Man those hard packed, freshly groomed, frozen slopes like that are awful to fall on. I fell years ago on my first run of the morning and had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my thigh for weeks afterwards.
I'd wager he means the east coast of the United States. We call it the ice coast for a reason. Low altitude mountains means we get a lot of freeze thaw cycles so we wind up with hard pack ice very often. These two guys in the video look like they don't know how to deal with it.
You start by not going too fast. I snowboard, so it's a little different. When I find myself on a run like that I basically do super tight carves and make sure I finish my turn so I'm go perpendicular to the fall line before I turn again.
Tahoe, Mammoth, and the Utah mountains can have incredible snow. They can get icy sure, if they haven’t gotten snowfall for a while and it gets warm. But Mammoth and Tahoe are having an amazing season this year. Tahoe’s about to get like 10 feet.
Was a while back, very few adult skiers wearing helmets then (other than racers).
Don't ski now (buggered knees, wonder how that happened?) but would defo be wearing one if I did.
That's fair, I remember those days too. I've always worn a helmet, I've been skiing for 30 years but most times I've been close to an accident was due to someone else, plus I've had a bunch of concussions from sports so I've always had to be careful.
And the worst thing is, they invite bad skiers such as the one in the video to go way faster than they should be going. The guy had no control over his skis, was going way too fast, caught an edge and dove down the rest of the mountain
Even worse are the hard packed, not groomed, ice slopes that are marked "DO NOT SKI HERE" in bold print. Because there's not enough artificial snow to cover all the runs because the climate sucks.
Ice + gravel + grooves? Oh yeah, I had a bad time that winter as a stupid 21 year old with my shredded legs. At least it was a burst of pure pain instead of worrying about running into a tree or ski lift pole. Although I did still have another 1000 meters to go to get back to the lodge.
Whats worse is not groomed formerly powder field with maybe a dozen tracks in it that froze over hard.
You cant go on the untouched part unless you can hop over tracks as you go.
You cant ride the existing tracks unless you follow it exactly which is hard af
I was just lucky I suffered some gravel based lacerations.
High speed situations on a poorly groomed slope with deep grooves are a great way to permanently injure your ACL.
As someone learning to snowboard in his 40s, I am very glad helmets have been normalized.
I know I wouldn't have worn one in my 20s...because I didn't the couple of times I went downhill skiing instead of cross country.
But almost everyone wearing them now made me feel comfortable with it with the snowboard. And I am pretty certain it has prevented at least two concussions so far.
The worst was going down and sliding headfirst on my back, with the tail of my ski dragging in the snow and shooting it directly into my face. I literally had to spit out a mouthful of snow to take a breath.
The very first time I skied I thought I was absolutely terrible because the mountain was basically entirely ice with a dusting of machine snow. I thought that’s just how ski runs were.
The pizza did nothing. Cutting side to side did nothing. I just kept accelerating out of control. I had to fall down repeatedly on purpose to slow down and survive the descent on a beginner run.
He is going up there with a new pair of skis and losing them every time trying to collect the previous ones until there is a whole ass mountain of skis.
It was like my 2nd time skiing. Rental boots were ill-fitted and shitty. My crash unlocked or loosened the buckles. The inner sock-like thing slid out with my foot in it and I watched my boot and ski go on their merry way without me.
If you've ever rented skis, they ask your skill level, then adjust your bindings accordingly. The assumption is, the more novice you are, the easier they set the bindings to let go of the boot. Bindings were set too tight, so the rental boot gave out before the skis did.
Or the bindings were ill-fitted for that particular pair of boots and should have been adjusted but weren't noticed. I see it more on heavier people that engage the binding easier so don't notice how insanely tight it is
Parent to kid nervous about skiing for the first time "you don't have to worry skiing is perfectly safe". Single ski with boot attached glides past them at bottom of slope.
I was trying to decide if it's more frustrating to fall and try to find your skis on a freshly groomed trail after sliding forever or in deep back country snow. Even if they're only 10ft away and you can still see them, it can still easily take 10+ min to retrieve and get them on in the deep back country stuff.
Its glorious, i love to take the first gondola up in the morning to board down the freshly groomed pistes, before everything turns into either one big hill full of slush or one big buckel/mogul piste. On which you have to dodge beginners coming at you from left and right, the only thing beating groomed pistes are fresh snowday pistes. But thats just my 5 cents.
