When relating to skiing, some people call it “trenching” when you leave deep ruts in the corduroy as you rail GS turns down the piste. Others, myself included, consider it “trenching” when you ski really deep and light powder (on skinny skis?), and you leave deep and wide trenches in the snow. Never-the-less, the snow and skiing have been sweet here lately, and although the terrain I’ve been skiing has been a bit meadow-skippy…I have definitely been trenching it. 😉
Deep, trenching ski tracks?
Click photo for larger image.
Good for you for meadow skipping. Great photo by the way.
We call ripping downhill pretty turns, on a splitboard split in ski style- “honky
turns”. Meadow skipping sometimes applies—those are niiice honky turns for sure!
I call it “trenching it” when I’m breaking trail above my knees. Digging a deep trench. The side walls are sharply defined and the track is more of a consistent trench than a downhill track which tends to have not so deep spots where you unweight between turns. There is a little more permanence to a skin track trench, a sense that you’re laying down infrastructure that will support your day of schralping.
It’s slow and hard and all the way up you get to think about how deep the turns are going to be. Aside from the concentrated bliss of the turns themselves, there’s nothing better.
Awesome looking skiing…. meadow skipping gets a bad rap in my opinion! Just making turns on untracked is good enough!
soul skiing…nicely spooned turns.
I’m more in Tony’s camp. For me, “trenching” is putting a booter up a moderate couloir where it’s never more than 40 degrees and holds snow. Something like the West Hourglass. To be truly trenching, the snow is crotch deep and requires that snow above be moved below you before you can make another step. Exhausting work, for sure.
wow…i’m surprised so many people have their own idea of what trenching means. thanks for sharing!
but honestly…this post wasn’t really supposed to be about trenching when skiing.
i can’t believe someone hasn’t picked up on it yet. 😆
Great turns Steve. I go skipping every chance I get.
Is it just me or has anyone noticed the decline in ski-ability with the ski-mo craze? No disrespect to anyone, but aerobic ability doesn’t always translate to ‘turn’ ability. At first I thought it was just the light boots and squirrely skis, but then i tried the gear and found it works great. Bad turns are BAD TURNS, whether meadow skipping or skiing extreme terrain. The wide stance and flailing arms reminds me of my tele-days, or my friends anyway. I was a damn good tele dude, but finally saw the light.
so, those aren’t my skis tracks.
man…you guys are really loosing your touch. 😉
the artist and his work…
HA ! Steve >>> That is the best !
I just laugh and say (with a few too many beers in me) shut up! you’re skiing you lucky bugger! nice tracks!!!!
I call it motorized skiing; endless face shots, no lift lines and untracked powder days after a storm. Like it used to be around here. Is about untracked Pow and face shots, not just how we achieve them. BTW, those are up hill and down hill tracks. Those of us that ride like this do have skier etiquette in us, as you can see.
Randosteve FTW.
As for the snowmobrapping,
Soul turns sitting on your ass. Sweet.
What’s up with the random skimo hate comment from OMR? Must be some sort of blog comment Tourette’s Syndrome. He seems to imply that people on little skis and boots have the majority share of shitty ski technique. All you have to do is go to the pass or Vil and you can find lots of novice ski struggling from all sorts of folks although it’s easier to hide on bigger gear.
He uses the bullshit line, “…no disrespect, blah, blah, blah…” but it seems pretty disrespectful to anyone learning to ride on snow and completely unnecessary let alone out of context. Why bother?
i don’t know. i mean…it’s easy to look good and make nice turns on little rando-race skis and boots when you are just skiing for fun, but technique and style-points do often take a back seat when you are trying to haul ass on on those things.
it’s pretty easy to haul-ass and hold technique on the big and fat skis and boots, but you are also right in that it is easier to hide behind the gear as well. better workout going up too!
brian…congrats on the place in bridger. what are you going to do with those justices. you may want then in AK?
Yeah, I thought about that, Steve. But honestly, the amount of time I will spend on a heli up there will be limited and that’s where those skis would shine for me. If I feel compelled when the time comes I will probably opt for the DPS, anyway. For now, I sold the Justices for $400 24 hours after I won them.
I’m actually having a ball on my Manaslus. Feels like cheating. Mounted with Plum 165 Race bindings, they are still pretty damn light at 1640 grams each (3lb 10oz). Hard to get anywhere close to that with fat BDs and real bindings.
cheating on the uphill or downhill?
for the record…the bd touring line is on par in regards to weight to both the manaslu and dps skis.
Nice work, Pete! Did a little trenching myself this weekend!