SPINES, PILLOWS AND SLUFF-RIDDEN LINES
13 min · Full library · written lesson, video in production
After this lesson you can ride convex, broken terrain with a stance that survives the transitions, judge which pillows are supported before you commit, and choose between airing and straightlining a section on evidence rather than nerve.
The Technique
- Understand what makes convex terrain different: the support moves under you. On a planar slope the snow surface is predictable and your balance point stays roughly constant. On a spine or a pillow field the surface is convex in two directions at once, so as you cross it the pitch changes underfoot from moderate to steep to moderate within a single turn, and the snow depth changes with it. Convexity also means you cannot see what is immediately below you - a pillow rolls away out of sight and you are committing to terrain you are reading from memory and inference. Everything in this lesson exists to solve those two problems: a stance that tolerates changing support, and a reading method that tells you what is under the roll.
- Get the spine stance right, because it is unusual and it is the whole thing. A spine is a fin of snow with steep faces falling away either side, and you ride the crest. The stance is centred, narrow and quiet: feet closer together than your normal powder stance because the crest is narrow and a wide stance puts one ski on each falling face, hips stacked directly over the feet, torso upright and calm, hands forward and level. You steer with subtle pressure and edge changes rather than with big rotational movements, because a large turning input on a spine puts you off the side. The mental model is that you are balancing along a ridge that happens to be moving downward fast, not carving turns down a slope. Fore and aft balance matters more than edge angle. If you get back on a spine, the tips rise, the crest drops away, and you leave the fin sideways.
- Read supported versus unsupported before you commit to a pillow. A supported pillow has something solid beneath it: a rock shelf, a stump, a bench, a fallen log, terrain that continues underneath at a similar angle. It takes your landing and gives it back. An unsupported pillow is snow bridging a gap - over a void between boulders, over a moat, over a creek, over the mouth of a hollow - and it collapses when loaded. The visual tells are learnable. Supported pillows sit lower and wider with a broad base blending into the snow around them. Unsupported ones look plump, rounded and slightly overhanging with a dark shadow line or an obvious undercut at their base, and they often have a subtle crease or sag on top where the bridge has already settled. Early season, after low snowfall, and in warm spells, the ratio of unsupported to supported goes up sharply. Poke them with a pole from a safe stance where you can, and where you cannot, choose the wider, lower, more boring-looking one.
- How to read a pillow that is bridging a void, and the rhythm that keeps you off the back seat
- 5 more technique steps
- The 5 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
- The drill that builds the reflex
- The safety non-negotiables
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