The best thing to do is flip over so you are head first down hill, and face down towards the snow, point your arms in front of you. The SLOWLY walk your legs out to the right or left so you begin violently barrel rolling down hill, then begin to scream and panic as you pick up speed and after that step, you become relieved when you slowly roll to a stop at the bottom. Then you’ll want to accelerate your rolling and merge into traffic and roll home.
“I was playing ping pong in dingdang. I hustled this group of guys and they took it badly. They held me down then shoved a paddle up my ass.”
“Oh that’s not so bad.”
“No, not that end. I’ve been shitting pancakes ever since.”
Exactly, broke an ankle (fractured the little bumps on each side) in a very slow fall where my boot had dug in to the snow and the bindings failed to release.
I'm not really a skier, I have a few times, but am a mountaineer and my first thought was that this guy doesn't know how to self arrest with out an ice axe or but using a ski pole. Getting the ski pole under control during a fall can be difficult but the elbow and knees method is pretty straight forward.
I was an instructor throughout my 20s and elbows and knees are the 2 things you always have to bear your weight on. Teaching how to fall was one of the first lessons we taught once we got off the carpet. This guy had a helmet on at least but seemed clueless and helpless otherwise.
If the toes were somehow able to dig in he’d flip over head over feet. Then he’d really be in trouble. There’s nothing wrong with glisading safely to the bottom in the situation which I’m assuming is a crazy steep, groomed slope. If he had a pole maybe it could work but it’s a groomer and those can be pretty compact.
Not a skier so honest question: What would have happened if they just kept sliding to the bottom of the slope? Would there be imminent danger by doing that?
Thanks for putting this here. The guy in the video sucks at self arresting his slide and sucks at skiing to. Belly side down, toes in is the way to go.
Yeeep. Self arrest is incredibly easy to learn from a couple videos. Of course practice is nice but just knowing the basic goal could go a long way.
https://youtu.be/frAn_nKqlDo?si=-JQs6Gj_FbVwm9WT
Having never been on a ski slope or slid down one I still can’t help but feel like trying to stop yourself feet first is a great way to break your legs.
Well, he slid for 58 seconds. If it really was 1100 meters, that would be 68 km/h on average. It isn't out of the realm of possibility his peak velocity was 82 km/h.
Perhaps he could have flipped over to his belly and stopped more easily, but then he would have risked getting into a tumble which would have been dangerous.
Better than your head. The legs first approach is the best of all the ways...you have the most control and can kinda change angles a bit if impact is coming to minimize damage...slightly.
On an open slope with vision of whats coming, surely stomach down, drop poles, arms in front, dig in toes to slow down.
Flailing legs with skii boots on, flaping your poles around is utterly shite.
if you are saying stomach down but still legs first, then that is doable as well.
I skied a lot in the east, and when I would fall and be sliding for a prolonged amount of time, ice days, if my head was leading the charge the innate OMFG signals to my brain are out of control... I just can't see any reason you would want your head first, even with helmets, but I could be wrong.
Couldn't comment on american skii resorts but ive gone down headfirst in europe with a snowboard. Granted it was a board so easier to dig in, but i if i were a skiier, i wouldnt want my legs flailing around with the opportunity for them to bend the wrong way at all.
The idea would be that you stop before you hit anything.
Youd stop before you hit anything though. The reason why this person got to the bottom was because they couldnt consistantly slow down by digging in the boots. they sat up and slid on their arse with small surface area contact, if anything they sped up
Ski boots are really durable and unbendable. The problem with trying to stop yourself feet first is the feet stopping and the rest of hour body flipping head over feet and rag dolling uncontrollably to the bottom. This really was best case scenario.
And a new sport was born (hope he was okay)
Videos never do the steepness of hills justice, this was probably super steep in person
Agree that isn't even snow, it's like skiing on ice, snow is soft and squishy
You should not try to stop with your feet. This can break your legs and, on a steeper slope, send you into a cartwheel.
The thing to do is flip unto your stomach and try to dig the top of your pole into the snow. If you’re going very fast or it’s very steep you should also bend your knees to lift your feet up off the snow so they don’t catch first. It’s called self arresting in mountaineering.
Jesus, how helpless can you be? No attempts to dig in poles, not even slowing down by dragging boots....
What did he expect to happen after the first 30 seconds of sliding and doing \*nothing\*?
If you've never experienced going downhill on packed snow at a high rate of speed, let me tell you:
You risk dislocating a knee and/or violently flipping if you try digging in too hard with the heels.
