RDM

Let me guess - water skiing at Grand Lake St. Marys?

Did she give you any cash back?

Indeed. Skiing is one of those things you need to invest a lot of time and money in (gear, travel, etc) before you get proficient enough to really enjoy it. Then once you do "get there", it's amazing. Another challenge to learning around here with the minimal vertical and long lift lines is time actually skiing. You can wait in line for 20 mins for a run that takes a min or two tops. You can ski more vertical in one run at a large resort in the Alps than you can in a full weekend of skiing around here. In the realm of practice makes perfect, time on the slopes is directly proportional to proficiency.

Agree - if you have the resources take lessons. Suggest taking a group class first. You can learn a lot from watching the others and learning what to do, and what to not do too. Then, take a private lesson and get an instructor to spend an hour or two with you. That can really help get you starting on the right foot. Mind you... I've only taken lessons once in my life

There's a lot of counter-intuitive aspects of skiing, and in the process of mastering them you'll encounter several ah ha moments where it just clicks. I cut my teeth in Ohio on 300 foot vertical bunny hill - the first time down I was terrified. A few years later I was skiing in the Alps, with the help of some Swiss friends who provided some key pointers. If you watch people that are good, they don't move a lot from the waist up. They swivel their hips/waist and do most of the "turning" from the waist down. Combined with a slight up and down motion timed with setting your downhill edge enables you to unweighten your skis for a moment to change directions and carve into the next curve. The less weight on your skis the easier it is to turn them. One exercise I used to do with beginners is have them hold their ski poles out in front of them in both hands - hold the bottoms of the poles in opposite hands and don't use them to plant in the show - use them as guides to force you to face downhill. Hold the poles perpendicular to the fall line as a means to keep your shoulders and upper body square with the slope. This helps force you to swivel your hips/waist while keeping your upper body pointed downhill. Another key thing to learn to ski well is to keep your body forward on your skis and your weight on your shins in your boots. This forces weight onto the front of your skis, which is critical to making good turns under control. When I apine skied I used to wear all the hair off the shins on both legs. Found out this was normal. Once you start leaning back in your boots and your weight moves to the back of your skis it's all over. As one experts Swiss told me, "you steer with the weight on the front of your skis because no matter where the front of your skis go the rear of your skis will follow. If your weight is on the rear of your skis, the front of your skis have no way to carve/control/guide the curve. Essentially the front of your skis are lost without your weight on them." You can practice this while traversing across a slope... as you traverse the hill, gradually make more turns quicker with a shorter interval. By making more turns you won't go any faster but you'll get down the hill much faster and under control. The steeper it is the more turns you make and the quicker you make them, without going any faster. When the time is right and you reach the advanced levels when you get on the really steep stuff, you can actually do double pole plants and unweighten yourself so fast it's almost like a jump. I've been on some really steep stuff off piste in the Alps that was so steep you could reach out with your hand w/o leaning into the slope and touch the slope above you. Of course if you fall you gotta know how to perform a self arrest with your poles. All the above is for traditional skiing with alpine gear. I switched over to telemark skiing in 1990 and have not gone back to alpine gear since. Telemark skiing is also known as free-heal skiing - you go down on one knee on each turn. It is much much more difficult than alpine skiing, but a lot of fun and an incredible workout. If you ever have a chance to try it, give it a shot. For some folks it's a natural progression in the sport of skiing.

Man... you REALLY know your Heathkit weather stations. I remember the needle wobble at low speeds that you mentioned. Was one of the quirks of in how it operated. Great memories...

Indeed - that's it!!! Now.... If only I knew where it is - buried someplace in a box in our basement. The weather station was always a little "off" after the blizzard of 78. It was as if gave in to the extremes. The night before the blizzard of 78 hit the barometer was dropping so fast we could almost watch it move live. (almost). My dad and I were out at our airplane hanger doing an engine overhaul. Given aircraft altimeters operate off barometric pressure, if you know your altitude you can measure the barometer. We could adjust the altimeter every 5 mins. My dad knew something serious was up with the weather, so we locked up early and went home. He double checked my weather station and then called the NWS at Dayton Airport to get the scoop and was informed of the pending blizzard, which exceeded their forecast by a long shot. He then started calling all the firemen in our little town and our local police and city maintenance crew to a meeting at the firehouse. The rest is history about the blizzard of 78.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. You are far more versed on Heathkits than I. Regret I don't remember which model I have. Had 4 dials housed in a dark brown faux wood plastic case. For a teenager, I was very proud of my first Heathkit project. It set the course for a sequence of events that lead to a fun career... After the weather station, my parents bought me a Heathkit lab, but it didn't have the same impact as the weather station. A few years later, I learned to weld in high school (TIG, MIG and Stick) and used that to build the roll up door on our dad's airplane hanger and then the log splitter I built for my senior engineering project in college (it splits wood going both directions - still have the splitter now). It's too bad Heathkit no longer makes kits. As a motivational/educational tool, Heathkit was instrumental in encouraging an untold number of youth and adults in how to develop real-world hands-on skills which are lacking these days.

