# Sliding down an icy black



## bseracka (Nov 14, 2011)

Don’t go on black runs until your fundamentals improve. Given the description of conditions on icy days assume the difficulty of a run to be increased by 1. If bulletproof ice skip the run. If whole mt is bulletproof hangout at the base area and drink beers


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

Take a lesson and work on technique, primarily on blues.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

The skill is called "self arrest" (SA). Knowing how to self arrest is going to depend on the conditions, terrain and your body positioning...and how fast you are sliding. Thus there are several techniques to be aware of.
1. First, avoid the situations until you have the equipment and skills to SA. But then you have some exposure/experience to figure out SA's. Just know there are conditions and terrain that are no go...DON"T or at least have an ice axe and know how to use it....but perhaps on another day that line would be glorious to hit.

2. So you have the following basic positions where you are sliding out of control and need to SA:

a...your butt slide...continue to slide on yer butt, sit up, try to dig in your heel edge and bend/couch your knees up to your chest...thus crouching while sitting. However you got to be careful not to catch your heel edge and launch yourself...flipping forward. BUT if you can't stop this way, then roll over on you belly with your feet below you and do the second half of below #b.

b...lf are sliding on your belly...head first...(penguin) bend your knees to get the board up in the air...while digging in you hands or whatever...so that your body will spin around to get the board below you. Once the board is below you,..then straighten out your legs and try to dig in the toe edge....and try to crouch...get your butt close to your heel edge and it should dig in. However again you got to be careful not to catch your toe edge and launch your self flipping backwards.

c. If you are sliding on your back with head down/first (turtle). Pull your knees up to your chest and do a backwards roll/flip so that you end up in the above #b and arrest your self...basically kneeling into the slope.

Its all a slippery slope...Have fun sliding


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## Rip154 (Sep 23, 2017)

you need mangotraxion, 2 iceaxes, cap under your helmet and glacier glasses


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

Oh, just to add the obvious. Keep the board below you...between you and gravity. Also do NOT take the board off, this may seem counter intuitive. But if it is that slippery/icy your only hope is to use the board and try to get an edge of the board to maintain some control and hopeful self-arrest. If you take your board off, there is no hope for control. This is because with the usual nylon outerwear, it is very slick, and you will go hauling ass and be at the mercy of pure luck of not damaging yourself or others...as in a Sonny Bono or Wiley Coyote (and the same applies to skiers). A few years back an inexperienced dad and his son were skiing some gnarls, got in the hairy. Dad took off his skis to scout a way out, lost it and went sliding off the planet with his son watching. I know the area where it happened (inbounds Baker) and it is doable, however the fatal mistake was taking his skis off.

Edit: About speed of the slide. If you start to slide and need to SA, do it as soon as possible to avoid gaining momentum. However, if you have already a good amount of momentum going, then just try to slow down...bleeding off some of the speed. Because if you try to immediately "full stop" this is where you risk launching yourself and continue to slide out of control.

And just to add to the Turtle slide, sometimes as you are rolling backwards, extend your legs, so that you bring your toe edge over your head/body and slam/leverage the toe edge with some force into the snow.

Ime getting arrested on toe edge is better, because you will naturally be leaning into the slope and can bury (or rest) your knees into the slope. This will give you a stable position in which to rest, look around, gather your wits and plan your next maneuver to deal with the situation. Where as arresting on heel edge, is a bit more precarious, you can see better, but because of sitting into the slope, your heel edge is the only thing holding you there...and if you lie in to the slope, you don't have the pressure/leverage on the edge because of the heeledge angle via your ankles and legs are more limited in range (think setting a snow anchor)...compared to toeside you can set the angle of the toe edge like a snow anchor to dig in.. And on heelside, when making your move to deal with the situation, sometimes the slightest movement to re-position yourself, you will loose the heelside edge and start sliding. Or maybe its me, that I prefer to raise from a squat position on toeside because you feel much more locked in and stable...which often involves doing a billygoat jump turn verses squat position from heelside and a billygoat turn from rising heelside you don't have as stable of platform in which to jump turn from...(chute type technical line).