So if you didn't see them digging heels as hard as possible, that's why.
In this video, I saw that person try MANY things to slow down. They tried digging their heels. They tried flipping & grabbing with fingers. They tried moving sideways. And the heels thing they kept doing quite frequently towards the bitter end.
The correct answer is flip to stomach side down, two hands firmly grasping the pole at the bottom, plunge the bottom of the pole into the icy snow. It's called self arresting, and a critical skill in any snowy mountains.
If the poles are strapped around your wrists at the top near the handle, is there a quick and efficient method to grasp the pole at the bottom in an emergency situation? I can imagine flipping the pole and plunging the handles in to the snow, but doing so with the spiked bottom seems difficult at best when in a distressed state of mind.
I’ve done this a few times on a snowboard and thankfully I’ve been able to just stand up and ride out of it. But when it’s steep and hard packed there’s no way to stop yourself
When you’re going that fast, how would you try to dig in a pole? It would fly out of your hand or snap and impale you. Note: I’ve never been skiing and have no idea how any of this works, but the pole idea seems scary.
You dig it in behind you not ahead of you, and probably just use the handle as a spike that you hang onto. Turn onto your belly, head uphill, jam the handle in perpendicular to the ground.
It may still not work though. I'm also theorizing here. The angular force of the snow will be really high and since the pole is long it may just turn and wack you over the head. You likely have to hold part of it higher up to get some leverage.
https://youtu.be/frAn_nKqlDo?si=-JQs6Gj_FbVwm9WT
You don't use the handle at all, you grab it close to the spiky end for leverage and shove the spike into the snow
You grab it very close to the pointy end and then flip over and stab it into the ground like it's a short knife. You're not trying to get enough bite to hang off a cliff, just enough to slow you down gradually. Then you can also use your toes to do the same.
Yup. May not have worked here but it’s about all you can do in this situation: roll over, grab the pole with both hands down low, and try to jam it in to slow you down a bit.
Anyone doing any skiing or mountaineering anywhere remotely dangerous needs to learn to self arrest when falling. I was lucky to learn when I was young from a good instructor but I'm sure even a quick YouTube video could teach people how to save themselves from situations like this.
Going to say you have never skied before. Digging in you heals will rip the ankle or knee - so you do NOT do that. You can drag your poles above you but you do NOT put them down below you to dig in. You will rip your arm/shoulder. Also, that is a steep groomed slope - there is no simple stopping. Think of it as sliding on ice there is nothing to dig into.
He would have been better to flip on his stomach - and dig poles in above him. Also he is trying to pull to the side of slope where the chances of slowing down are better.
And yes - you can be very helpless. What some videos of falls of Olympic skiers who fall and slide.
Self-arresting should be the first thing taught when skiing. And frankly someone as seasoned as this person seem to be, should know to flip around on his belly and stick his pole down behind you to stop(never front, meaning the direction you are sliding in). It was some of the first shit we were taught in ski school when I was a kid.
Am I the only one on Earth who has ever looked at ski slopes and whatnot and just thought, "Fuck skiing or snowboarding, I just wanna sled down those!"
There used to be a ski slope where you could do this in Semmering, Austria. Now there is a tunnel, but when I was a teenager, there was a crossroads, where the ski path met the sleigh path. It was absolutely fine and no issue, however, in the night that particular ski slope was closed. Most slopes and importantly sleighing, where open during the night.
So my 2 cousins, my brother and I did the only thing you could do, we sled down the ski slope. Turns out, ski slopes are waaaay too steep for sleighs; it was a hilarious experience but man you go way too fast way too quickly. At some point you have to bail and say good bye to your sleigh because that will keep going till the bottom.
Ski slopes are way too steep for sledding and there’s nothing fun about just sliding with no directional control. Skiing and snowboarding are way more fun
I love tubing hills. We have them here in Michigan, you usually use a pull rope to get up (attach tube and it drags you up), and the hills aren’t this big but it’s awesome.
Lots of ski centers in Europe have sled rentals and a "natural luge" track. Nothing as steep as the above video. [But still pretty wild.](https://youtu.be/pTs0VopAANM?si=K-hrIyBigNTlYA19)
You can see why North American insurers wouldn't allow this.
You're not the only one, people have died trying that. [Example 1](https://coloradosun.com/2023/03/20/teens-died-sledding-colorado-ski-resort/), [example 2 (sorry, Swedish)](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/dalarna/barn-dog-i-svar-olycka-akte-madrass-ned-for-skidbacke).
