J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Innsbrucker

Nice skiing.

Coping with the ice sounds horrible. Maybe you should move near a resort with good conditions and lots of sun :)

It is strange for me, in my third season having started aged 48. I can sit in a bar in London and hear young English guys making a big deal about hard black runs they skiied in Chamonix. Thinking how proud I would be if I could keep up with the game of one-up-man-ship. I suppose I can now. But it all seems ridiculous when I go out to a small family resort in Tirol, and see the local kids, even young ones, jumping around in steep powder, and nipping effortlessly down every slope, with a level of confidence and skill so far ahead...

Anyway you are entitled to be proud parents!

This is very interesting. I understand the point of the modfied roll, badlandskid. So long as the roll does not stop rolling when sliding headirst on your back...

bandit, I understand now, you are suggesting holding a press-up position, better than using elbows if you have the strength. When sliding at a fair speed, does this not risk injuring wrists, lower arms, hands? Elbows sounds safer. But I will think about trying it.

Ally, I noticed you asked about falling on another thread. My question in this thread was not so much how to fall, but what to do when you are sliding for a long time on a steep slope. If you are rolling etc. it is all going to be more complicated, and for me, too fast to do react much. But my problem was perparing mentally for long black runs, up to the very long and very steep black diamond gullies at Nordkette. At some point on these slopes (where there are no trees, mounds of snow, etc to hit), the fall will become a slide. Foot first, you know what to do: stop or (if youre good enough) spring up and ski on. Head first, there are really only two options, on your back or on your front. You are only heading one direction, down the fall line. In this case I think the specific advice in this thread has been really interesting. On the wider question of how to fall (rather than how to recover from a along slide) the only solutions in my case, probably, are better overall fitness, and getting a bit younger... 8)

Ally, you read that wrong. Bandit was saying to get feet downhill (I think), NOT to turn onto your front.

The advice above (badlandskid & Trencher) is the opposite. If you are on your front (like I was) get on your back. Sliding fast on your tummy it is (as I discovered) hard to turn, you just keep going head first. Probably on your back there is a bit more of a chance to swing the legs downhill, and generally use the legs to swing the body around, so you are able to turn so as to be going nearer feet first. On your tummy you just keep schussing in a straight line, down the fall line, with very little scope (on smooth snow) for steering right or left, or turning.

Thanks for this, I've read the above couple of posts a few times, & will think about it. Probably jumping up from a fall and skiing on takes a fair level of both fitness & skill. For a 50ish beginner like me. Still, worth a try. Maybe a Ducati would be a safer way to have a mid-life crisis....

Anyway the turning manoeuvre seems good, even if you don't make it up while still on the move. Except...I would be very nervous about turning onto my back during the slide. Face down you can see where you are heading with the slide, and adjust it it a bit. Face up, must be hard to see anything. That makes me nervous, but I cann see it is probably the best bet.

Sounds horrible. Best wishes for your recovery.

Probably the sherry is Austria is not great either...

Yesterday I had one 0.5L beer & it went to my head, not sure why, I and took a fall (mentioned in another thread), fortunately without injury. Lesson there somewhere.

Maybe worth mentioning that with insurance cover, off-piste may be excluded. So if you ever feel like nipping down the side of the piste or up a mound of powder, it might be worth having the health card for backup.

I don't know the system for charging after skiing accidents, although I spend a lot of time in Austria. My European Health Card was free and came very quickly, though getting it by Saturday might be pushing it.

The only insider tip I can give is that I met someone here who arranged ambunlance flights, she said the best insurance in terms of getting patients' needs paid for was Visa. She also said that flying hospital cases to the UK was a nightmare because NHS is often unable to confirm there is a bed available.....and without that confirmation the flight will not leave. In those cases I suppose it helps to have an insurer who will pay for a longer stay than the technical minimum you are covered for.

Naa, this fall was on piste, nice snow if not groomed. Black run, so steep but not outrageously so, the locals take their kids down it (in fact some, correction *most*, of the children put my skiing to shame...).

I am being pushed into trying a little bit of beginners' off-piste in order to prepare for some gentle off-piste touring in a year or two, but on the kind of powder I can ski, if you fall you are going stop pretty fast (if not sink in without trace...). The danger there is more hitting something hard, or getting legs jammed in the snow and falling badly. It is the smooth slopes where stopping after a fall is a major problem.