Bumps and line selection, ski bumps like a pro

Originally Posted by tdk6 

Bump skiing is all about flexing and extending, lighting fast legs, short poles and big balls. And wrecked knees, right! Well, that maybe true to some extent but one of the most difficult things to do as a novice and for someone new to bumps is how to pick the right line through the mogul field. I can tell you from experiance that even great bump skiers do not ski down a mogul field without carfully planning ahead and picking their line down the moguls. The next thing that will be of a big consern is speed. Here are the good news, line selection and speed go together hand in hand. So learn how to navigate through the moguls and you will learn how to controll your speed. The moguls serve two missions. They tell us where to turn and they help us turn. They do most of the work. Bear with me for a second. Here is a mogul field. I think we are facing uphill but lets imagin its downhill. I dont think it matters much but it should mimic our view of the mogul run.




Looking at it plain like this might be confusing and selecting a line might not be that easy since the bumps are not evenly spaced. Here is the trick. When you ski bumps you do not turn according to a even beat. You do not call the shots. Its the mogul field that calls the shots. Or actually you do it but you do it in harmony with the bumps. Sounds nice doesent it. So lets look closer at what we have in front of us.... here we have the obvious line:



As you see the obvious line snakes through the mogul field nicely. Turning arround the bumps. Not a bad line. Stays close to the fall line and avoids the dredded bumps. Should be easy.... but hey, staying close to the fall line and avoiding the bumps smells like too much speed doesent it. Did I not just mention that the bumps are our firends not our enemy and we need them for speed controll. Thats right. Look at close to where my line ends how straight it becomes! This is something we want to avoid, at least in the beginning. Let me show you something:



In the photo above I have marked the parts of the moguls with read that I think should be avoided. Or at least the spots where I think turning might be difficult. Its a fearly steep part and its usually icy and hard ending with a check (zipper line [Holmer Simson voice]). Thats where most people turn and causes the moguls to wear in just that place. With violet I have marked the spots where all the snow ends up that the other skiers scrubb off the back side of the moguls and the ruts. And its also not steep. If the back side of the mogul is a black diamond then the front side (do I have the terms front and back in right order?) is like a bunny hill. Let me mark the obvious line here with blue:



Notice how the blue obvious line deflects off the fall line in the exact same spots marked red. Obviously offcourse. Problem is that our line will be looking like this:



To avoid this horror scenario we need to change our line. One way of doing it would be to make the turns more round but the check at the end of the red area is still going to cause problems for us in the beginning. In true zipper line skiing this is the line to pick but that takes lots of skill and good fittness.

My solution to this is to ski the moguls the other way arround. Perpendicular to the obvious line. This is not always possible but there is different degrees of doing it. My technique builds on burrying my ski tips in the violet area at a 90deg angle to the rut check marked with the blue line. Its a fantastic feeling when you slam into the bumps and the snow explodes. As you explode into the bump and your skis are heavily bent upwards and ready to launch you off into space you flex with your legs. As low as you need. If you get airborn dont be affraid because your speed will be very slow. Turn on the top of the mogul. There your ski tips and tails will be out of the snow and your ski will contact under your boot. Perfect for turning. Next you slip down the back side that is icy but you will have your edges engaged and ski in a fearly straight line. Let me try to draw it out in green for you:

 

Feel free to correct me if Im wrong. Any input very wellcome. Hopefully guys like BB and Pierre will join into the discussion. Here is the obvious line one more time in blue and my suggested line in red.




Here are a few other lines:



Here is the zipper line:



Here is what it might look like in real action. Powder on bumps is my favorite terrain. Hope you enjoyed the reading.


tdk6

From Todo:

The key to bump skiing is to have a great short turn, relaxed legs, strong core, active poles and ability to just have fun.

 

Originally Posted by Snowhawk 

TDK, a great post!  Love the visuals of various lines.

 

I'd like to add that IMhO, on top of the above, the most important skills of great bump skiing are the ability to flex and extend to maintain ski-snow contact and the ability to initiate those short turns in a flexed position.
Maybe I'm just fleshing out what relaxed legs means.

Most of the crashers I see are extending at the top of the bump and from there, it is all downhill.

Originally Posted by tdk6 

Thanks for all the great feedback. Is it tiring to ski bumps the way I do? Yes. The constant flexing and extending wears me out. The way I ski over the bumps I have to flex and compress much more in comparisson to someone skiing in the rut or between the moguls. However, the impact when digging my ski tips into soft snow on a mogul vs hitting the side of the hard icy rut with my ski bases is much more easy on my body. Much less abusive. And much easier on my toes and underside of foot. Here is a demo I made once of how to ski over a bump and how that compresses me. How Im extended before and after. You need to be very careful here since you can easily damage your knees this way. Always try to avoid full flexion. Always try to protect your ligaments with your muscles.