Checking cliff landings

Stadtski

Stadtski

Member
I was dropping a cliff in my town that was about 10 feet and it had just snowed about 2.5 feet of powder. I was hucking 3's off of it when I landed on a rock and smashed my leg. I had no idea it was there. It made me think I should have poked around in the snow and checked what the landing was like, but then the snow wouldn't have been as nice. Do you guys check your landings before hucking a cliff?
 
The day after Christmas I was following a very small pillow line in the trees, and I hit a bush jump, and the landing was a boulder. First contact that I made was my shin, which was then hashed open to the bone and a slice of my tibia was sacrificed to the ski gods. I dunno, I just fuck it huck it and sometimes you get shit on.
 
If it's my first time dropping it or the snow is hardpack, I'll always check first from the top and then hike back up. It's not worth hucking yourself straight onto a rock. Pow days I just fucking send some shit tho
 
If you ski the same place all season, you should be paying attention to all the hits, gives you a good idea whats underneath. You can watch everything pile up cycle after cycle.
 
13314496:japanada said:
If you ski the same place all season, you should be paying attention to all the hits, gives you a good idea whats underneath. You can watch everything pile up cycle after cycle.
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yeah but it's still tough and really makes it scary to send things when it's a pow day. with wind drifts and shit even if i know where a certain rock is (and i almost never do), you sometimes don't know if it's completely washed out or just covered by a little bit of snow

definitely one of the harder aspects of hitting cliffs OP
 
you should always check your landings if you are new to a zone/trail/bowl. dont be worry about tracking out your landings, most pros filming seggies have hit features/spots many times before they actually get out and film on it....

most resort cliffs will be marked if there is danger in the lander, but you should always "look before you leap".

when planning to drop bigger cliffs, you should scout the zone during the summer...take pictures, look for sizable trees that will disappear with heavy snowpacks , even bring a probe with you on pow days to check for death rocks.

i landed directly on a shark fin at breck on the deepest day... the skis were my shield and they lost the battle. lucky i walked/skied away.
 
13314602:RubberSoul said:
yeah but it's still tough and really makes it scary to send things when it's a pow day. with wind drifts and shit even if i know where a certain rock is (and i almost never do), you sometimes don't know if it's completely washed out or just covered by a little bit of snow

definitely one of the harder aspects of hitting cliffs OP
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Probably should be finding other hits then if there was still expoosure of jagged sharks before the storm. Or just sent it bigger! The hits on my mountain that are exposed I know the right angles to jump at to threat that needle.

Don't jump into flat boulder fields helps too.

Where do you ski
 
13314670:japanada said:
Probably should be finding other hits then if there was still expoosure of jagged sharks before the storm. Or just sent it bigger! The hits on my mountain that are exposed I know the right angles to jump at to threat that needle.

Don't jump into flat boulder fields helps too.

Where do you ski
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oh yeah for sure, i know. im just saying that those are considerations that you don't necessarily think about when you watch a video of someone sending something. it was something i had to get used to when i moved out west (utah, tahoe).

now i ski sporadically back east and have a trip west here and there. busy job :(
 
sometimes there's rocks in the landing. That's part of skiing. 9 times out of 10 you can tell how it's gonna be just by looking at it and skiing in the area.
 
Recon tours before sending helps me study the line and judge if it good or not. But if not, I can make predictions on where I am going to land and what has been skied. Or else, its a roll of the dice.
 
Ski under it either just above or just below where you think you'll land. If there's heaps of sucker-snow (blower pow with nothing underneath it) have a bit of a poke around with a pole and see what the base feels like below the snow.

If you're standing on top of it already, chuck a decent size snowball off - if it smashes, no bueno.

Otherwise just send it and let her buck.
 
I get my buddy to go down and check the landing, That way you can send it without having to hike up. Of Course you need to return the favor some other time.
 
If I haven't hit it before I'll usually at least visually inspect the landing from the top. Or just get one of your friends to guinea pig it lol.
 
Once i was dropping this mini cliff and went to send a huge daffy for the boyzz but just after my pop i caught my tip on rock that was just hiding a bit below the top of the cliff and ejected and was sent flying straight to hardpack. I always check the landings if i can now.
 
i just send it big so i'm landing where other people have skied and i know there are no rocks if i haven't scouted it before

i have gotten sharked in a chute on a pow day in austria though. i just kinda crashed and didn't know why
 
If you are prodding landings and sacking up to hit a 10' "cliff", time to pick a new hobby.

If you're blindly jumping off of 25'+ cliffs like shit is sweet out here, time to pick a new hobby.

Is the landing crossloaded/leeward? Is everything else on that aspect blower? Is there a bunch of talus or scree everywhere? Are you in the Colorado Rockies where you can reasonably assume there's death rocks everywhere? Do you have friends, preferably ones less brave than you that are willing to scope? Can you toss a rock and get a feel for the speed and trajectory? what's in the run out/what are the consequences if you explode or land off balance and can't recover quickly? What's the snowpack like in general? Etc. Etc.

Hands forward, pop, core tensed, extend legs and absorb landing, stunt on em in the run out.
 
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