The fear of making an idiot out of yourself is the biggest turn-off for most skiers. By making sure you’re at your peak fitness, you can make sure you make the most out of your skiing holiday, instead of finding that you are too physically exhausted to get out of bed four days into your trip. Even if you’re a skiing beginner, doing the same manoeuvres over and over again for six or seven hours a day at high altitude for an entire week can be exhausting. The only way to make sure you have the energy – both physical and mental – to fully enjoy the experience is to get in shape long before you hit the slopes.
You don’t have to be at professional athlete standard before you go on your holiday, but the fitter your body is, the less the chance of injury. For this, make sure you include stamina and endurance training, strength and flexibility and ski-specific exercises into your workout routine before you go.
One of the best things about skiing and snowboarding is that you can alter the level of ability with experience and/or training, which makes the sports so unique and interesting.
When you first arrive at your resort, you’ll be eager to start right away and see how many of the runs you can tackle. However, bear in mind that a slow advancement of the slopes is the best way to explore safely. Trying to tackle a run which is too steep or too difficult for you when you aren’t ready or experienced enough to handle it can be dangerous.
Ski runs are categorised into different colours based on their difficulty. In both Europe and America, green is used to designate learner slopes which have a lesser gradient and are appropriate for those who are just starting out. These are also good to practice techniques if you’re not yet confident enough for a steeper slope. Make sure you move on from the green slopes pretty quickly though, it can get boring and not challenging yourself with the next level can leave you not developing your skill. Blue slopes are the next level, and are usually suitable for beginners and lower intermediates. Red slopes only exist in Europe and are for the upper intermediates, but the American equivalent is the black run (which can be confusing for European skiers as the black runs in Europe mean ‘expert’ level). The equivalent of a European black run is marked as a double black run in America, and orange and yellow runs are for the more advanced and expert level skiers.
Runs aren’t always marked on their gradient, but also the variety of challenges and difficulties that skiers have to face whilst on the slope. Mogul fields occur regularly on some slopes. Moguls are a series of bumps formed on a trail from the skiers pushing the snow into mounds or piles as they execute short-radius turns. Navigating through moguls is the mark of a skiers control and can be really tricky. Narrower runs also require you to employ different skills, with slopes that pass through dense forests offer a different perspective and experience to those that are located on mountain faces, which are more exposed.
Weather conditions also play a huge part in the experience of a run or slope. The difficulty of a run can be altered depending on the weather. Slopes that are very exposed are likely to become icy and more dangerous when the winds pick up and blow the powder snow away. Alternatively, forest trails tend to be more sheltered and will therefore be a lot softer as they are guarded from the strong winds.
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Before You Go
