Introduction
Edinburgh Ski Touring Club exists to help members ski tour in Scotland and abroad, safely and in congenial company. Ski touring and back-country skiing have grown in popularity in recent years as people have come to appreciate the beauty of the hills in winter and the solitude and unspoiled vistas that open up away from lift served pistes. Many Club members have come to ski-touring from a hill walking or mountaineering background and are looking to extend their means of getting out in the hills in winter. Others have come to ski touring from a piste skiing background. In either case, the emphasis is on the whole touring experience traversing plateaux and climbing hills as well as accessing remote and untouched downhill slopes. Some members prefer to do their touring at lower levels in forests and open countryside.
The ESTC style
Skiing in the mountains in Scotland can be dangerous and people can have different attitudes to risks and strategies for managing risk. In general the club encourages people to pick routes and ski well within their limits, to develop their skills to cope with situations they hope not to meet, and to equip themselves to cope with conditions in which they might not choose to start a trip but which they may meet due to the changeable nature of Scottish weather.
The club provides opportunities for less experienced members to enhance all aspects of skills relevant to safety in the hills in winter by drawing on the greater knowledge and skills of more experienced members.
To help you get a clearer grasp different ways of skiing, it might be helpful to distinguish a number of factors:
- Place: On piste, off piste, backcountry, track, forest
- Equipment: traditional Nordic (skinny skis), Telemark (free heel) or Alpine
- Styles of skiing: Nordic kick and glide, Telemark, Alpine, Skating
Alpine Piste Skiing
This is the most popular form of skiing amongst British skiers, indeed it is the only form of skiing known by many. The defining features are: the use of mechanical lifts to gain height, the use of equipment designed to give maximum control for the specialist task of coming downhill, and the use of prepared pistes to provide a variety of different levels of difficulty.
As any one who has skied Alpine will know that the advantage of downhill control comes at the expense of the flexibility to move on the flat or uphill, the fixed heel is its key strength and key weakness. The skills of downhill skiing are not, however, limited to use on Alpine downhill skis.
In general, if you can ski downhill comfortably on fixed heel skis you will be able to use most of these techniques with free heel skis. Experience at downhill skiing does give you many transferable skills, and as long as speed and steepness and the adrenalin rush are not the only reason you ski, Alpine piste skiing is a good platform to develop skills. Lessons are easily obtained both in ski resorts and on the plastic slope in Edinburgh.
Off piste skiing
Increasing numbers of downhill skiers outgrow the confines of the pistes and there has been a tremendous growth of off-piste skiing as people have experienced the joys of powder and want more of it. Heli-skiing and the development of non-pisted slopes in resorts caters for those who want the downhill thrills but want the time and effort to get to the top of the slopes minimised.
Heli-skiing is banned in much of Europe and heli-skiing in Canada, and where allowed in Europe, is always expensive. For many people, therefore, off piste means away from the crowds and finding fresh powder and this has led to the increased popularity of backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering which involves climbing under your own power in places where there are no lifts, no pistes, and hopefully no people either.
Alpine Touring (Ski Mountaineering)
In the Alps and Pyrenees and further afield, the steepness of the slopes have made people unwilling to give up the advantages of fixed heel skis for the control they give in descent and they have developed Ski Mountaineering equipment especially to allow ski-touring from refuge to refuge in the high mountains.
The equipment has been developed so that the bindings allow the heel to be released for walking uphill but be rigidly attached for the descent. The ascents tend to be steep and there is little flat or rolling terrain and there is less advantage in developing the gliding performance of equipment. Skins are attached to the bottom of skis for the ascents and skis are waxed to improve their downhill glide rather than as with Nordic skis to improve their grip on slopes and plateau.