Indeed. I just turned 60 and still get as excited about snow now as I did when a youngster in elementary hoping for a day off from school. Of course, back int the 60's in Ohio it took a LOT more snow, ice and/or extreme cold to close school than it does today - especially around here. My wife of 25+ years doesn't understand me nor our collective obsession with snow and weather as a whole. She doesn't understand how I can go out on the Kubota and plow for 8+ hours, come home exhausted and then want to plow more after dinner. If the genetic scientists ever do figure out what the gene is responsible for our affliction, I hope and pray they don't engineer it out of future generations. There's something about the hope for snow, the challenge of seeing what mother nature can muster, and yes, even the occasional failure that makes the adrenaline rush when it does work out for us worth the despair when we fail. God I love it!!!

Wow, all the old time comments in the LR thread about the good ole days brought back memories. Built my first weather station in 1976, when I was 15. Was a Heathkit with base station and hard wired outdoor unit. Had indoor and outdoor temp, wind speed and direction and barometer. Soldered all the components on the board myself. Was so proud when it actually worked. The weather station performed well until I left Ohio in 1985. It even recorded a max wind gust of 73mph during the blizzard of 78 at our home just north of Dayton. We had it mounted 40 feet above the ground on our antenna tower so it got the full force of the wind. Wow... that wind in 78. Will never forget the howl. Great memories... Our dad actually made our first color TV in 1969. Also from Heathkit. He finished it just a couple months before the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969. Had a remote control too, which was unheard of back then. Was a mechanical/audible remote that used small running forks that clicked with each function. Was one of the first in town with a TV with a remote. I especially loved it because before dad finished that TV, I was the remote (being the youngest in the family, it was easiest for me to crawl to the tv to change the channel)

Finally... -sn 33/24

Forgot to add the hole is just west of Harrisonburg...

Check out the NWS Radar and the spiral snow hole that appears for several frames and then disappears on the animation. Very odd...

Missed that one sadly but heard about it. Was living in Japan at the time. Missed many of the big ones around here over the last 35 years except those that took place from 2009 on.

haha - I can still drink beer! Man, some of the apree ski options in the Alps are incredible. Lots of great memories from my younger days there. Same for the Foggy Goggle Bar at Seven Springs. That place was a blast back in the day. Hung out with some great folks there.

Thanks much for the info. Think you and I exchanged some notes a couple years ago about skiing. I'm thinking of trying to hit the slopes again while I still can (maybe). Just turned 60 and may not be able to do it much longer. Actually, it may be ugly again to try now. There's a lot more coordination required to telemark and it may require some rebuilding of muscle memory. haha. On a serious note, thanks for everything you bring to the forum. You are one of the main contributors that still make it interesting despite all the trolling that threatens to bring things down... Really appreciate all the time you put into it.

Is there a preferred finger or will any finger do? (sorry, couldn't resist)

Cross-country and Telemark equipment looks similar and are often confused as being the same. In the Alps the locals would often say "kook mal dar its langlauf skifaher" (look, there is a cross-country skier - because telemark is not very popular in the Alps, but rules in Scandinavia). The equipment is very different, especially the skis. Cross country skis typically have scales on the bottom and a double camber and no metal edge, (skating skis are different). Telemark skis are narrower than downhill/skis (much narrower than carving skis) and have metal edges. Can't use telemark skis to push forward like you can with cross-country skis as there's no scales to grip the snow. However, you can put removable skins on the bottom of telemark skis and use the one-way grip of the skins to climb uphill off-piste to go backcountry. Telemark skis are also much thinner in cross-section than alpine/downhill skis and flex much more. As a result, it's more difficult to get a good edge on hard pack with telemark skis; which is compounded by the binding only being on the front of the boot. Compared to alpine skis with an essentially rigid core around and in between the front and back bindings, you get about half the useful edge with telemark skis. An added plus (for me) is the comfort of telemark boots. My telemark boots are leather with a Vibram sole. They are very comfortable to walk in - almost as comfortable as hiking boots. You can put crampons on them and walk/hike/climb up very steep terrain and ice, take off the crampons and then ski down (hopefully on snow and not the same ice you just climbed up).

Thanks for the info. I've skied Wisp, White Tail and 7-Springs - and heard of Cannan, Davis and the others you mentioned. Just not into cross-country skiing. Skied the Springs a LOT years ago and had a big crew of telemark friends there. I haven't used alpine gear since 1990 when I converted over to telemark/free heal while living in Germany. Prefer extreme steep stuff with bumps - hard to find around here. I've got beacons, probe poles etc and did a lot of off-piste excursions in the Alps where you can go anywhere you want (unlike out west where they punch your ticket and/or arrest you for going off-piste). But, I'm getting older too and tele skis are hard on the knees, but too much fun compared to alpine gear. None the less, age may force me to return to the hard shell boot and fat skis at some point. Thanks again

How is Snowshoe? Never skied it be before. I telemark ski, or used to. Haven't skied for a few years and want to get back into it. Always heard Snowshoe has about a 1500' drop, but Google Earth only shows about half that. One advantage they have is altitude, but if they only have 7-800 feet of vertical, is it worth the drive? I'm spoiled having spent most of my ski days in the Alps (incredible vertical) or in Japan (fantastic snow), but have always been intrigued by Snowshoe. How long does it take you to driver there? Do you go 81 to Stauton and then west via SR-250? Thanks

That's right over our old house in W-Spfld at Rolling and Old Keene Mill... Maybe we should move back there from Vienna???

Only those that don't like snow...

Yea - that scares me. I'm right a the sw tip of the hole. Hope for everyone's sake who lives in that hole the transfer takes place in a better way that avoids any holes ...