Btw, Jane, welcome, apologies for the rambling...probably more than you ever wanted to know.


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## Demi9OD (Dec 23, 2014)

You "booted out" and your board's edge lost contact with the slope as you slid down on your heels/binding heel cups.

Like wrath said, bend your knees to reduce the board angle to the snow. Or flip over and stick your ass up in the air which will reduce your toe edge angle. When you get home center those boots up on the board if they are hanging off the heel edge too far. Consider sizing down your boots or sizing up the width of your board.


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## suntaimatty (May 23, 2021)

Self arrest tips are right on. Also don't sit down. When you sat down your edge lost contact with the surface. It can definitely be scary and dangerous. When conditions aren't right you have to change the way you ride and what terrain you ride.


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## Scalpelman (Dec 5, 2017)

Love all the tips. When this happens to me everything flashes fast. My basic instinct is to get back upright on the board ASAP, if possible. can’t use the edges effectively otherwise. 


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## Jane321 (10 mo ago)

Thank you all so much for the tips. Very helpful! I’m sure I’m not the only one that ended up in an area that one didn’t mean to to end up in or in conditions that weren’t ideal inbounds. I’m usually very careful about where I go and over the years this hasn’t happened to me before. I’m lucky to live in a place that doesn’t have icy conditions often and I was actually traveling when this happened. One wrong turn and I was in a place I didn’t want to be in .


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## Jane321 (10 mo ago)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Oh, just to add the obvious. Keep the board below you...between you and gravity. Also do NOT take the board off, this may seem counter intuitive. But if it is that slippery/icy your only hope is to use the board and try to get an edge of the board to maintain some control and hopeful self-arrest. If you take your board off, there is no hope for control. This is because with the usual nylon outerwear, it is very slick, and you will go hauling ass and be at the mercy of pure luck of not damaging yourself or others...as in a Sonny Bono or Wiley Coyote (and the same applies to skiers). A few years back an inexperienced dad and his son were skiing some gnarls, got in the hairy. Dad took off his skis to scout a way out, lost it and went sliding off the planet with his son watching. I know the area where it happened (inbounds Baker) and it is doable, however the fatal mistake was taking his skis off.
> 
> Edit: About speed of the slide. If you start to slide and need to SA, do it as soon as possible to avoid gaining momentum. However, if you have already a good amount of momentum going, then just try to slow down...bleeding off some of the speed. Because if you try to immediately "full stop" this is where you risk launching yourself and continue to slide out of control.
> 
> ...





wrathfuldeity said:


> The skill is called "self arrest" (SA). Knowing how to self arrest is going to depend on the conditions, terrain and your body positioning...and how fast you are sliding. Thus there are several techniques to be aware of.
> 1. First, avoid the situations until you have the equipment and skills to SA. But then you have some exposure/experience to figure out SA's. Just know there are conditions and terrain that are no go...DON"T or at least have an ice axe and know how to use it....but perhaps on another day that line would be glorious to hit.
> 
> 2. So you have the following basic positions where you are sliding out of control and need to SA:
> ...


Thank you for taking the time to write all this down. Very helpful!


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## DaveMcI (Aug 19, 2013)

+1 ice axe


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## Scalpelman (Dec 5, 2017)

DaveMcI said:


> +1 ice axe


Really? Show of hands who keeps an ice axe on standby….


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## Demi9OD (Dec 23, 2014)

Scalpelman said:


> Really? Show of hands who keeps an ice axe on standby….
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


No ski poles means two ice axes at all times duh.


