From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: rec.skiing
Subject: Re: Question to more advanced skiers (bumps)
Date: 23 Dec 92 04:22:45 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1992Dec21.035423.4667@wam.umd.edu> bgohari@wam.umd.edu (Babak Gohari) writes:
>Dear more advanced skiers:
>I have a sort of important question.  I'm a relatively new skier (i.e. been
>seriously skiing for a little over a year, been skiing as a whole for three)

Hard to know what to make of this -- seriously skiing can mean you spend 
70 days on the slope last year as a ski bum, or can mean you took a lesson...

>Anyway, I tend to ski mostly blues (or greens even, if they're fun and
>I don't want to embarrass myself for falling).  Let's just say that I can
>probably ski most blues without falling at a reasonable speed and control.

OK, so you are some sort of advanced beginner, beginning advanced, 
whatever.  You can survive on nicely packed, buffed corduroy conditions.
Not surprising that you have some difficulties in the bumps. 

>The question I have though is this: how do you stop on bumps?  Usually on
>normal runs, if I feel I'm going too fast as to be about to lose control,
>I slow down greatly or even stop (providing that there's no one behind me.
>I tried that once without making sure, and some snowboarder didn't have
>anti-lock brakes <grin> so he hit me pretty hard).  

Sounds like you need to find a new ski area, or pick better places to 
stop.  The best place to stop is one turn before the turn before you 
start to feel you are losing control.  This also helps reinforce your 
good habits rather than the bad ones that get you in trouble, and 
allows you to pick a safer spot to the side, out of traffic.  Making 
a hockey stop in the middle of any run is dangerous. 

>                                                   But on bumps, it's very
>hard.  I can't always skid-stop because of the bumps, and snowplowing
>usually doesn't work at the higher speeds (at least I can't get it to work).

What is clear is that you need to work on your parallel technique.  The 
bumps are not much fun until you can make nice tight carved turns with 
a radius equal to the distance from the top of a bump to the valley 
between the moguls.  Lessons are clearly called for.  

>What I usually end up doing is (now don't laugh) to turn so that I actually
>start going up the hill and lose the momentum.  This sounds stupid, and
>looks even worse, so my question is: is there any other way to stop on
>bumps, especially many mini-bumps in a cluster?  Thanks.

You are to make a careful detour around those poor baby bumps, so that 
better skiers can nurse them into adulthood before the groomers get them. 
You should, of course, crank a turn off of each of those babies, one 
right after the other, and jump over any that get in the way.  But when 
in a major panic, there is nothing like a turn uphill to slow down. 
Just watch out for the person in front of you, with similar skills, 
who might make a sudden traverse into *your* path with the same move.

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
Newsgroups: rec.skiing