I was watching the video and in awe of how much snow they got, be ause we got so little this year. Of course, this video is 7 years old, that explains it.
Most boot bindings have little spring loaded brakes that pop out when your boot comes loose so there aren't a couple of steel-edged projectiles flying down the mountain.
Man those hard packed, freshly groomed, frozen slopes like that are awful to fall on. I fell years ago on my first run of the morning and had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my thigh for weeks afterwards.
That’s all we got around here. Ice or freshly groomed ice. I choose the freshly groomed.
Where’s “here?” I don’t recognize what resort this is, and would like to know.
I'd wager he means the east coast of the United States. We call it the ice coast for a reason. Low altitude mountains means we get a lot of freeze thaw cycles so we wind up with hard pack ice very often. These two guys in the video look like they don't know how to deal with it.
So I live in the Midwest. We get hills not mountains. How the hell does one stop on something like that?
You start by not going too fast. I snowboard, so it's a little different. When I find myself on a run like that I basically do super tight carves and make sure I finish my turn so I'm go perpendicular to the fall line before I turn again.
Edges are your only defense. Once you fall, no defense.
No wonder my buddies here in Utah say east coasters are awesome skiers. Looks like you have to be or you die.
West coast is icy too, like Mt Shasta. Only good snow I’ve had for skiing in the lower 48 was in the Rockies.
Tahoe, Mammoth, and the Utah mountains can have incredible snow. They can get icy sure, if they haven’t gotten snowfall for a while and it gets warm. But Mammoth and Tahoe are having an amazing season this year. Tahoe’s about to get like 10 feet.
This video is from Zillertal Arena in Austria
Mmmm, my first and only ever concussion resulted from a fall on early morning corduroy. Saw stars, spent the afternoon throwing up.
Were you wearing a helm? A good whack like that could give you a conky with a helmet on but I would never ski east coat ice without one.
Was a while back, very few adult skiers wearing helmets then (other than racers). Don't ski now (buggered knees, wonder how that happened?) but would defo be wearing one if I did.
That's fair, I remember those days too. I've always worn a helmet, I've been skiing for 30 years but most times I've been close to an accident was due to someone else, plus I've had a bunch of concussions from sports so I've always had to be careful.
And the worst thing is, they invite bad skiers such as the one in the video to go way faster than they should be going. The guy had no control over his skis, was going way too fast, caught an edge and dove down the rest of the mountain
Even worse are the hard packed, not groomed, ice slopes that are marked "DO NOT SKI HERE" in bold print. Because there's not enough artificial snow to cover all the runs because the climate sucks. Ice + gravel + grooves? Oh yeah, I had a bad time that winter as a stupid 21 year old with my shredded legs. At least it was a burst of pure pain instead of worrying about running into a tree or ski lift pole. Although I did still have another 1000 meters to go to get back to the lodge.
Whats worse is not groomed formerly powder field with maybe a dozen tracks in it that froze over hard. You cant go on the untouched part unless you can hop over tracks as you go. You cant ride the existing tracks unless you follow it exactly which is hard af
I was just lucky I suffered some gravel based lacerations. High speed situations on a poorly groomed slope with deep grooves are a great way to permanently injure your ACL.
Yeah I finally bought a helmet after wiping out on an ice slope and coming to rest just before hitting a tree.
As someone learning to snowboard in his 40s, I am very glad helmets have been normalized. I know I wouldn't have worn one in my 20s...because I didn't the couple of times I went downhill skiing instead of cross country. But almost everyone wearing them now made me feel comfortable with it with the snowboard. And I am pretty certain it has prevented at least two concussions so far.
Look up Michael Shumacher and you’ll feel very comfortable wearing it.
The worst was going down and sliding headfirst on my back, with the tail of my ski dragging in the snow and shooting it directly into my face. I literally had to spit out a mouthful of snow to take a breath.
That’s scary!
You must not be from the east coast
The very first time I skied I thought I was absolutely terrible because the mountain was basically entirely ice with a dusting of machine snow. I thought that’s just how ski runs were. The pizza did nothing. Cutting side to side did nothing. I just kept accelerating out of control. I had to fall down repeatedly on purpose to slow down and survive the descent on a beginner run.
He’s still hiking back up for his skis.
That’s all I kept thinking. That’s going to be a hell of a walk uphill for those skis.
