SNOW SPORTS · Big Mountain
STEEP SKIING: JUMP TURNS, EDGE SETS AND NO-FALL TERRAIN
13 min · Full library · written lesson, video in production
The point
After this lesson you can build a reliable platform and execute a controlled jump turn on sustained steep snow, and you can recognise honestly whether the terrain in front of you is inside your margin.
Half the answer, free
The Technique
- Understand what changes above roughly forty five degrees, because it is not simply "more of the same". Two things break. First, the platform disappears: on moderate terrain your skis sit under you on a surface that supports weight from below, but on steep snow the surface falls away and the ski only holds where you have actively made it hold. Second, recovery disappears: a slip on a groomer is an event, a slip on a steep face is the start of a slide for life that accelerates faster than you can arrest. Everything technical in steep skiing follows from those two facts. You are not linking turns, you are building a sequence of temporary standing places and moving between them. Say that to yourself on the first pitch and your technique reorganises itself.
- Fix your stance before you fix your turn. The steep-terrain stance is centred and slightly compact: ankles flexed, shins in contact with the boot tongues, hips over the feet rather than back, upper body quiet and facing down the hill, hands in front and wide enough to be useful. The universal error is leaning into the hill, which feels safe and is the mechanism by which people fall. Leaning in unweights the downhill edge, which is the only edge doing work, and the ski washes out. Correct is a body that stands perpendicular to the slope or slightly out over the downhill ski, which feels wrong the first hundred times and is the whole game. Your upper body faces the fall line and stays there; the legs turn underneath a stable torso. That separation is what lets you make a fast turn without your mass swinging around and pulling you off the hill.
- Build the edge set properly, because the platform is the turn. An edge set on steep snow is an active, deliberate compression: you extend slightly, then drive both edges into the slope with a sharp downward and slightly forward pressure, and you feel the snow compact under the skis into a shelf. What you are looking for is a distinct stop, a solid feeling of the ski loading against something rather than shearing sideways. In firm snow that shelf is thin and you get one attempt. In soft snow you set deeper and the platform is more forgiving but takes longer to build. Test it before you trust it: a small bounce on the platform tells you whether it will hold your take-off. Riders who fall on steeps almost always fall because they launched a turn off a platform they never actually built.
Still under the glass
- The jump turn broken down movement by movement, and the three questions to answer before you drop
- 5 more technique steps
- The 5 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
- The drill that builds the reflex
- The safety non-negotiables
It opens when you book a trip that runs snow sports - these are the exact drills you run with your coach out there. Your booking unlocks this whole library.
Book a trip, unlock this libraryOr put $200 down - unlock it todayRidden with us already? Enter your Union key.
First tracks on the library
Not booked yet? The founding list gets first access when the full library opens.
Get In Touch
LET'S BUILD
YOUR
ADVENTURE
Whether you want to surf Japan's legendary powder, ride the Old Telegraph Track to the tip of Cape York, or chase a New Zealand winter - tell us what you're dreaming about and we'll build the trip around you.
BaseAustralia · Operating Globally
Instagram@deej_ayes_an_alias