A Powder Skiing Crash Course
Literally—more new snow today; more powder skiing. Ordinarily these are the kinds of days that would have kept my dad off the mountain, but he got a new pair of Volkl Mantras, and I have to say, the skis have made a huge difference. He not only skied today...he had fun. I'm going to have to put up a review of those Mantras sometime.
Just by reputation alone, they're a fantastic ski. If you're not familiar with it, it's a wide (94mm) but not mega wide all mountain ski with a powder tilt. So instead of skiing by myself today, I got to ski the deep with my dad, and chuckle every time he suggested we head for the next stash of untracked powder. Funny thing: while the Mantra lets my dad ski powder, he hasn't picked up all the tricks of the trade that you'd normally acquire over the years skiing powder.
Example: while skiing a wind-scoured catwalk on a white-out ridge top, I watched my dad ski directly from icy hardback into a big wind drift. He didn't realize the wind drift was going to act like an anchor, and he went right over the falls, doing a nasty-looking cartwheel and leaving both skis buried behind. Luckily, no injuries resulted. :) We spent a few minutes looking for the skis, and then he got right back into the saddle and kept skiing.
Another great day!
2 Responses to “A Powder Skiing Crash Course”
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Sierra Journal says:
Yeah man the Mantras are fab. That’s what I ski on in-bounds myself. They really migh tbe the perfect ski. That’s what I’m skiing here at a deep powder day at Squaw a couple weeks ago: http://www.sierrajournal.com/2009/03/video-tidbit-powder-day-at-squaw-valley-.html
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Scott says:
I remember that I didn’t like skiing powder until I ditched my GS skis and bought some Salomon 1080 Guns. Now I spend all my time hunting for it. Powder is just so much more fun (or fun at all) on the right ski!
