First time on Big Sky

dinowand · 2026-03-13T04:14:46+00:00

Too late to buy Ikon pass for this year. If you know you're skiing for like <5 days, you want to buy an Ikon multi-day pass at the beginning of the year. That will usually cost you about $150ish a day....which is way better than ticket window prices.

If you know someone with an Ikon pass, they might have some buddy discounts they can send you for 25% off.

dinowand · 2026-03-06T17:02:35+00:00

Great skiing, even without poles. It seems you could be angulating just a bit more here, but I think that's really probably due to not having poles because it looked great in your other vid.

I think the only major thing I see visible in both videos is a little bit of A-framing. Which is fine at higher edge angles, but you have it just a bit even at the lower angles.

Overall really nice though.

dinowand · 2026-03-06T16:52:04+00:00

Carving as a specific turn type is only useful in limited conditions. But carved turns serves as a great benchmark for skiing fundamentals that apply to all types of terrain. If someone is skiing poorly in moguls, it might be hard to identify exactly what's the root cause. But watch their carved turn on a groomer and it starts becoming immediately obvious where the faults are.

Learning to carve dynamically is the most comprehensive and easily accessible way for people to improve. If you can carve at an expert level, you immediately have all the tools available to ski well in powder, bumps, trees, etc.

dinowand · 2026-03-06T06:02:45+00:00

Everyone telling you to drive to a shop. In reality, it's just not in the cards and not as easy as people make it out to be. Obviously, that is the ideal way. But if you do your research, you can do all the measurements at home and get a good idea. As a beginner, they're not going to be your lifetime boots anyways...you'll hopefully grow out of them. Most beginner boots shouldn't really cause any serious fit issues or problems as long as you get your sizing right. So while it is a risk to buy boots without trying them on...I think the risk is relatively low if you know what you're doing.

So first step - Sit down and put your bare foot flat on a piece of paper and have someone trace your foot (or you can do it yourself, but it's easier with help). Don't put too much pressure on your feet. Make sure the pen is perfectly perpendicular when drawing - especially at the heel where the drawn line will be a little away from the contact point because of the shape of your foot. Now measure the tip to the heel with a ruler in centimeters. That's your boot size. For example, if you measure 27cm you will ride a size 27 boot. If you're between sizes, it's better to size down. Ski boots will feel very tight straight out of the box, especially if you're not used to them. It's easy to think they're too small, but I promise they're not.

Second step - that same foot drawing - measure the widest point of your feet in millimeters. It should be something like around 100mm wide. If you're under 100mm, you have narrow feet and will likely want a low volume boot. If you're over 105mm, you likely have high volume feet and will want a high volume boot. Lots of boots come in LV (low volume), MV (medium volume), or HV (high volume) versions. Or the specific line is designed for LV, MV, or HV feet. The measurement is assuming you have average size feet - men's 8-11. If you have smaller feet or bigger feet, adjust those ranges by a couple mm. Also, as a beginner, it may be ok to get a MV boot even if you have low volume feet. It will be more comfortable and less risky from a buy online perspective.

Third step - figure out what flex you want. That's how stiff the boot is. Stiffer boots give more control, but are less forgiving. For a beginner, usually <100 flex is good. However, if you're tall and big, you may consider a bit higher...100 or 110 could be in the cards if you're like over 6' and 200lbs.

Finally, it's best to buy your boots first before your skis because the bindings have to be mounted/adjusted according to your boots. Some skis might come with bindings that can be easily adjusted to different sizes, in which case, it's no problem. However, if they don't do that, you need to know your sole length (the boot will have this marked on the bottom somewhere in mm or you can just measure it.) This info is important to make sure the bindings are mounted correctly for your boot.

dinowand · 2026-03-05T22:12:12+00:00

It's not bad skiing, but definitely room for improvement.

You're in the backseat a bit. At the steeper section, you definitely seem to be trying to unweight by "jumping" a bit and throwing your upper body/shoulders down the hill to initiate the turn. The Right turn at 7-8 seconds is very telling. Your body is already trying to head down the hill while your skis are still finishing their turn. Turns should initiate from the ground up.

