advice please on falling safely esp. on steep runs?

Yeah, what Brucie said.

OK. Just that knowing that after 3 years skiing round here, I will soon have to face up to the long and and ultra-steep gullies at Nordkette, barely a mile from where I sit. The route on the right of the top station is even steeper than the one in the picture: I am afraid I bottled out on Sunday, though there were a few skiers up there. You are right, I was not thinking about falling there. I was more planning on having something constructive to think about during the several minutes of sliding down, if I did happen to fall

It is actually the bit behind the building in the picture which worries me most, it is about the steepest part, but the biggest problem is not the absolute gradient but that it is steep for such a long stretch.

Simple. Dont do it until you are good enough, as clearly by what you say, you are not up to that level.

Definitely learn how to arrest your own falls! If you slid down that, and your skis released, it would take you all day to hike back up to them

Innsbrucker,
Don't do it!

It looks much too hard to me. I remember you said you thought you were about the same level of skier as me, after you saw my U-Tube video, and I wouldn't go down that. It's the fact that it's so narrow that puts me off - you'd have to make masses of short turns to get down that, or side-slip the whole way

And it's dead straight, with no breaks in it to have a little rest, or make an emergency run off to the side (like a runaway lorry).

I can't remember if you said you've ever had a serious ski-ing injury, but I have. I couldn't use my right arm for 6 months after I broke my shoulder, and ski-ing something like that at your level of expertise is just too risky, in my opinion.

So, if I was you, I'd go and find a piste a bit easier

With a bit of luck you've got years of ski-ing ahead of you, so you've plenty of time to improve sufficiently to get down that piste without risking your neck (or the neck of others below you).

Best Wishes,

Ally

Innsbrucker - what kind of level skier are you?

Not great. I can get down almost any piste, even one that steep, with a low chance of falling provided it is not icy (but maybe not that steep AND that long). That day I did fall on a very steep (but much shorter) diamond slope, then picked myself up and skied down it without another fall. My style is not great esepcially on a black or harder piste, but generally I have reached a level where I am safe on skis most of the time on any black piste with reasonable snow.

If the snow is not good my chances of getting down that slope safely would be pretty poor, which is why GF (who tries to assess what I am capable of, and has skied this slope herself in the past) offered to ski it first alone to check whether snow condition was such as would make it do-able.

It is admittedly too hard for me. But I look on the chances of getting down it slowly without falling as an aim which is realistically in sight, probably not before next year now. I could be wrong, of course...

I think pistes like that are to a large extent a head game. If the piste is the whole width of that gulley then it is actually quite wide. If you can ski stuff as steep as that but shorter then it is only the duration of the descent that you have to worry about.

I'd say practice on shorter stuff that are as steep until you are super confident. When you go up there don't think you have to ski it all in one go. Ski down have a break, enjoy the scenery chat with your girlfriend... But make sure you stay on top of your feelings and be positive that you can ski it. If you start to have doubts and fall back on your skis that's when you'll fall.

Maybe go to do it early in the day when its been freshly pisted too. It would make it a lot easier.

I had a similar experience this year except I only got to get an idea of what I was letting myself in for from a map.


From the angle it probably doesn't look as steep as your piste, but this was un-pisted and well away from civilisation. I really had to convince myself that I was capable of it at the top. Once I got down the feeling of elation was amazing.

I wrote a blog entry about that tour here.