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 Corduroy
by Rich
In the dark of night, the mysterious figures known as SnoCat drivers ply their trade upon the cleared runs of ski resorts all across the country. As their massive tracked steeds rumble up and down the slopes, headlights illuminating the chopped up snow before them, they pull a cunning device behind them. This device chops, packs, and neatly deposits the snow behind them, like a Zamboni for the slopes. The nature of this snow is uniform, and roughly flat, with half-inch depressions and peaks going on almost endlessly in straight lines behind the caffeine-charged keepers of the mountain. From these simple beginnings, we get Corduroy.
Corduroy - good corduroy - is as ephemeral as fresh powder. Usually found for just an hour in the morning at America’s ski resorts, corduroy is quickly robbed of its distinctive texture by early morning skiers disinclined to rip; smoothed over by the ‘falling leaf’ snowboarders and wedge skiers who find themselves on a trail beyond their means. The beauty of a freshly groomed trail is the uniformity of its snow - the promise of a run unimpeded by such inconsistencies as moguls, crud, gnar, death cookies, or tracked powder. Indeed, the corduroy cloaked groomer is the natural playground for that all mountain speed demon - the Carver.
There are few feelings in the world like laying your skis on edge and letting physics work its magic. The steel edges dig into the snow, and the fatter tips and tails of today’s skis curve away from the narrow waist making a graceful arc of the tensioned ski. This arc carries the ski in a gentle turn, whose radius decreases as the ski leans further and further onto its edge. The further the ski is on edge, the less surface area there is to grab the snow. The skier picks up speed. The wind increases. The skier leans forward, driving his leading edges into the snow. Leaning to one side to make the turns harder, the counterplay of mass, and acceleration force the skier to lean into the turn. Suddenly, the skier snap-rolls to the other edge, and the skis begin to arc in the other direction, the skier still building speed as he hurtles downhill at speeds in excess of 35mph. His legs burn as he maintains his balance, shifting from left to right, his skis and legs now at 45 degree angles to the snow. Speed at this point is regulated by the turns, long flowing arcs bleeding off small bits of speed in two parallel grooves. The only sound to be heard is the wind and the snow, yielding to the ski. sssssSSSSSSSssssshhhh. sssssSSSSSSSssssshhhh. sssssSSSSSSSssssshhhh. sssssSSSSSSSssssshhhh. sssssSSSSSSSssssshhhh.
Many skills need to come together in order experience this niche of nirvana. The skier must have passed through the novice stage of the Wedge or Pizza, and mastered the intermediate stages of Wedge-christi and parallel skiing. Then the skier must learn to fully harness the technologically advanced boards prolific today and truly learn to carve. A quick description of these stages follows:
- The novice skier navigates the mountain via the wedge. Also known as the pizza, or the snowplow, the novice skis with their ski tips nearly touching, they hold this knee-torquing formation permanently. They turn by shifting their weight ever so gradually from one ski to the other, unconscious of the formative building blocks being stacked in their legs’ muscle-memory. The skis are ever-so-slightly on their inner edge here, and the ski with more weight upon it will turn inwards.
- As the skier advances in skill, they learn to pull their skis together and hold them parallel as they traverse the hill. Getting to the turns, they revert to the old standby wedge as they turn. Weighting the uphill ski and pointing it towards the downhill ski, the skier turns slowly downhill and back across the slope, at which point the wedge-christi skier returns to a skis-parallel stance for the traverse across the slope.
- The sliding parallel skier is an artifact of the ‘old school’ straight-ski era. This skier used to be at the pinnacle of the game, until the technology changed, and the game moved on. This skier keeps their skis parallel at all times, but the turning is forced, and the skier washes out his turns, brute forcing an act that is more effectively finessed.
- The carving skier drives with his leading edges and uses the side-cut of the skis to do the work of the turning, relying on edge pressure and the angle of the ski relative to the snow to do all the work. Advanced carvers are poetry in motion, gliding effortlessly down the easy and intermediate runs, and leaving parallel grooves as the only remnant of their presence on more challenging terrain.
Beyond the carver lies the realm of the experts. The carver stands at the precipice looking out over the forest of available skill progression trees before him. The bump skier, the backcountry skier, the big-mountain heli-skier, the aerialist trickster, the instructor, and the oft-revered ski-patroller are all open to the carver.
The trick to learning to carve is learning to trust the ski’s edges. Once a skier is to the point where they can ski parallel, they simply need to overcome the (perfectly rational) fear of being pointed directly downhill, if even for moments at a time. The best drill I’ve seen for building this trust is to start skiing on a flat trail and lean to the left. In so doing, rock both skis slightly onto their left edge. Holding them there, the skier will slowly turn left. Rocking to the right will slowly turn the skier right. More rotation grants a tighter turn. Working on this technique on terrain of increasing pitch will help build faith in the edges’ ability to turn the ski without any twisting from the lower legs. Furthermore, to make your turns more effective, flex your knees forward in the boots, and try to drive the leading edges into the snow with your toes. After that, it’s just a matter of getting back on the steeps and allowing the skis to do their job.
So there you have it. Simple, right? Next time you get up to the mountains, and you wake up to find that there’s no fresh snow, keep in mind that there’s still fresh corduroy up there, waiting for the speed demons. Make the first chair and take a run down your favorite groomer. The corduroy is calling.
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