posted
This is an introduction to cross country skiing for our good friend Sara S. I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m positing it to the general Hatrack populous, she should feel free to post anything for to the same way.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on anything skiing, all my knowledge comes from growing up in Colorado, spending a fair amount of time cross country skiing. This is not definitive, merely an introduction.
If you’ve been downhill skiing, try not to remember it, or at least don’t try to apply anything you learned there to cross-country skiing! OK, maybe that’s over0-reaching a bit, but the two aren’t really very related considering they’re both called “skiing”. Downhill is many times faster, and the skis will give you much, much better control over your movement. You also can’t go any direction but down, so I kind of hated it, but whatever you think of it, don’t think that you can conquer the same kind of hills ccs (I’m not planning on typing out “cross country skiing all the time) or that it will much of a similar experience.
If you’ve never been ccs before, you do need to know how to move around. I could try to explain it but it’s a waste a breath, or, computer space in this case. Simply remember, the front of your foot is connected to the ski, to move, raise your heel and press forward. Really though, just clip yourself in and start trying. You’ll learn exponentially faster that way, and the motion explains itself. It will take some time to get used to, but don’t worry about if you’ll know how, you’ll know.
Some tips on clipping in, every boot is different, first, sit down and figure out how it’s supposed to work. Try clipping the boot into the ski without your foot in it. Clipping in and then getting out is one of the most frustrating parts of skiing for beginners, don’t let it get you down! When you do clip in (with your foot in the boot this time), remember that when you press forward the ski is as likely to slide out in front of you as allow your boot to clip, if you can, it’s ideal to clip in somewhere that will prevent you ski from sliding (like putting the front up against a wall). Most of the time this is not feasible, and you’ll have to deal with the frustration of these things sliding all over the place. It’ll get better, I promise.
Now you’re clipped in and ready to go! Do you have your polls? Good, because the polls, while technically not necessary for the skiing motion, are a great help both in pushing you forward, and in keeping balance, the latter being especially important for those not accustomed to ccs. Put the polls not much farther out than shoulder width (really shoulder width is best, but in the beginning, it might not be all that feasible), and always try to keep one poll stuck in the ground. When you put it in, don’t throw it at the ground, it’s just like a cane, it doesn’t have to be buried into the snow to work, just press down as you f eel comfortable.
By now you should be ready to go skiing! At first you’ll be slow, just go in circles on flat stuff until you get the hang of the motion (a couple minutes maybe). Turning is going to be hard, but if you go slowly you’ll pick up. This is all stuff that can be frustrating to learn, but your body will know how to do my reflex, don’t over-think it, do what comes natural.
All right, you’re able to shuffle around without falling over too much, it’s time to adventuring! Most likely you’re going on trails, ones that are pre-groomed, this is good, if you make your own tracks it may be more “real” ccs, but it’s a heck of a lot more work, very, very slow. Of course as a result it’s safer too but life needs some risk.
So you’ve mastered the flat, let’s say we check out a few of these hills. Look there’s one!
If you’ve been down hilling before this hill probably looks inconsequential, don’t let that fool you! If you haven’t been down hilling, then this is probably Mt. Everest on steroids, don’t let that fool you either. Hopefully your first hill will be short, maybe 30 yards long and not very steep. If you’re truly scared by the hill you see in front of you, don’t do it. Fear will make you do something stupid, your skis will cross or you lean to hard to one side, whatever it is, you’ll fall over and it’ll ruin your first impression, which is a shame because in my opinion hills are even more fun to down in ccs than downhill skiing.
The first and foremost lesson you should learn about going downhill is a technique called “snow-plowing”. This is something no self-respecting serious skier ever does, it’ll be your most valued friend in the coming trials, learn to love it. It’s pretty simple, point the tips of your skis together, which will of course force the ends to go wide, it’ll look like an upside down ‘V’ from your perspective. What this does is significantly increase the cross-sectional area on your skis so that the friction slowing your descent is magnified. It works very, very well. You could go down some of the steepest hills without topping 10mph with this technique.
Some things to note, the biggest danger with snow-plowing is crossing your skis. You’ll let one ski go momentarily faster than the other and it will run on top or in front of the other ski. Once this happens there’s nothing you can do but prepare to fall. This will happen, so don’t be embarrassed when it does, and don’t worry about getting hurt. You’ll be going slowly and you’re falling on snow. True no fall is completely without risk, but it’s not that likely to get hurt this way, heck sometimes falling can be fun!
