After two days, the powder at Snowmass has started to succumb to the sun, and skiers, and nighttime chill. I haven’t been able to hit even all of the stashes that are available, much less those still closed off in this third driest Roaring Fork winter of my lifetime.
So I have to turn to the next skiing challenge, one I thought I would have given up by now.
Bumps.
Bumps – moguls – seem inaptly named, given the dilemma they present. “Bumps” is a benign sounding term, and “moguls” is simply too exotic. Actually, we’re talking about huge mounds of snow, relentlessly strewn across the slope by the snow riders who have gone before. The first guy carves a path, wherever he wants. Eventually, the fresh-cheeked surface gets all pock-marked and more timid souls have begun seeking the grooved paths that have appeared. Each turn throws up a little cloud of snow, piling up downhill. As more and more skiers and snowboarders seek the easier route blazed by their predecessors, those small sprays build up, peaks and valleys forming.
Bumps.
At first, the snow, while chopped up a bit, is still soft, and thus forgiving. After a day or two, though, the valleys become firmer, and the mounds coalesce, firming up into harder hillocks.
Both powder and bumps seem to rattle many skiers and boarders. Both environments tend to throw one about, breaking up the efforts at a smooth unbroken set of turns. To handle either one, strength, skill, experience, and confidence are all required. Soft snow wants to hold your feet in a fluffy embrace, disrupting momentum, mimicking mushy concrete overshoes throwing off the graceful timing possible on a perfectly smooth, groomed slope. Bumps also place a chain of gauntlets in the riders’ path. The constant up and down quickly throws a novice skyward, and ignominy swiftly follows.
But an accomplished skier has learned not only how to handle both powder and bumps, but also revel in them, enjoy the challenge, and find power in overcoming what seems a gruesome obstacle to others. Of the two, powder is easier as one ages. I call the new stuff “old man snow”. In powder, all the action is slowed down; one reaches a terminal speed from increased friction, and turns happen at a more leisurely pace. Once the sense of pressure at the ankles and calves is learned, and harnessed, a skier in deeper powder becomes more graceful, without really exercising much more effort. Still, to perform well requires both constant attention, and continued use of thigh muscles to maintain the stability required to stay upright. There is no point of relaxation, as there is when one is cruising between turns. This extra diligence and strength is off putting to many skiers, who thus tend to avoid powder. That’s OK for the rest of us, who prefer to keep the secret feeling of floating effortlessly, which is the endpoint of mature powder skiing, to ourselves. It’s why we are always the first ones up the lift on a powder day, why we don’t reveal our secret stashes, nor tell others precisely where we’ve found the good snow that day.
Bump skiers are not so possessive about their favorite lines. Hell, let everyone come and chop it up, it only enhances the value of a well-skied bump run. The tougher, the better. Only problem is, as the bumps get bigger, the work gets harder, and the shocks more rattling.
As I turned 60, three years back, we were in the midst of a two year cycle of heavy snow dump winters at Snowmass. The bumps, such as they were, tended to be routinely covered with fresh snow. Skiing Bumps ‘n Powder is the epitome of a good time – all the fun of a powder day, with none of the work. The bumps actually do all the heavy lifting; all I have to do is let my feet flow up and down by letting the bumps bend my legs for me. As long as I don’t try to ski with a stiff lower body, as long as I remain vertically flexible, the mountain and the slope do the skiing for me.
But last year, the snow cycle turned. Less snow = more bumps, more bouncing, more compression, more need to buffer the upward pressure of the moguls. At some point, the equation between the steepness of the slope and the size of the bumps requires one either turn faster, or get thrown up and around by the constant terrain changes. “Old men” don’t like to get thrown around so much – it tends to rip stiffened knee ligaments, challenge our slower reaction times, and wreck havoc on lumbar vertebrae starting to de-calcify from incipient osteoporosis. We stand down, and say, “I guess I’m getting too old to ski the bumps anymore,” and just avoid them.
Last year, at a very specific place and time, I thought I had reached that point. On my favorite patch of bumps somewhere in the middle of Raider’s, I felt a searing pain behind my right kneecap. I was testing some skis Cody thought I’d love, Salomon Sentinels or Lords, or some Volkls, I can’t really remember. All I remember is thinking, “ if it’s gonna hurt like this, I guess I just can’t do this any more.”
I went through all sorts of mental contortions, thinking my right knee and thigh muscles were just not up to the task, that I would have to stop the pounding to save my ability to walk in the future. But the next day, it snowed a little, maybe 2” or so, and I went back to a set of skis which Cody had provided, which were billed as powder skis, but I thought might be more versatile than advertised.
These skis actually look like something a cartoonist would draw up as a caricature of a ski. Pastel blue, very wide up front, far wider than any ski on the hill, they are often described as water skis or surfboard. They’re from Salomon, and called BBR. I no longer follow the technology of skis, camber, width, rocker, materials, whatever; I don’t know a thing about those details. All I know is, these skis rock. They can handle ANYTHING I want to ski. Heavier than normal, due to the oversized shovel, they nonetheless turn whippet quick like a slalom racing ski. Built for soft snow and crud, they have a wide sweet spot, a forgiving center of gravity allowing easy turns in a mogul field. As I get older, and less strong, the skis get better, and thus I don’t deteriorate.
So I‘m back this year, on my BBRs, wondering if they can handle the moguls as well as I remember. And if I can ski more than 2 or 3 runs a day on the bumps, ski them basically all day, like I used to 20-30 years ago.
Yes. And Yes.
All my running, and indoor cycling on the trainer, and religious addiction to one-legged knee bends, has paid off in better balance and persistent leg strength. I hop from Powderhorn to Campground Liftline to Wildcat to Zugspitze to Promenade, then, leaving Sam’s Knob, try out AMF, Timberline, Power Line, Can o’ Corn, and West Face on the Burn. Reidar’s, Showcase, old Alpine Springs liftline, Tom’s Trace, the Wall, Grey Wolf, Elk Camp liftline, Long Shot … over two days, I hit them all, the Snowmass panoply of bumps. Even KT gully and the Dikes get a scrapping from my BBRs.
I don’t get tired, I don’t get sore, and all I get is more and more confident. Another opportunity to keep doin’ it till I can’t.
Wait till next year.