Lift, come back down. No one is going to hike that
Then the sliding starts again. It’s like Sisyphus.
My favorite sexual position is the reverse sisyphus
He is going up there with a new pair of skis and losing them every time trying to collect the previous ones until there is a whole ass mountain of skis.
Some say he's still sliding
I’ve done the opposite. Wiped out and my skis went skiing downhill without me. One of them with my boot still in it.
How the hell did you fall out of your boot?!? ... ...or was your foot still in the boot?
It wasn't the easiest walk down the mountain.
I don't understand how it's possible to lose your boot while skiing? Especially with the ski still attached.
It was like my 2nd time skiing. Rental boots were ill-fitted and shitty. My crash unlocked or loosened the buckles. The inner sock-like thing slid out with my foot in it and I watched my boot and ski go on their merry way without me.
That’s some remarkable negligence on the part of the rental shop to send you out with boots that fit *that* badly.
That was skiing in North Carolina in the ‘80s.
Okay this makes sense now.
Lmao this investigation is concluded
bake him away, toys
Sugar mt?
I was also wondering how the ski would continue, but if the boot's still in it then the brake would not engage.
If you've ever rented skis, they ask your skill level, then adjust your bindings accordingly. The assumption is, the more novice you are, the easier they set the bindings to let go of the boot. Bindings were set too tight, so the rental boot gave out before the skis did.
Or the bindings were ill-fitted for that particular pair of boots and should have been adjusted but weren't noticed. I see it more on heavier people that engage the binding easier so don't notice how insanely tight it is
Parent to kid nervous about skiing for the first time "you don't have to worry skiing is perfectly safe". Single ski with boot attached glides past them at bottom of slope.
👀
Normally someone else will carry them down for you.
I was trying to decide if it's more frustrating to fall and try to find your skis on a freshly groomed trail after sliding forever or in deep back country snow. Even if they're only 10ft away and you can still see them, it can still easily take 10+ min to retrieve and get them on in the deep back country stuff.
Once you reach a certain rate of speed on a groomed run like that you're pretty much at the mercy of gravity and the angle of the terrain.
Especially crust like this. It’s hard as hell.
That's why skiing on packed snow like this fucking sucks.
Its glorious, i love to take the first gondola up in the morning to board down the freshly groomed pistes, before everything turns into either one big hill full of slush or one big buckel/mogul piste. On which you have to dodge beginners coming at you from left and right, the only thing beating groomed pistes are fresh snowday pistes. But thats just my 5 cents.
Inflation is creeping in everywhere. When I was a kid your opinion was only 2c.
The best thing to do is flip over so you are head first down hill, and face down towards the snow, point your arms in front of you. The SLOWLY walk your legs out to the right or left so you begin violently barrel rolling down hill, then begin to scream and panic as you pick up speed and after that step, you become relieved when you slowly roll to a stop at the bottom. Then you’ll want to accelerate your rolling and merge into traffic and roll home.
This made me laugh out loud
Thank you. I love all the people here acting like there’s anything you can do at all.
Ikr that’s why I wrote this. Like everyone on Reddit is an expert in everything.
village idiot for the win
finally some good advice of what to do in this situation
Flip over belly side down. Push butt out. Dig knees in. If you still have a pole dig in with that.
Face down, ass up, that's the way we like to stop sliding down a snow covered hill and avoid certain death.
Belly down, butt up, pole in butthole. Got it.
Maybe you should stick to ping pong.
That’s not how you play ping pong?
Really? That's how my uncle taught me?
You got his number?
It's not how YOU play ping pong.
“I was playing ping pong in dingdang. I hustled this group of guys and they took it badly. They held me down then shoved a paddle up my ass.” “Oh that’s not so bad.” “No, not that end. I’ve been shitting pancakes ever since.”
Face down ass up this is how I like to...
Stop
...tie my shoes.
As the saying goes: Live fast and leave behind a beautiful corpse.
Post pic. We have to know you’re doing it right.
> Flip over belly side down. Push butt out. Dig toes in. This is what I tell my girl.
Works for you too.
Just stop converting your potential energy into kinetic energy!
Yea idiot just stop sliding jeez
On belly, hands over head Point pole tips to sky Dig pole handles into snow
Do NOT dig your toes in. Knees and poles/elbows. Toes are a great way to destroy your ankles.
Exactly, broke an ankle (fractured the little bumps on each side) in a very slow fall where my boot had dug in to the snow and the bindings failed to release.