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## DaveMcI (Aug 19, 2013)

Haha, chop chop motherbitches


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## bob2356 (Jul 13, 2012)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Oh, just to add the obvious. Keep the board below you...between you and gravity. Also do NOT take the board off, this may seem counter intuitive. But if it is that slippery/icy your only hope is to use the board and try to get an edge of the board to maintain some control and hopeful self-arrest. If you take your board off, there is no hope for control. This is because with the usual nylon outerwear, it is very slick, and you will go hauling ass and be at the mercy of pure luck of not damaging yourself or others...as in a Sonny Bono or Wiley Coyote (and the same applies to skiers). A few years back an inexperienced dad and his son were skiing some gnarls, got in the hairy. Dad took off his skis to scout a way out, lost it and went sliding off the planet with his son watching. I know the area where it happened (inbounds Baker) and it is doable, however the fatal mistake was taking his skis off.
> 
> Edit: About speed of the slide. If you start to slide and need to SA, do it as soon as possible to avoid gaining momentum. However, if you have already a good amount of momentum going, then just try to slow down...bleeding off some of the speed. Because if you try to immediately "full stop" this is where you risk launching yourself and continue to slide out of control.
> 
> ...


Good ramble. I disagree on one point. I would never try to dig in toeside in a slide, if at all humanly possible roll it over and go for heel side. It is far too easy to get the toe edge hopping uncontrollably (and harder each hop) that can generate the kind of forces that can severely sprain or even break an ankle.

Couple points on having fun on ice not covered that I saw. Keep weight low,, really low. Bend zeeee neees please as the old time Austrian instructors used to say. A hard fall on ice standing high can, and probably will, be really bad, think concussion or worse.

Keep the board directly under you as much as possible. Like directly under your weight center. All leg only turns. It's hard to explain, you almost kind of hop from edge to edge so the edge is always right under you. You don't want to have the board out front or back where it can get away from you. If you get the board sliding out from under your weight center you simply won't be able to initiate another turn.

Try, try, try to make lots of pretty short quick turns that you initiate very early keeping the board always turning. You need to be ahead of the board not catching up to it. Do NOT drop your weight to the tail or into the slope. Weight forward, very aggro.

You CAN have fun on slick days, but you need a pretty aggressive mental attitude that you are gong to pound the ice into submission to do it. Yes I'm a high day east coast boarder lthat goes out on those kind of days.

Yet another ramble


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## Rip154 (Sep 23, 2017)

Imagine the abuse you’re gonna take showing up to an east coast resort with ice axes. Going down something icy and steep in a resort has to be a conscious decision, but it’s hard to make the right call if you don’t have one of those scary moments already. Gotta check for hazards below and be ok with the fact that if you screw up, you’re most likely just in for the ride till you stop or hit something. It’s usually better to avoid if you know that much.

Outside the resort can be different, touring at altitude in spring you will most likely run into some icy conditions. They have some basic glacier/mountaineering courses in some areas that are useful. Learning to self arrest, use crampons and ropes and so on.

I find myself bringing some light crampons and an ice axe (and helmet) usually, but that’s because I know I might want to walk up and ride stuff that is 30-50 degrees with hard snow. It all fits in the avy gear pocket along with poles and skins. Found myself skipping stuff because I don’t have those items, and would be so pissed at myself for it. Have done it too much without gear before, kicking half inch steps into crust and hoping for the best. It’s not smart in any way, but the rush is nice.

Courses teach you to get around with crampons and self arrest with an ice axe or poles, but it’s pretty much the same thing with a snowboard. I don’t think they will bother trying to teach techniques for digging into stuff like that with just a snowboard, so the posts in this thread is prolly the closest you get. In a course, you keep the crampons off the snow and rely on the tools to slow you down. In an emergency, grab a rock or a branch I guess.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

bob2356 said:


> Good ramble. I disagree on one point. I would never try to dig in toeside in a slide, if at all humanly possible roll it over and go for heel side. It is far too easy to get the toe edge hopping uncontrollably (and harder each hop) that can generate the kind of forces that can severely sprain or even break an ankle.


Acknowledged, I've mildly sprained both ankles one time when riding, digging in toeside but was going much faster than just sliding about.

As to folks who are just attaining a fair amount of speed 35-60+ mph and then going down...slide it out to burn off some speed before putting your board down to arrest to prevent injuries, launching yourself and such.


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