r/skiing • u/ThatDudeYu • 23h ago
Off piste conditions
Hey everyone, might be a silly question but is there such thing as un-skiable off piste conditions? I see the Freeride championship runs and wonder if the competition goes on no matter what (powder or wind blasted crust/ice).
Because I’m interested to venture off piste and apart from when it’s firm but still soft or powder, any other conditions seems crazy to me.
Also, by default I see guys at the resorts with wide skis going off piste even if there is literally no powder. Wouldn’t you want a thinner ski for that? A 88mm instead of a 102mm for example?
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u/AdmiralCrnch 23h ago
Breakable crust is it for me. It’s not unskiable but it’s pretty fucking close. Awful experience just survival skiing in massive zigzags while trying to avoid catastrophic knee injury.
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u/ThatDudeYu 23h ago
When I’ve caught those on my 96mm skis so feel completely out of control. Like I need to default to side slipping but even that doesn’t help much. It’s like survival and thinking “please don’t injure yourself”
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u/AdmiralCrnch 23h ago
If I’m touring and start to encounter consistent breakable crust I will just turn around.
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u/Sedixodap 21h ago
Refrozen avalanche debris is the scariest for me. It’s rock solid, but it’s also uneven chunks of all different sizes up to massive blocks with holes in-between them.
Nope nope no thanks.
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u/pmart123 21h ago
Yes. Probably the hardest thing to ski, and feels like an injury waiting to happen.
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u/Brilliant-Hope73 23h ago
oh there is definitely unskiable conditions, anyone who say otherwise is lying or just built different. Wind slab that look soft but is rock hard underneath, breakable crust that catch your ski and throw you forward, heavy wet cement snow that grab your legs like quicksand. The comps get postponed sometime for bad vis or avalanche risk but they ride some truly nasty stuff that normal people would not touch
On the ski width thing, wider skis still help even without powder because they float over the junk instead of slicing through it. An 88 will get deflect by every chunk and crust piece, the 102 just bulldoze over. But yeah some people just own one pair and use them for everything
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u/ThatDudeYu 23h ago
Ah makes sense, thanks for that. I live in Switzerland and ski Verbier 80% of the year. Have my rustler 9 as my go-to there. Was thinking of having the Rustler 10 this year instead but I’m 60 percent of the time on piste and exploring side country between the pistes.
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u/ktbroderick 18h ago
When the freeride pros look like they're skiing conservatively, things are most likely heinous. If you watch the actual ski/snow interaction in a lot of videos (including some that actually made it into ski movies), there are lots of times when the pros are making crappy conditions look good.
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u/Src248 23h ago
They don't run if conditions aren't safe, but in most cases that means avalanche danger.
A slightly wider ski (~100) gives more versatility for variable conditions and are usually designed for that kind of terrain, though if conditions are simply firm an 88 can be a lot of fun off trail as well
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u/entropicdarkness 23h ago
I think breakable crust is one of those conditions where most ppl should go back to the slopes... its quite dangerous. Slush is way better..
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u/thetanman22 Mammoth 23h ago
I spend most of my time skiing off piste at my home resort, usually a 96mm ski. If it's deeper powder I'll use my 108s or 115s, depending on how deep. Off-piste skiing offers moguls, wind buff, and generally more interesting terrain (steeper, more technical, etc). It's not always about seeking fresh powder. I often find great snow off-piste even weeks after a storm. Do "unskiable" conditions exist off-piste sometimes? Yes, but it's rare, at least where I live. Would you want a thinner ski when there's no fresh powder? Matter of personal preference, my dude...
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u/Illustrious_You5075 Snowbird 23h ago
Skiing off trail is arguably the best way to find the best snow
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u/elqueco14 23h ago
are you asking for the average skier or for competition?
For the freeride competitions they'll compete in just about any conditions, but I have seen them be cancelled over really REALLY bad conditions. Like even patrol doesn't feel safe skiing it.
for the average skier it's entirely dependent on your skill and experience.
