Getting a Grip on Being a Senior Skier
A Sunny Day!
Age is an insidious thing. No matter how hard we try, once we pass 50 or so, with each passing year, we are physically weaker, our bodies more fragile, and it takes longer to recover from illness and injury. Those are simple facts of life.
This degradation takes time and creeps up on us and would give anything to have the strength and stamina on the slopes from my 50s.
Aging has also dictated changes in where I ski, when I ski, in what conditions I ski, and how I ski. Unlike others, I can fall back on my experience as a ski instructor. At 60, the certified instructor in me started assessing my skiing technique, i.e., how I turned a pair of skis.
Transitioning from 203cm skis to the new shaped skis only 180cm long required an adjustment on how one makes turns. For almost seven decades, I skied (except on a racecourse) with my boots almost touching each other. Certification back in the 60s required one to emulate what the oldest readers of this publication will remember as PSIA’s “Final Forms.”
When I noticed my balance wasn’t as good as it was in my 50s, so my feet started moving farther apart. Now, almost 80, my feet are 6- 10 inches apart on steep runs or when the snow is clumpy or uneven.
Under the age of 50, short radius turns the Austrians called wedeln, and the Americans called short swing down the fall line were a matter of pride. I can still do them, but an almost 80-year-old brain says wait a minute, each turn takes energy! So, why not make carved turns with a greater radius and save energy.
Those who carve their turns know they take less energy than skidding. A skidded ski is more difficult to control than one on its edge and knifing through the snow. Carved turns make skiing on hardpack, frozen granular, and even ice easier!!!
The other major change was slowing way down. speed. Now, my grandkids tell me I am skiing way too slow! Then I cut loose for a run to put the young whippersnappers in their place!
I am also much more careful of the conditions. I love deep powder, but two or three runs of a thousand or more feet of vertical in thigh or waist-deep snow is exhausting. The cut-up, clumpy stuff that’s left over requires energy sapping strength to plow through. Groomed runs are preferable, the steeper the better.
Ice, i.e., the stuff that looks like a hockey rink, forget it. It’s time for a beer! Can I ski ice? Yes. The risk of getting hurt in a fall on a surface as hard as concrete isn’t worth it. As retiree, I can always find another off-peak, weekday to ski or pick a mountain that doesn’t have ice!
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put pictures in here that appear to be attributed to persons not quotes….ok