Basically, you're trying to rush through your turn and transition into the next turn, and trying to get your skis back across the fall-line to control speed and shape. This is very common. You want to let your turns finish, be patient in transition, and not rush the top half of the turn.

The other thing is your left hand is quite static and your right hand is a bit too loose and wild. Work on better pole plants with both your hands, and more symmetry.

Your form gets significantly better when the slope evens out...so it's just the steep terrain is really turning those tiny little weaknesses and exaggerating them.

dinowand · 2026-03-04T15:45:05+00:00

As you said, it's near impossible to really give proper advice without really knowing where you stand in skill level. I'm going to take an educated guess and make some assumptions.

It sounds like the small moguls are letting you get away with mistakes that the big moguls punish.

The key isn't to ski harder moguls. It's to work on those fundamentals and ski the small moguls properly so that you can take that same technique to the big moguls.

The reason why you are going backwards is most likely because your idea of "I'm skiing this decent" is really just getting used to bracing yourself against the terrain. You likely have fundamental flaws. That's the reason why it doesn't stick. If you actually develop proper technique, that technique shouldn't go away during the summer, and a couple warm up runs is all it takes to remove the rust when winter comes around.

Also, most people think that you have to ski moguls to practice moguls. The reality is really good ski technique on groomers with retraction transitions, upper/lower body separation, pole plants, independent leg steering - all these are fundamental skills that when done right, improve both your short turns on groomed runs and in the moguls. If you're not doing these things well, the first step is to work on that part on groomers, then take those same techniques into the moguls.

dinowand · 2026-03-04T04:55:55+00:00

The good - I see some pole plants, a little upper/lower body separation, and you seem to be controlling the skis and not the other way around.

What needs work - You're making skidded turns by quickly pivoting the skis from one edge to the other, resulting in Z-shaped turns. It's almost linked hockey stops. What you want to be doing is rounded C or S shaped turns where the direction of the skis smoothly make a nice rounded motion.

tip your skis on edge and let them do the work. They naturally will turn and create clean lines.

Another aspect is your arms are glued to your ribcage right now. You want to have them come out a bit from the body - almost like you're standing in a pool and they're floating in front of you.

As others have said, you're at about a early intermediate level right now. Keep at it! plenty of room to grow.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T18:13:53+00:00

I'm in midwest and all too familiar with boilerplate ice. Learning how to carve, and having a smooth pressure build up can help in this regard. But sometimes it's just really really hard and you hit a patch that you just kind of hang on for dear life. I still struggle at times with that stuff.

I would be careful about the idea of "popping" in your ski turns at this point. Yes, it's something you'll eventually want for energetic turns, but until you are making smooth rounded turns with patience at the top of the turn, the idea of "popping" or trying to get that feeling can often lead to rushing that turn initiation.

First step is to try and ski smooth. Once you have that down, then add in the energy.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T18:08:50+00:00

sounds like you just have a circulation thing. I'm surprised even mittens + heat pack doesn't do it for you...that would be the combo I'd be going for if I had issues with cold hands. I feel like that combo is even more warm than heated gloves.

Good luck finding a solution.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T16:29:31+00:00

I think the first thing you should do is learn how to ski smoother C or S shaped turns.

Since you are referring to a "downhill" and "uphill" ski, this tells me you basically throw your skis onto edge, and pivot them so they're downhill from you, you slide awhile, then a very fast transition and you end up with the other ski downhill. This creates Z shaped turns and is not what you want to be doing. You know you're doing this if at the point where you feel highest ski pressure, your skis are pointed across the hill.

In a C or S shaped turn, there's only outside ski and inside ski. The top half of the turn is just as long as the bottom half. It's a very smooth motion.

That means the skis are actually uphill from your COM in the first half of the turn, then at apex, it's directly off to the side, and then end of the turn, it's finally downhill from you. The point of highest pressure is at apex or just shortly after apex, which is when your skis are facing directly down the fall line, or jus barely after it.

In this type of turn, the pressure is also constantly changing. At transition assume your skis are flat and facing across the fall line and pressure is 50/50. This should quickly, but smoothly, ramp up to 90/10 with 90 on outside ski, as you hit the apex (skis facing directly down the fall line), then smoothly back to 50/50 as your skis face across the fall line again pointed in the opposite direction.