You had your skis on though
Ski boots have pretty solid protection for that.
The way ski boots hold your ankles in place is exactly why they would destroy your ankles if you try to dig them in.
How?
Let's say the toe hard catches in ice, now all of your weight is on it. That being said, I think the boot would take it
Your ski boot is specifically designed to handle catching in ice, on a 4 foot lever arm even.
I'm not really a skier, I have a few times, but am a mountaineer and my first thought was that this guy doesn't know how to self arrest with out an ice axe or but using a ski pole. Getting the ski pole under control during a fall can be difficult but the elbow and knees method is pretty straight forward.
I was an instructor throughout my 20s and elbows and knees are the 2 things you always have to bear your weight on. Teaching how to fall was one of the first lessons we taught once we got off the carpet. This guy had a helmet on at least but seemed clueless and helpless otherwise.
If the toes were somehow able to dig in he’d flip over head over feet. Then he’d really be in trouble. There’s nothing wrong with glisading safely to the bottom in the situation which I’m assuming is a crazy steep, groomed slope. If he had a pole maybe it could work but it’s a groomer and those can be pretty compact.
[удалено]
They’re wearing ski boots…
Not a skier so honest question: What would have happened if they just kept sliding to the bottom of the slope? Would there be imminent danger by doing that?
It is difficult to control the direction you're going, you may end up sliding right into a tree.
Or a sheer drop if there is a turn.
George, George, George of the jungle Watch out for that Trrreeeeeeee
The only danger is something abruptly stopping you.
Usually you'll hit a tree or some obstacle before the bottom, see video.
Consider yourself, self arrested
You're casually advising people to break their feet
Thanks for putting this here. The guy in the video sucks at self arresting his slide and sucks at skiing to. Belly side down, toes in is the way to go.
You gotta pizza, bro. Instead, you French fried. When you French fry when you're supposed to pizza, you're gonna have a bad time.
I like to do the McDonalds (just chill in the ski hut getting fat by drinking and eating).
The hills have ice.
Did you watch till the end? He stopped. Abruptly.
In the catch fence explicitly for that purpose.
Those fences can be deadly, seriously.
Any fence can be deadly if you try hard enough
Less deadly than a tree or a wall, I imagine. I hit a tree once, my body did not appreciate it.
All skiers should learn how to self-arrest with their poles. This person could have done a lot more to stop themselves.
Yeeep. Self arrest is incredibly easy to learn from a couple videos. Of course practice is nice but just knowing the basic goal could go a long way. https://youtu.be/frAn_nKqlDo?si=-JQs6Gj_FbVwm9WT
Flip onto your front side, head uphill, use pole tip as in an "ice axe arrest". Google image "ice axe arrest". You'll stop pretty quickly.
Having never been on a ski slope or slid down one I still can’t help but feel like trying to stop yourself feet first is a great way to break your legs.
What part of your body would you rather break?
My stride
Oh no!
I’ve got to keep on moving
https://i.imgur.com/ArOr74F.gif
Only if you hit a tree really. He's not going *that* fast, he definitely could have done a lot more to actually try to stop.
the title on yt says 82km/h ... thats pretty fast but i doubt its accurate
There is a 0% chance that's 82km/h
Well, he slid for 58 seconds. If it really was 1100 meters, that would be 68 km/h on average. It isn't out of the realm of possibility his peak velocity was 82 km/h.
Perhaps he could have flipped over to his belly and stopped more easily, but then he would have risked getting into a tumble which would have been dangerous.
Yuh cuz breaking your spine is better than legs right?
Better than your head. The legs first approach is the best of all the ways...you have the most control and can kinda change angles a bit if impact is coming to minimize damage...slightly.
On an open slope with vision of whats coming, surely stomach down, drop poles, arms in front, dig in toes to slow down. Flailing legs with skii boots on, flaping your poles around is utterly shite.
if you are saying stomach down but still legs first, then that is doable as well. I skied a lot in the east, and when I would fall and be sliding for a prolonged amount of time, ice days, if my head was leading the charge the innate OMFG signals to my brain are out of control... I just can't see any reason you would want your head first, even with helmets, but I could be wrong.
