight centered fore and aft also suggest trying to put as much weight as possible on the uphill ski as even when it feels like all of your weight is on it you are likely about balanced between the 2 - the steeper and faster, the lower you need to be
you could also check out earnyourturns.com for endless debate about backcountry skiing technique and gear
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Here’s my method:
A trick I use to teach people is find one of the slopes at RG that has a tow rope and a small downhill run. There are three of them at RG. I don’t know if they will all be operating due to the lack of open trails. If not, have a friend take your pole down a run while you practice. If you get freaked out, the drill can be easily done at the ski scool slope, it’s just more work if you don’t have gravity helping you out.
Drop you poles at the top, you won’t need them for this drill.
Now picture yourself carrying a tray of full water goblets in front of you and you don’t want to spill any. It will position your arms out in front of you about shoulder width apart, a slight bend in your knees, head up and looking ahead. I’ve actually filled dixie cups and done this teaching kids and it works really well.
Don’t be afraid to dig into your edges a little. I regularly see people falling because they don’t have the confidence to dig in and parallel ski on them. Sure you don’t have a metal edge, but you do have a hard edge that will allow you to cut well. Just keep your heel well anchored in the back slot on your binding and you will be fine.
I’ll be up there Wednesday the 27th through new years day myself. I’m racing my first season this year after many years of sitting on the sidelines saying “I could do that”.
Cheers,
Karma
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That’s a great exercise. It’s also great if you can find an open slope, at an XC area, an alpine skiing area or even in a local park that has a low to moderate slope with packed down snow. In this situation you can just go down and up as long as you like to practice, practice, practice. Many people’s fist encounter with downhill skiing on xc-skis is in the woods on a narrow trail, which can be very intimidating.
good hints from the experts here…
If you can snowplough, just shift weight from ski to ski while gliding in the wedge, and you’ll be able to turn. Practise this on one of the easy wide slopes first.
here’s what I do when I can’t snowplough:
- sideslip: turn sideways to the hill, and slide down sideways, turning the edges in to the hill for braking
- sidestep: similarly, but step down the hill, edging into the hill with each step. Nice safe and stable. I took my 8yr-old down an icy hill with a 90deg turn above a cliff this way, last weekend.
- On one of Fleck’s ‘narrow trails in the woods’ I either put on skins and slither slowly down, or take off the damn skis and walk…
if you want to test your skills someday…come do the Craftsbury marathon. Classic, 50K point-to-point with some of the narliest downhills around, twisty and steep…and they get skied off quick.
I have never done that race and NOT fallen at least twice!
Kurt
thanks a lot everyone. i only got to read the first couple of replies before leaving this morning, but it was really helpful. when i got to the first steepish downhill i stopped and thought about the hands out front and light feet stuff and then basically just went for it. it was a blast, and luckily i only hit the ground once or twice. by the end i was feeling fairly confident. also, the weather was beautiful today. i think i’ll probably spend another day up there early next week.
on a related note, what’s a decent speed to be going? I have no gauge for this since i don’t have a bunch of skier friends or anything to compete with and there aren’t many people on the trails usually. what would be the equivalent of something like an 8 min mile in running? I’m skiing classic by the way.
Getting low makes a fall seem less treacherous, as people have advised. Keeps your mind a little more at ease. Stay light on your feet and quickly step through the turns. Most skiers find descents much more comfortable on skate skis.
If you get good enough, give tele turning a try on xc skis. It’s a lot easier on skate skis, since you won’t stick your wax when you set your weight back. Make the downhills fun, not something to be terrified of. Not exactly a survival technique for difficult descents, but can help you scrub speed/look cool (and that’s what counts, right?)
Ski speed is such a variable it’s hard to give any answer. On the flats while double poling you should be moving pretty quickly- faster than you could run at the same threshold. Uphills should more or less be the same speed as a run, given good kick. I’d just judge it based on perceived effort.
Royal Gorge…man…never skied there but have heard it’s great…very jealous. I’m just waiting out these snowless days in the east here until my weeklong ski camp at Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec. Just thinking about screaming around some of their black diamond trails and climbing/descending Lac-Ste-Hilaire keeps me going out to fight traffic most days on rollerskis. That, and the Keski in Feb.