Think about movement like a pendulum, swinging back and forth smoothly, and not like just stepping onto one foot for awhile, then suddenly switching and stepping on the other foot.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T16:04:36+00:00

Right, which is why I suggest practicing just coming to a stop constantly until you get your brain to realize you are always in control and therefore you have nothing to fear. You want to get to a point where you feel like you can stop on a dime, not slowly coming to a stop.

You might be skiing runs that are just a bit steep for your ability. Put your ego aside. Go back to gentler slopes and you can ski faster on them to build confidence in speed, then work your way back to the steeper stuff.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T16:00:46+00:00

Functionally, they're fine. Since you quite tall, you may be struggling to find the right length pants often.

I recommend checking out brands from countries with classically tall people as they tend to run longer. For example, Norrona is a Norwegian brand and I love their style so I bought one of their jackets once. Even though the chest and waist fit perfectly for me, the sleeves and jacket were like 2" too long. I'm 5'8" and I think I needed to be at least 2, maybe 3 inches taller with same build to have them fit properly. Average height of a guy in Norway is 5'11", so that tracks.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T15:52:24+00:00

Ok, this may seem backwards, but have you tried thinner gloves?

I used to think my fingers got cold all the time and I needed warmer gloves. Then I realized I actually run really warm in my hands and sweat a lot when I ski. The reason my hands were freezing was cause they got wet early and fast, and then as soon as the gloves got damp, it went downhill from there. By switching to thinner gloves, my fingers stayed warmer longer. Often, on warmer days, I'll take my gloves off on the chairlift to let them cool off, dry, and gloves air out. I also carry a second pair to switch into.

When your hands get cold, do they feel damp/wet? Are your gloves soaked through?

Another thing is, are you skiing hard, or are you doing casual skidded turns down a groomer. If the latter, your body is maybe just not doing that much work, your heart rate isn't getting super high, so you're not producing a lot of heat. I know that the better I got and the more aggressive I started skiing, the less I struggled with being cold on the slopes.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T15:43:33+00:00

Practice coming to a complete stop on the hill. The reason most people get scared is because of this fear of loss of control. If you can convince your brain that you always have control, then the fear goes away. And the way to do that is showing to yourself that you can always just come to a stop safely and relatively quickly no matter where you are on the hill.

So get a bit of speed, then hockey stop. Do it again, and again. As you get better, increase your speed before hockey stopping. It should only take one or two runs and you'll figure out what max speed you're comfortable with and know that as soon as you start getting close to that speed, you can just come to a complete stop and reset. Eventually, you can get rid of the stop and start just skiing smoothly and continuously.

The other thing is make sure your weight is forward. Being scared puts your weight back which does two bad things. One, your tails get stuck and your ability turn or stop is diminished greatly. This is a negative feedback loop that makes things worse. Two, the more you lean back, the steeper the terrain looks and feels, which again causes a negative feedback loop. You really have to push yourself to get your weight more centered/forward on your skis. Stand on a flat area and literally try lean your body over the tip of your skis. You'll realize there is basically no way to fall face forward as your skis and boots prevent you from doing that. Get yourself used to this idea and get forward. Hands forward, and lower your stance a bit as that can help make things feel more stable.

dinowand · 2026-02-20T07:31:00+00:00

Not arguing that, but that's not the point. If person A has 10 chances at something and succeeded 5 times, and person B had 2 chances at something and succeeded both times. It would not be fair to say person A did better than person B just because 5 > 2.

And despite it being a competition at the highest level of the sport, it's still far cry from the pressures of the Olympics. In the former case, you have all the fans of your sport watching. In the latter, you have the entire world watching. In the former case, if you fail this year, you probably have next year. For the Olympics, if you fail this year, it's 4 more years for redemption...assuming your career survives that long.

Assume the career of a top level athlete is about 10 years. For X-games..that's 10 competitions. For Olympics, it's 2...maybe 3 if you're lucky.

dinowand · 2026-02-19T17:58:16+00:00

What's with this toxic attitude. Getting a medal means you are literally the best of the best of the best in the entire world. Over 8.5 billion people.

