Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Different Types of Alpine Skiing

As mentioned before alpine skiing is the act of skiing downhill. Skiing downhill can mean many different things in terms of the downhill terrain that you are skiing on. For the average alpine skier most of the skiing they do is in bounds meaning that they only ski within the marked boundaries of a ski resort. This means that they're skiing on one of three different types of trails: groomers, non-groomers, and glades. Within those three different types of trails there are four different difficulty ratings that each trail gets categorized under. A green circle on a trail sign denotes an easy, beginner level, a blue square denotes a medium, intermediate level, a black diamond denotes a hard, difficult level, and double black diamond denotes a very hard, expert skier only level. Breaking down the three different trail types, you'll usually find, at most resorts, groomers to be mostly green circles and blue squares, glades to be mostly black diamonds and double black diamonds, and non-groomers to be an assortment of blue squares, black diamonds, and double black diamonds. Each trail type is pretty self-explanatory, groomers are any trail that get groomed by grooming machines known as cats, glades are trails that have trees littered and interspersed throughout, also known as tree skiing, and non-groomers are any trails that don't get groomed, which usually means they have moguls, large humps of snow that get created by skiers pushing snow into a large pile. For anyone who wants to venture out of bounds, backcountry skiing is perfect option for them. Backcountry skiing is exactly what it sounds like. Most of the time it involves taking a helicopter to a remote, isolated drop off zone where the skiers get dropped off and ski down a predetermined route. This type of alpine skiing is a sub-type of backcountry skiing colloquially referred to as heli-skiing. Heli-skiing isn't the only type of backcountry skiing though, many people use specialized backcountry skis and ski boots to "skin" out of the resort bounds and into the backcountry.


  

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