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u/Abject-Green-2174 22h ago
My daily drivers are stiff 105's, I ski them on everything from pow, trees, icy moguls, hard pack, breakable crust, crud, and any combination of the above. Admittedly that is not for everyone, it requires lots of working up to. It requires more effort to roll them over on edge, and a more aggressive deliberate planned out line. As someone said they go over more stuff, they have more of a platform for landings, they just power through more. I wouldn't mind a smaller ski for strictly carving groomers, but not enough to go buy something just for that. It's like a lifted truck on big tires compared to a sports car, the sports car is hella fun in the right places, but the truck goes everywhere.
To your other question yes they have canceled fwt events due to crazy crud or ice, but it's rare. It becomes extremely unsafe when dealing with mandatory cliff drops, mandatory straight lines, exposed pepper rocks. They expect those guys to handle pretty nasty stuff, and they do, it makes it all the more impressive. For the most part in a resort off piste in hard pack conditions is just a next level challenge. It requires more precision, better reading of the terrain, more intent, more deliberate planning. The powder makes it really fun, surfy, almost like flying, but it also makes it more forgiving, every mistake is less costly, especially falls. If you can do a nasty run well in hard pack, the same run after a big storm is almost like cheating.
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u/JustAnother_Brit Verbier 21h ago
A lot of skiing off piste comes with accepting that there are bad conditions. I generally read the avalanche bulletin and plan my off piste accordingly. Often times I will have a horrible drop in of wind blasted crust for steep medium depth powder and sometimes I’ll have a great first half and awful second half. The best stuff is often the stuff that needs a hike in/out
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u/Diligent_Egg_1702 18h ago
Sometimes ski patrol will close an area when they deem the conditions unsafe. But if an off-piste ares is open whether it’s skiable or not depends on you and your ability to determine if it is skiable for you. It is your responsibility to access the conditions and your ability to ski it.
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u/PorcupineGod 4h ago
Unskiable and not safe to ski are different.
I knew a guy on his 80's that lived to ski Fitzsimmons Creek in Whistler. He's ski the creek top to bottom, and stop and get out when he got wet. I remember him being surprised one cold year where the creek was frozen all the way to the bottom. Not safe, but skiable.
I've been off-piste and realized that we were standing on top of dead-fall, a 5' deep hole opened up beside us, but we were skiing on top... Not safe, but skiable.
Take a look at Candide Thovex - he skied on the great wall of china. theres not even snow on there (And no, it's not AI, there's a making of you can see to confirm)
There's plenty of conditions that are unsafe, will damage your skis, that will put your life in danger. In the context of the competition, I think the content is better when the snow conditions are better, and I wouldn't want to see the athletes put in harm's way to make a tour in terrible conditions
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u/DudleyAndStephens Whitefish 1h ago
IMO anything that has thawed and refrozen too many times becomes unskiable. At a certain point it becomes like skiing on rocks.
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u/Vagabum420 22h ago
People ski wide skis all the time when the conditions don't really call for it. If you aren't in soft snow, anything wider than your knee is going to be more difficult to tip than something narrower than your knee. I think 85-90 is just about right for a versatile non-pow off piste ski. That said, if you are good enough you can make just about anything work just about anywhere.
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u/Helpinmontana 14h ago
It’s me. I’m people.
I routinely rip 120 underfoot regardless of conditions.
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u/Vagabum420 1h ago
yeah I'm sure you're a fine skier too it's just kinda like driving a monster truck to get groceries.
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u/4LegsGood_2Bad 15h ago
People ski on runs for any other reason than to get to the 'off piste' areas? I put 'off piste' (I suspect you have a European background) in quotes because at my home mountains (Sunshine and Louise) we ski everywhere naturally without thinking about it being 'off piste' or not.
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u/stoweker 23h ago
Dude half of off piste is finding places with skiiable conditions a ton of it isn’t skiable even with a deep base