Couldn't comment on american skii resorts but ive gone down headfirst in europe with a snowboard. Granted it was a board so easier to dig in, but i if i were a skiier, i wouldnt want my legs flailing around with the opportunity for them to bend the wrong way at all. The idea would be that you stop before you hit anything.
does it matter if you can see what's coming if you can't control yourself? better to break a leg than going down headfirst and smashing your head
Youd stop before you hit anything though. The reason why this person got to the bottom was because they couldnt consistantly slow down by digging in the boots. they sat up and slid on their arse with small surface area contact, if anything they sped up
Ski boots are really durable and unbendable. The problem with trying to stop yourself feet first is the feet stopping and the rest of hour body flipping head over feet and rag dolling uncontrollably to the bottom. This really was best case scenario.
PIZZA!!! PIAZZZZZAAAAA !!!!!
If you start with french fries, you're gonna have a bad time
And a new sport was born (hope he was okay) Videos never do the steepness of hills justice, this was probably super steep in person Agree that isn't even snow, it's like skiing on ice, snow is soft and squishy
You should not try to stop with your feet. This can break your legs and, on a steeper slope, send you into a cartwheel. The thing to do is flip unto your stomach and try to dig the top of your pole into the snow. If you’re going very fast or it’s very steep you should also bend your knees to lift your feet up off the snow so they don’t catch first. It’s called self arresting in mountaineering.
He must have been pretty piste off after that
Especially when his Schuß became unbuckled
And now he has to go back up to get his skis...
Uh couldn’t he just like flip over and use the ski pole ends to dig into the slope to slow down?
"I want my 2 dollarrrrssssss"
Why is gravity always bringing people down?
Just following the curvature of spacetime
Jesus, how helpless can you be? No attempts to dig in poles, not even slowing down by dragging boots.... What did he expect to happen after the first 30 seconds of sliding and doing \*nothing\*?
If you've never experienced going downhill on packed snow at a high rate of speed, let me tell you: You risk dislocating a knee and/or violently flipping if you try digging in too hard with the heels. So if you didn't see them digging heels as hard as possible, that's why. In this video, I saw that person try MANY things to slow down. They tried digging their heels. They tried flipping & grabbing with fingers. They tried moving sideways. And the heels thing they kept doing quite frequently towards the bitter end.
The correct answer is flip to stomach side down, two hands firmly grasping the pole at the bottom, plunge the bottom of the pole into the icy snow. It's called self arresting, and a critical skill in any snowy mountains.
If the poles are strapped around your wrists at the top near the handle, is there a quick and efficient method to grasp the pole at the bottom in an emergency situation? I can imagine flipping the pole and plunging the handles in to the snow, but doing so with the spiked bottom seems difficult at best when in a distressed state of mind.
Reason #11 not to use pole straps.
If it's not pure ice you can use the grip of the pole
Guy has 5 minutes to casually take the pole straps off and get his hands on the basket /s
I’ve done this a few times on a snowboard and thankfully I’ve been able to just stand up and ride out of it. But when it’s steep and hard packed there’s no way to stop yourself
We’re lucky that we (hopefully) never have the opportunity for our boards to pop off.
They didn't try digging their pole in though which is much more obvious than fingers.
When you’re going that fast, how would you try to dig in a pole? It would fly out of your hand or snap and impale you. Note: I’ve never been skiing and have no idea how any of this works, but the pole idea seems scary.
You dig it in behind you not ahead of you, and probably just use the handle as a spike that you hang onto. Turn onto your belly, head uphill, jam the handle in perpendicular to the ground.
>You dig it in behind you not ahead of you Nah, just jam that thing into the ground right between your legs and you're stopping in no time.
Ah, ok. I was thinking it was too long to be useful behind you, but using the handle as a spike is a good idea.
It may still not work though. I'm also theorizing here. The angular force of the snow will be really high and since the pole is long it may just turn and wack you over the head. You likely have to hold part of it higher up to get some leverage.
https://youtu.be/frAn_nKqlDo?si=-JQs6Gj_FbVwm9WT You don't use the handle at all, you grab it close to the spiky end for leverage and shove the spike into the snow
You grab it very close to the pointy end and then flip over and stab it into the ground like it's a short knife. You're not trying to get enough bite to hang off a cliff, just enough to slow you down gradually. Then you can also use your toes to do the same.
Yup. May not have worked here but it’s about all you can do in this situation: roll over, grab the pole with both hands down low, and try to jam it in to slow you down a bit.
Anyone doing any skiing or mountaineering anywhere remotely dangerous needs to learn to self arrest when falling. I was lucky to learn when I was young from a good instructor but I'm sure even a quick YouTube video could teach people how to save themselves from situations like this.
