For the last 4 seasons moguls have been my nemesis. They were the one condition that really caused my trouble and no matter how much mileage I racked up refused to be solved. Spring is bump season and I have been spending a lot of time time last few weeks playing in the bumps. This season I started with a new pair of boots, finally a good fitting pair. And I finally have been slowly but surely improving my bump skiing.

One skill I have learned from all this bumping is how to use my uphill ski. Baiscly the thingI do is adjust my balance to soft edge or drag (skid) the uphill ski in a controlled way and use this to control my speed in bumps. After working on this I can really feel my balance in my feet really well over either uphill or down hill skis in a turn. In the past I focused on hand position, shoulders, hip angulation or whatever, but now I can really feel it in my feet and legs too.

In the past when skiing hard snow it was like ski one footed and it was about pressure. But this morning was just standing there on my uphill ski and I was like no this isn't rihgt I should be on my other ski, and I then balanced right on that one with out thinking about it and was like yea thats it. And then I just took off and ripped laying down some serious arcs. I found out that "one footed" skiing is not about how hard you press / weight your feet but where your balance point is. Focusing on that made every turn come out that much better. Using this improved feel for balancing (primarily) on my outside ski really helped me to more effortlessly rip some really nice carves on really hard snow with a decent amount of corn thrown around on top to camouflage. Skiing by feel is awesomesauce.

And then in the afternoon when the bumps softened up, I made the top 10 of my top 10 bump runs ever on the freestyle course on alpine meadows slope. I am still bump newb, but I really feel like this was a eureka moment. I was able to put it all together and for the first time I have been able to make an entire bump run without leaving the zipper line. I can still look upto the best bump skiers at 7S but this made my season. Videos will be posted as soon as my sister emails me the videos.

All I can say is bully! And go ski now. Springs was totally empty all day and it was beautiful weather and the bumps were oh so sweet.

Tim,

Congratulations on your breakthrough. Skiing bumps well is a great feeling and when the spring snow corns up is the time to do it.

Let me offer up my favorite tip for skiing bumps, immodest though it may be to offer advice without even seeing you ski them. Quite likely you are doing it already. The tip is to drive the ski tips down as you come over the bump. This keeps you centered on the skis and keeps the skis on the snow where they can do the most good and is also the first move in the 'extension' phase. In skiing bumps you absorb and extend, so the legs are constantly flexing and extending as you go over the bumps but the upper body stays on as smooth a trajectory as possible. I've been teaching skiing for a few years and this tip has helped more people than anything else I've been able to give them.