How to Ski in a Whiteout | Learn how to ski in control

I have no idea where I'm going. I think there's a trail down there. I think there's a lift above me. I have no idea. Hey everyone, I'm Kevin Jordan, PSAA national team member. Today, we're gonna ski in a whiteout. So one of the things about a whiteout, there's a lot of our visual senses are kind of taken away and we're gonna need to rely on some other senses today to really help us figure out where the heck I'm going. Some of those senses are gonna include some auditory cues. What am I hearing? What is the snow doing? I'm also gonna look for different things. There are some tricks that you can use that can help you see more in a whiteout. So in whiteout conditions, many skiers, they tend to ski a little more defensively. Some of the common mistakes, they're gonna start to lean more up the hill. They're also gonna do what I like to call shopping for turns. They're not sure where to make a turn. So they're just gonna kind of traverse back and forth. I've been in these conditions before and I'm gonna help give you some tactics and tips that have helped me out in a whiteout. It may not be the best conditions to actually try them out in. If you feel comfortable doing it, by all means do it. But something that's really good to practice when the light's great, when you can see where you're going, practice some of these drills so that when you get caught in a whiteout, you know what to do. A whiteout's gonna bring some challenging weather conditions wind, rain, snow. On a normal day, I'd wear something like this. It's a really bright lens. It doesn't let a ton of the available light in. So I'm gonna choose a lens that I can actually see or allows more light in of what's available to me. You wanna make sure you feel really comfortable in gear that's gonna repel some water, that's gonna let you breathe. If your gloves or your hands are gonna get wet or your socks are gonna get wet, you're probably not gonna have the most fun time out there and you're probably gonna go in pretty quick. When I can't see very well in a whiteout, I'm gonna use objects. I'm gonna use, I'm gonna look for stuff that provides a little contrast. Looking for trees. I'm looking for piece markers. Those are just gonna help guide me. You know, where are the boundaries? Where is the actual trail and help guide me down? One of the common mistakes is that people tend to ski in the middle of the trail, especially during a whiteout. That's really hard because I can't see or I don't have anything to contrast. But if I just come on over here, I got these trail markers, these piece markers. It just helps give me a little bit of contrast. Okay, so I can kind of see where the edge is and now I can ski and I have some kind of basis or a boundary as I make my turns. And that's all I'm trying to do is just give myself a little bit of a boundary so that I can see where I'm going, help aid me and guide me down the trail. A lot of times in the whiteout, there is a tendency to look down at what your skis are doing and just what's immediately in your future. I like to call that the now. You need to spend some time looking at the next and bouncing back and forth between the now and the next. So I'm taking in what's coming at me really close, but I'm also looking ahead to see what's going on, bouncing back and forth. Again, I'm not trying to get you to move your head up and down, but just try to get a sense because a lot of times people just look down and they might get back and now my technique's all thrown out. So hey, it was super cloudy and really whiteout conditions up top. I'm gonna move down a little lower on the mountain, but also I'm gonna jump into the trees. Why? Because the snow is really light, the trees are really dark. That provides contrast. If I was just skiing an open trail, an open piece, it'd be a little bit trickier because everything's just kind of white and if I'm in the cloud, then I'm in the white and that's why it's called a whiteout. Everything around me is white. So here's where you're gonna find me on a whiteout day, skiing in the trees. Balance is so important in a whiteout. Why? Because if you can't see where you're going, you have to be prepared to get knocked out of balance. Most people tend to lean back. It's actually better if we're more balanced over our entire foot. By lifting the toes, I'm actually closing or making that angle a little bit smaller. And by doing that, it's gonna give me a little more ankle flex. I'm gonna be ready so I can react to different things. All right, so I got toes lifted, but I'm still trying to feel the ball of my foot. And all it's doing is just flexing my ankle. I have good visibility here so I can practice. But if I go into something and I can't see where I'm going, I wanna remember that I need to keep my ankles flexed versus trying to ski defensively like this. Now I've lost my ankles. So if I bring my toes up, feel the front of my boots, and really flex my ankles. Hey, so let's use the 4F ratio monitor. This is gonna measure scores from zero to 100. And we're shooting for scores of 45 to 60. Turn on the 4F ratio monitor. Let's go. Okay, so right now I got my 4F ratio monitor on and I'm starting to get a readout. 52, 46, 53, okay. My turns to the right are a little better. 50, I'm shooting for 45 to 60. 42, 31, 42, 42. 27. 27? 34, 33. All right, so I'm getting lower scores when I'm really, really far back. So as I'm feeling things internally, I have some external feedback from someone else telling me how I'm doing. And I can make those adjustments on the fly, which can really help me improve and I can ski a whole lot better. One of the things I notice in students is that they shop for turns and they just keep traversing. It's really hard to then commit to going down the hill and it's gonna take forever to get down in some whiteout conditions. So here's how we're gonna fix that. We're gonna do short turns with a strong pole plant. We're gonna remember that I'm touching my pole and then I'm turning. So again, it's really important to have this pole plant. You want a pole plant with every single turn, touch and turn. The sensations that I feel is I can actually feel pressure moving from the ball of my foot towards the back of my arch on every turn as I make it. If there was like an imaginary bungee cord tied to my pole and then to my knee and my hips, it's almost like when I swing it, it's letting go of that old one. And now I am turning and I'm turning around that pole and I'll continue to have some nice rhythm all the way down. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna actually use the metronome challenge with CARV because this is gonna help me develop some timing. So what it is is I'm gonna ski about five turns to kind of set the rhythm just like I was doing the drill before. And then I'll get some information, some data to see how I was doing. Follow me. Now set your rhythm. Now ski to the count. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. Okay. On average, you were 2% faster than the target with an accuracy of 94%. And my accuracy was 94%. I was a little 2% faster than my actual target. Something I'll work on. So I may not be able to control the white out of the weather. I mean, I wish I could, but I can control where I turn, when I turn and how I'm turning. And that's exactly why we're doing this and using the metronome challenge. I would encourage you to now try it yourself. So now I'm ready to ski in the white out conditions. I can't see where I'm going. That doesn't matter. I can trust in my training and I'm gonna drop in. We'll catch you next time.