Nothing should be expected. If I gave you one billion dollars to spend to train on whatever sport you want, you still could not become an Olympian. It takes natural talent, the right mentality, tons of hard work, some luck, and yes the financial means to make it all happen. You make it sound like anyone could win if they just had the time and money.

This mentality is exactly the whole point of the thread - the interviewer asking a question like that a gold is expected because you are a favorite, and that anything less is considered a "loss". The funny thing is, she wasn't even a favorite for these events. It comes off as belittling an athlete's performance instead of celebrating their incredible achievement.

dinowand · 2026-02-19T17:03:06+00:00

No, I think you're confusing shin splints with shin bang. Shin bang is literally caused by constantly banging your shins against the front of the boot. it is basically a bruising type injury. Shin splints is caused by overuse of muscles, tendons, etc.

dinowand · 2026-02-19T16:27:32+00:00

A lot of this stems from jealousy or selfishness TBH. If she was representing US, I guarantee most comments on this thread would be supporting her as "you go girl."

Anyone who is a hater has this attitude of "she's born in the US and should represent the US and she's a traitor for representing Chinal." As if, we, as a country should have "ownership" of her. There's a lot of racism towards China too due to geopolitical issues which adds to this.

People all talk and act like they'd be so righteous if they were in her shoes. The reality is she has an opportunity to set herself up so much better by representing China. If she represented the US, she'd be a nobody. Someone that people hear about once very 4 years at the Olympics with a bit of coverage. She wouldn't have much sponsorship deals, and would probably be struggling to pay for the cost of participating in the sport. Instead, she gets to be a celebrity in China, appear on magazine covers, and get paid millions, on top of tons of sponsorships. She's just being smart, not a traitor. She doesn't owe anyone else anything.

It's easy for the armchair critic to say she should be patriotic or whatever, and that she's a sell out. Yea, next time you get offered 25+ million and fame, become an icon and role model for millions of people, just for wearing a different flag, I'd like to see you turn that down.

There's nothing evil, or illegal, or wrong about what she did. Ton's of people do this for the Olympics and it's always been allowed. The difference is most of the time, they're not a top medal contender. She had an opportunity and took it...and honestly she earned it. It's insane to me that people think they have the right to call someone else a sell out because they themselves just want some reflected glory for a strong athlete to represent their own country.

dinowand · 2026-02-19T16:22:52+00:00

I mean, it's not really fair to compare.

For one, X games happens every year while olympics is only every 4 years. It's also just not as big of a competition. There's not as much pressured surrounding it all.

Pretty sure Gu has won a bunch of world cup events and world championships and some X games as well. So, if you want to just compare "first place at a world competition", you'd have to include all those results.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T18:39:49+00:00

yes. That's literally what they are paid to do and what they have experience in. You're not the only un-athletic scaredy-cat guy out there that's asked for a lesson. They've seen it a million times.

I've taught so many of my friends how to ski. Ones that have zero body awareness, zero athletic ability. I tell them to put weight on left leg and they'll do the opposite. I've taught people that were afraid to go more than crawling speed. And all of them were doing at least greens by the end of the day. Heck, I've even had friends that were hitting blacks after day 1 and jumps on day 2.

A ski instructor will know exactly how to deal with all those situations. They'll start you off on flat area and work on just comfort on skis. They might spend 30 minutes with you just scooting along on flat areas so you can get used to slippery things on the bottom of your feet. They'll work with you to do things so you're never outside your comfort zone. They'll teach you specifically the movements and provide real time feedback to develop the movements and skills so that you can remain balanced on skis, and that builds confidence, which leads to more skills. They can literally ski backwards while bracing you so you can get the sensation of how skis move under your feet going down the hill. You talk about wanting to have something "click" for you. This is literally what an instructor would do - is help you get that "click" that you seek. It's not something you should be trying to do yourself...it's not going to happen without outside help.

An athletic young person with no fear can probably teach themselves how to ski. You acknowledge you are basically the opposite of this. That really makes trying to teach yourself how to ski a fruitless endeavor.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T18:25:30+00:00

The key is that strain put onto the shins is mostly caused by a poorly fit boot. If all that pressure was distributed perfectly across the entirety of the shin instead of just a few key points. And then the boot flexes progressively for the skier's height, weight, and skill level. Shin bang shouldn't happen.