Another thing to watch out for, you skis may get caught in a previous skier’s track, this will either force them to turn too far inwards, and lead to the same crash, or to force them to go straight down the hill. This doesn’t mean you’ll crash, but you’ll start going faster. The biggest thing that can happen to you when you go fast is your fear, you’re always far more stable than you think you are going downhill, what gets you is the fear that you’ll fall, that’s the number one cause of falling! So just stay calm, try to force your skis back into the snowplow position, and keep focused. Your first hills should be shallow enough, or short enough that even if you went straight down them and fell at top speed you wouldn’t even notice, but just keep in mind that fear is the biggest danger, not speed.
Finally, when you snow plow it’s easy enough to control your speed, if you’re going to fast, just create a more defined ‘V’, a bigger angle between your skis, if you want to go faster, just straighten them out a little more. When you want to turn (try to go straight, but if you have to turn due to terrain, or due to you unfortunately veering of course) try turning by changing the angle of one ski and shifting your weight, these are the two best ways to turn. Don’t use your polls! If you do, going any sort of velocity, it’ll be a crash situation. Instead, practice on some smaller hills turning even when you don’t have to, you’re body will not what it’s doing better than your head, just try stuff out, falling wont hurt early on.
OK, now that you can go down hills, what about going up? Sometimes a hill is shallow enough you can just point your skis right at the top and start going. It gets frustrating though when you start slipping down even as you struggle to go up. When this happens, form the opposite of the snowplow with your skis: point the back ends together and the front ends apart from each other. This time it will look like a normal ‘V’ from your perspective, then just step each ski up (this is about the only time you’ll ever want to actually “lift” when wearing skis) and act like your on a perverted stair stepper. Just step up the hill. The biggest thing to watch out for with this maneuver: letting one ski slide over the other behind you, when you try to move, you’ll fall over.
All right, you can go flat, you can go down, you can go up, at least ass best you can from a written explanation of this, now one final word about the process of skiing itself, falling. Falling wont be that dangerous, you’ll be going slowly, and it’s snow, but there’s still some good technique to falling. For one, don’t land on your head or your skis, it hurts! When you realize you’re falling throw your weight to one side, falling on your side wont hurt, and you’ll avoid hitting your skis, it also put you in control of the fall, instead of gravity, so hopefully you’ll avoid awkward falls.
Putting on boots is a very big way to get frustrated skiing, the big other problem people have, and this is probably the biggest, is getting up from falls. There’s no technique really, at least none that I know of, each fall is different. What makes it so frustrating is how slippery your skis are, you’ll try to get up and put weight on one foot, just to find it slipping out in front of you. When you do start to get frustrated, don’t be hesitant to just unclip your boot, stand up, and then walk down to a flat place and clip in again. Try to use your polls when getting up, they wont slip like your skis. Other than that, my advice is too watch out for that frustration, nothing will kill the good time of skiing like getting worked up over not being up, when you sense happening, calm down, do things slower, and probably just unclip, you’re here for a good time.
All right, that’s about all I can tell you about the process of skiing, how about some related suggestions? Since this is for beginners, and since Sara linked to where she was going, we’ll just assume pre-groomed trails, marked paths and the like. This is very good, it’ll be much more fun when you’re starting out. So now, how do you plan out your day?
First, don’t plan it out from beginning to end, pick some interesting spots, something you want to see along the way, or, more likely, some hills you want to do. Start looking for some little hills to practice on, and try to have a goal for a hill you get all the way down without falling for the end of the day. Don’t worry about planned routes, just have fun doing whatever you want. If you plan a route that’s too easy you’ll get bored and distracted, too hard and you’ll get frustrated. Of course planning a route that’s just right would be nice, but when you haven’t skied before chances are you wont be able to do this, there’s just too many variables. So like I said, pick some highlights you want to do and then just ski where you’re comfortable.
When it comes to dress for the excursion, my best advice is dress for the weather outside just as it is, as if you were going jogging, or on a strenuous walk, and then put something water-proof on top of that. CCS is very strenuous work, you’ll get tired and sweaty, no need to make it harder on yourself by over-dressing. On the other hand, you will fall, a lot. And if you don’t have something waterproof on you can get very wet very fast, which is no fun either. So dress from a hard activity but try to keep the water out as best you can.
Well there you have it, my suggestions and hopefully useful advice for beginning CSS, I wish you the best of experiences, go out and enjoy!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[The Wave]](graemlins/thewave.gif)