A great personal web site by Anar Andalkar - www.skimountaineer.com - provides a rich insight into the subtleties of ski mountaineering. He makes the following distinction:
"Simply stated, ski mountaineering is the use of skis for ascending and descending mountains. The "skis" used could be either specialized ski mountaineering gear (alpine touring / randonnee), standard downhill skiing gear, telemark gear (free-heel nordic), very-short figle skis, or even snowboards. In the purest form of ski mountaineering, both the ascent and descent of a peak are made entirely on skis, using climbing skins and perhaps ski crampons for traction on the ascent, and then descending a continuous ski route back down to the base. At times a complete ski ascent is not possible due to snow conditions, route selection, or equipment choice, thus requiring some climbing on foot, perhaps using crampons or snowshoes. In other cases, a continuous ski descent may be dangerous or impossible, requiring downclimbing or rappelling past the areas of difficulty. The goal of ski mountaineering is to use skis to enhance the overall mountaineering experience by increasing speed, efficiency, and (most of all) enjoyment in the mountains.
In contrast, backcountry skiing usually refers to skiing for its own sake, trying to find the best ski conditions and terrain regardless of the particular mountains where it occurs. Although the ascent and descent techniques are the same, the goals of ski mountaineering trips and backcountry skiing trips are usually different. Backcountry ski trips typically involve yo-yoing a single slope several times in one day once the good snow has been found, while ski mountaineering trips typically consist of a single focused ascent or traverse each day. Most ski mountaineers do either style of trip depending on which is appropriate for the conditions and the season."
Note: Some of the equipment featured on his web site is dated.
Track skiing (Langlauf, Ski de fond, cross country)
Track skiing is usually carried out at lower altitude and on more rolling country and often uses the tracks through forests. These characteristics are found more in northern Europe and this style of skiing developed in Germany, France and Scandinavia, where there was good prolonged winter snow cover at lower levels. The forests protect the snow from the heat of the sun and preserve good snow cover and provide protection from the wind, the tracks built for extracting timber are generally fairly gentle in gradient and perfect for the development of tracks.
In traditional track skiing the skis are long thin and light, and designed to glide forward easily as the skier kicks forward and pushed simultaneously on their poles. For recreational users the middle of the base of the skis is often a pattern of fishscales which grip the snow and provide friction when they are pushed down on (weighted).
Track skiing has grown into a massive competitive activity and under the name Nordic skiing is a major component of the Winter Olympics. Before marathon running had gained its current popularity, long distance mass participation Nordic events, like the Trans-Jurassienne, mixed elite athletes with weekend tourists to generate fields of thousands. Aerobically it is one of the best total body forms of exercise.
The picture shows the person on the left in the tracks while the person on the right is skating on the piste beside the tracks. The terrain is gently rolling although there are steep mountains in the background.
Skating
The light skis and long poles of traditional track skiing allow you where there is firm and smooth snow out side the tracks to leave the tracks and to pick the skis off the snow and use a skating motion to push forward off one ski and then the other. This has led to the development of a very stylish and fast form of cross country skiing and the typical track ski site now uses a piste bashing machine to make tracks down the side and a broad groomed skating piste in the middle. To skate you need to be fit, well co-ordinated with a good sense of balance. Anyone who has mastered skating is likely to have a good set of skills to develop into the specific techniques for ski-touring.
Nordic Ski-touring
In Scandinavia track skiing developed from a form of skiing which was used as a practical method of getting around the country-side by farmers, but also by the military and border patrols, and here skis were heavier and had edges to assist braking and steering in un-manicured snow conditions. Boots were stiff heavy leather boots, developed from winter walking boots, to provide a flexibility to lift the heel but a rigidity to aid turning the ski onto its edges to brake and turn. These heavier skis and boots allowed the development of a unique style of skiing called telemark skiing. Ski-touring in Scotland in general has been based on this tradition and this type of equipment. The popularity of telemark skiing in the United States and the great technological advances in the use of plastics and other composites is making for a convergence between Alpine downhill skis and telemark skis for use in the back-country.
Many people in the club have leather boots and straight edged Nordic skis with light bindings and find these appropriate to their needs for ski-touring in Scotland and Norway, while others use plastic telemark boots and wider skis and are finding them equally suitable for the style of skiing that the club practices.
Last updated 01/02/2001 by Brent. © Copyright Edinburgh Ski Touring Club 2011. e-mail: webmaster@estc.org.uk