What is Windbuff?

Windbuff in the Dropout Chutes at Mammoth Mountain, CA

What is hero snow?

Hero snow is simply easy to ski, so you can “look like a hero” even with flaws in technique. For most skiers, this translates into forgiving soft snow that's not too deep with a solid base underneath for making turns.

What is wind buff?

Mammoth is known for its wind. Sometimes this produces awesome wind blown snow affectionately known by locals as “the buff”. The buff is basically fine snow with a buttery texture that gets naturally filled in by the wind making for amazing skiing, often with fresh tracks every run.

What is chalk snow?

Chalk: Dry, easily edgeable snow that often forms when it's consistently cold and often windy.

What is ski playfulness?

In terms of a ski being “playful,” we use that word to describe skis that are (1) easy to release from a turn / slarve, (2) that produce energy when you lean into them, (3) are easy to flick around in the air, (4) feel balanced in the air (often due to a more forward mount point), (5) and / or ski switch well.

What is a Slarve turn?

The Slarve is a sliding carve, or skid steer, where the tips pivot and the tails slide adjacent and wash out creating a deep angled crescent moon shape.

What is a forgiving ski?

A "forgiving" ski simply allows for grosser body movements without instantaneous reactions. Say you regularly let your hips fall behind your feet; a forgiving ski will give you time to regain your balance without repercussions, while an unforgiving ski will dump you unceremoniously on your rump.

What is corn ski?

Large-grained, rounded crystals formed from repeated melting and freezing of the snow. Under Corn Snow or Melt-Freeze conditions, a crust forms on the surface that will support your weight when frozen, but turns to deep slush during the heat of the day.

What are the 7 types of snow?

This system defines the seven principal snow crystal types as plates, stellar crystals, columns, needles, spatial dendrites, capped columns, and irregular forms. To these are added three additional types of frozen precipitation: graupel, ice pellets, and hail.

What are the 4 types of snow?

Snow comes in five general types: graupel, plates, needles, columns, and dendrites. Each snow type forms in different temperatures and moisture levels.

Why is mammoth so windy?

Thanks to its high altitude and location, high winds are common all across Mammoth Mountain, especially at the top of the mountain. Mammoth wouldn't be as popular as it is if the winds were unmanageable though, and with a little insider knowledge you can avoid high winds and other bad weather.

What does dust on crust mean?

Dust on crust: When only a little amount of snow falls on top of crusty snow. Crusty snow is a thin frozen layer of snow.

Is skiing on fresh snow harder?

The presence of fresh snow on a mountain is known to offer skiers and snowboarders a fabulous day's worth of skiing and snowboarding. A thick layer of fresh snow allows for more grip during turns, along with a smoother ride and extra cushioning if you do happen to take a tumble.

What does loose granular mean?

Loose Granular – Small, loose pellets of snow that is created by the grooming of wet or icy snow. Snow thaws and then refreezes as granules that do not cling together. This snow might resemble something you'd seen in a snow cone.

What is fluffy snow called?

Graupel is sometimes mistaken for hail, but tends to have a texture that is softer and more crumbly. Graupel is sometimes also called snow pellets. Polycrystals are snowflakes composed of many individual ice crystals.

What is powdered snow?

fresh loose snow, esp when considered as skiing terrain.

Can you eat snow?

Scientists have found that new snow can contain weird stuff including pesticides, soot and even nasties such as mercury and formaldehyde. All of these things are found at extremely low levels — which means it's technically safe to eat.

What is a death cookie?

During the day, the warm spring sun turns snow to mush. Then, if grooming machines work a run before there's a deep freeze, they chew up the slope's surface, leaving chunks in their wake. When the chunks freeze, they turn into what are affectionately known as “death cookies.”

What is aggressive snow?

In French or English, there is aggressive snow, which is so cold that skis can't run smoothly over it.

What is elephant snot snow?

If freshly fallen snow fails the powder test because it's too warm and wet, what you probably have is crud. Particularly wet and dense crud may be called elephant snot, gloop, glue, cement, ice cream. Wet snow will fall when the temperature is about minus 2 to plus 1 degrees.

Are wider skis harder to turn?

Wide skis, on the other hand, have more surface area and therefore provide more flotation (think snowshoes as an example). This means that they perform great in powder, but take more effort to turn and are harder to control and sloppier on groomers.

What is the benefit of a wider ski?

With better torsional stiffness wider skis perform exceptionally well on groomed and hardpack conditions. The torsional stiffness decreases chatter at higher speeds, and allows the ski to have increased edge hold on hardpack snow. Another huge advancement in the progression of wide skis are the ski bindings.

Are wider skis better for beginners?

Generally speaking, beginners are going to want a narrower ski. For starters, beginners spend most of their time on-piste, where a wide-waisted ski will feel unwieldy. Narrower skis are also nimbler and are therefore easier to lay over on edge.

What is Hippie POW?

If you are relatively new to the backcountry you can grab a couple of friends and join us in seeking out the ​“hippie pow,” a term used to describe deep snow on gentle terrain, fun for all and requiring no formal avalanche education training.

What is smearing in skiing?

Smearing is skidding a turn in powder, which just wasn't possible on narrow skis. Skidding—or drifting—gives you options. At speed, it allows you to delay a turn—to avoid an obstacle, for instance.