"folding the nose"

[Guest gabrielo]

I read about Enzo's broken pelvis and I realize that I am need of some serious guidance to reduce chances of getting hurt.

I am 70, been on a board for about ten years, mostly All Mountain (K-2 El Dorado 164), and a year ago started carving a Donek Axxis 172. I learned mostly from reading Jack Michaud's superb articles.

What is the story about the hazards of "folding the nose" and about turning in powder on an alpine board?? What is there to watch out for, to avoid??

Sorry about sounding so ignorant. But there are not a lot of fellow carvers on the mountain whom to ask.

[crucible]

With regards to riding powder on an alpine board, the biggest difference would be the higher level of speed and visual anticipation needed. The faster speed is necessary to keep your narrower board on the surface plane in deep powder, and that leads to having to look further ahead to anticipate changes in slope angle and terrain.

I have used my Oxygen Protons on 18" powder days at Mt.Baker and Whistler-Blackcomb, but I really should have used an AM freecarver like a Prior AWD.

These two tips helped me to enjoy the conditions.

George

[Enzo]

I read about Enzo's broken pelvis and I realize that I am need of some serious guidance to reduce chances of getting hurt......What is there to watch out for, to avoid??

The one piece of advice that I can offer you is not to run 30-40mph so close to trees.

[skategoat]

My nose-folding episodes happened when I was being aggressive and driving hard into the turns - almost diving into them. It's fun to ride like that but I'm not going to do that anymore when the snow is soft. So if you ride more balanced and smooth, it likely won't happen.

[carvedog]

I was thinking about what might cause this and how I might have saved it when I have the nose folding situation happen.

One way is when hard carving with an early, aggressive edge set. I sometimes don't retract or suck up the transition as the body passes over the board. I think part of this is also when the shape of the turn has suffered: meaning I had too much momentum down the hill instead of across so that transition edge set had too much force on the nose.

The other way is on softer snow, when the nose gets a little over flexed and just kind of stays there when on harder snow such a position might result in a slide out.

In both of these situations I think it usually happens to me on toeside. Less suspension ( for lack of a better word) on toeside makes it easier to generate the force necesary to fold the nose.

I also believe that if I was flexible enough to pull a strong retraction move I could have saved the turn. I am healing a shoulder from Jan 9th crash (from folding the nose) and have had tons of time to think about how this happened and what I need to do to make sure it never happens again.

For me increase in flexibilty in lower body ( ankles, knees and hips) through yoga, stretching and strength. Improve spinal flexion and strength througout the core and midsection. AND I need to lose a little weight. Or a lot.

Powder in hard boots is wonderful. I haven't ridden soft in 5-6 years and don't miss it a bit. Make sure your board is wide enough to support angles at 40-45 degrees. I ride at about 45. It's very important to have subtle turn initiation at slow speed. Kind of like standing on one of those half of a rubber ball things at the physical therapists.Stay on top of your feet and resist the temptation to lean. That is what it can feel like starting out.

Once you plane out I think it is important to work the flex of the board and when you feel it rebound give it a little extra pop and you just fly out of the pow. I think it is similar to soft in that you can work that pop off the tail too with a big slash to load the board and then effortless unweighting and turn off the rebound of the board.

In more chopped snow or irregular pow or terrain, i do much more of a retraction turn ( down unweighting in AASI terms) instead of putting so much pressure on the tail or midsection) so as to absorb all irregularities while making myself as light as possible with respect to pressure on the snow. By being light the decreased leverage that hard boot stance can put to the edge is maximized.

[Gleb]

my ultimate goal is to be able to carve into my 70s.

Folding the nose means just putting too much force on the front of your board in easy carving conditons.

It almost happend to me coming in over a roller and on the bottom of it, the snow was much softer than I expected.

Carvedog is right, its having to much momentum going forward when your board is starting to go across the hill.

Its easy to do when you are on easy carving snow because you can become over confident with your carves and at which speeds you can handle them.

Best thing to do is center yourself more on the board and don't try to go mach 2 and carve on super sticky snow.

Good luck