MORPHEME: Beater Tales

Ingrid Backstrom had one of the worst beaters of her career in Las Lenas last year. She launched an air that led to a tight chute 300 feet below. While airborne, she looked down and found frightening conditions below her. Time slowed and allowed her to sort through her options before she settled for a hip check. “I totally didn’t stick it at all and basically bounded into a cartwheel”. Then the fun began. The snow became harder and faster. The pitch got steeper. The tomahawk became faster and faster…I wasn’t even touching the ground between spins—it was like fingertips and heeltips only”. She managed to break the tumble, avoiding the side of the approaching couloir and continuing down the fall line for another 3,000 feet. “I had tons of adrenaline going, so I was able to ski for another run or two before calling it a day,” recalls Backstrom.

Time is relative, especially when a big digger is imminent. As time slows, the adrenaline assisted memory accumulates volumes of detail. It’s common for skiers to recall minute details of events that transpired over a single second. Skiers delve into details so vivid about botch air entries, mid-air contortions, and attempts to avoid rocks in the landing area that John Madden would be hard pressed to give a more lucid recollection.

Speed is a common theme throughout beater stories. “The more speed you get, the more air you get, and you can’t get hurt in the air.” said Adam Sherman of Igneous ski, former ski racer and engineering student. Sardonic skydivers may argue it’s not the fall that kills, but rather the sudden stop. Stories that invoke speed generally start with “So I was straightlining through these moguls…” or “I come in a little hot…” and finish with “…the next thing I know four hours later I’m waking up in a hospital room”. Speed before the beater is bad, but so is the accelerating fall. With turns acting as a braking maneuver, dual-release falls often turn into fall line kamikaze slides (thanks to Gore-Tex parkas that easily double as sleds) that subside when the terrain eases, leaving burn blisters and bruised egos

“Unexpected Snow Conditions” is often in cahoots with co-conspirator “Speed” to wreck the unsuspecting skier. The perils of changing snow conditions come in many forms. Many skiers have lost it on flat light days when soft powder turns give way to boiler-plate. Let’s not forget maching into a deep powder stash. The mechanics are simple: The skis slow rapidly, the body lurches forward, the bindings say ‘click, click’ and then the skier is catapulted into the air. And then there are the mind fields of Spring; those traverses which unexpectedly cross a knoll onto a sun-exposed, bare boulder field.