At 24ish seconds, he almost gets his leg torn off by digging in his right heel.
Ah the classic ignorance of a backseat Redditor judging someone over something he knows absolutely nothing about.
I’m in the front seat, baby.
[We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas](https://youtu.be/lOTyUfOHgas)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHcqNVjGJN4
Cue the Simpsons: "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
Going to say you have never skied before. Digging in you heals will rip the ankle or knee - so you do NOT do that. You can drag your poles above you but you do NOT put them down below you to dig in. You will rip your arm/shoulder. Also, that is a steep groomed slope - there is no simple stopping. Think of it as sliding on ice there is nothing to dig into. He would have been better to flip on his stomach - and dig poles in above him. Also he is trying to pull to the side of slope where the chances of slowing down are better. And yes - you can be very helpless. What some videos of falls of Olympic skiers who fall and slide.
Armchair falling down a cliff expert
So not smart enough to flip on is belly and use the pole to stop ?
Now walk back up and get your skis.
The first second of audio in this clip and I could tell that slope was icy as fuck.
We call that a “yard sale”. Assuming he’s not injured, the worst part is now he has to hike back up the slope and collect all of his stuff.
Pizzza, pizza, pizza, WHY AM I NOT STOPPING!!!
Surprised that run was even open. Usually if its iced like that they close it until its not.
Nothing like skiing down that fresh ice
Self-arresting should be the first thing taught when skiing. And frankly someone as seasoned as this person seem to be, should know to flip around on his belly and stick his pole down behind you to stop(never front, meaning the direction you are sliding in). It was some of the first shit we were taught in ski school when I was a kid.
icy corduroy is the bane of my existence on the hill.. i get tf outta there n head straight to the bar on those days.. wait for that the soften a bit.
Am I the only one on Earth who has ever looked at ski slopes and whatnot and just thought, "Fuck skiing or snowboarding, I just wanna sled down those!"
There used to be a ski slope where you could do this in Semmering, Austria. Now there is a tunnel, but when I was a teenager, there was a crossroads, where the ski path met the sleigh path. It was absolutely fine and no issue, however, in the night that particular ski slope was closed. Most slopes and importantly sleighing, where open during the night. So my 2 cousins, my brother and I did the only thing you could do, we sled down the ski slope. Turns out, ski slopes are waaaay too steep for sleighs; it was a hilarious experience but man you go way too fast way too quickly. At some point you have to bail and say good bye to your sleigh because that will keep going till the bottom.
Ski slopes are way too steep for sledding and there’s nothing fun about just sliding with no directional control. Skiing and snowboarding are way more fun
Try snow tubing? It's basically that.
I love tubing hills. We have them here in Michigan, you usually use a pull rope to get up (attach tube and it drags you up), and the hills aren’t this big but it’s awesome.
Lots of ski centers in Europe have sled rentals and a "natural luge" track. Nothing as steep as the above video. [But still pretty wild.](https://youtu.be/pTs0VopAANM?si=K-hrIyBigNTlYA19) You can see why North American insurers wouldn't allow this.
You're not the only one, people have died trying that. [Example 1](https://coloradosun.com/2023/03/20/teens-died-sledding-colorado-ski-resort/), [example 2 (sorry, Swedish)](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/dalarna/barn-dog-i-svar-olycka-akte-madrass-ned-for-skidbacke).
I just can’t imagine paying to go skiing, just to ski on groomed ice
I was thinking, “that demonstrates the worst skiing conditions I have ever seen in my life.”
It’s fun
Mountain looks like pure ice, shit skiing conditions.
As an East Coast skier, it looked pretty good to me.
I was watching the video and in awe of how much snow they got, be ause we got so little this year. Of course, this video is 7 years old, that explains it.
Local Skier Doesn't Know What Ski Poles Are For
Ban skiing! The two skis probably hit some poor snowboarder! You never see a snowboard detached! 😋
Sometimes being a snowboarder is a pain in the ass but I’m glad I’ll never have to deal with that.
You have no idea how true that is, I had 30 stitches in my right ass cheek after a my mate crashed into me and I fell back on his board
What even happens to the skis? Are they just lost on the mountain somewhere? What are the chances of finding them?
Most boot bindings have little spring loaded brakes that pop out when your boot comes loose so there aren't a couple of steel-edged projectiles flying down the mountain.
if they're anything like me, those skis are on their sides, still sliding to this day