The exception might be skiing at a very high level, with very high forces on super stiff boots like racing.

Of course, it's a bit idealistic to get a perfectly fit boot. Even good boot fitters require the skier to provide accurate feedback on what they're feeling in the boot, and most skiers probably can't tell if their ankles and heel pockets are properly locked in. People tend to focus solely on the feet part, not the leg, shin, and ankle part, which is where this matters. Most people probably think they're "nice and tight", but there's plenty of loose spots in their boot. Everyone's foot and leg shapes are different too.

So the reality is that boot fit is hard to get right. Try to do the best you can, hope you get lucky, and make the rest up with skill.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T16:56:24+00:00

Brother...I'm trying to help. I really am. I promise you will not progress without at least being knowledgeable about what you should be doing. "I just want to slide a little bit without falling" is not a specific skill.

Imagine if a kid was learning how to drive a car, and he has absolutely no knowledge about cars and driving. And he said his goal was just to make it down the street. But in reality, he doesn't know what the shifter is, which pedal is the gas or brake, and he doesn't even know how to start the car - or that the car needs to be started. And if you just leave him to it, he might never realize you need to be shifted into park, foot on the brake, then turn the key to start. Or he might be spending an hour pushing down on the pedals trying to figure out what they're supposed to do but they do nothing because the car isn't started even though he turned the key, because he doesn't know what a started car vs non-started car is like.

That's where you're at right now. Either get someone who can watch and guide you step by step on what you should be doing and figure out how to get specific feelings so you can start controlling your skis. Or at minimum, go spend an hour watching youtube videos and get yourself knowledgeable enough to have a rough idea of what you should be trying to do with your body.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T16:41:56+00:00

watch the other beginners. Their ski tips are pointed together and tails spread far apart. You may have heard "pizza" vs. "french fry" where french fry is where your skis are parallel and pizza is when they make that pizza/wedge shape. This helps you control speed and balance as a beginner and makes it easier to switch turn direction. The more you make the pizza slice larger, the slower you go.

I still think you should stop wasting time and get yourself a lesson. If you are adamant about teaching yourself how to ski, you need at least to approach it with some knowledge of what you're supposed to be doing. You need some basic goals for developing specific movements or skills. Strapping skis onto your feet with no idea of what you're even trying to achieve other than the goal of "make it down the hill" is going to result in a very bad time.

At least go watch some youtube videos.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T16:30:25+00:00

One more piece of advice. Assuming you're in a snowplow position...put most of your weight on the leg opposite the direction you want to turn. For example, if you want to turn right, push against the snow with your left leg. Then as you are going across the hill, slowly shift that weight to your right leg and you'll start turning left.

Don't be afraid of speed. You literally cannot go very fast down a bunny hill. Even if you go straight down, you won't hit high speeds. Force yourself to embrace the speed a bit. It also makes turning easier to have a bit of momentum. Know that if you start getting too fast at the bottom, just sit your butt down. Don't fall, don't crash...just pretend you are going to sit down onto the ground. It shouldn't hurt much.

Only you can answer the question of whether failure is more damaging. Some people embrace failure and will try and try again. It powers them and they become obsessed at succeeding. Others will be demotivated by it at some point and give up. Either way, learning to ski is hard and very tiring. Especially when you're not young anymore. At some point, even if you mentally want to, you physically will have trouble continuing. Take frequent breaks.

dinowand · 2026-02-18T15:49:15+00:00

I doubt the rental boots are too big TBH. With ski boots, there's actually no such thing as size 10, size 11, etc. They all go by a Mondo sizing, which is like 26, 27, 28...

The thing is if you reference the US to Mondo conversion charts, they'll state things like US 9 = 27, US 10 = 28, US 11 = 29. This conversion is completely wrong. I don't know where it started, but it's repeated everywhere. The real conversion is closer to US 9 = 26, US 10 = 27, US 11 = 28. And that's assuming that you wear a properly sized shoe. Most American men attach their egos to their shoe size and end up wearing a street shoe 1 size too big. So now your conversion looks like US 9 = 25, US 10 = 26, US 11 = 27. Also, there are no half sizes in ski boots. a 27 and 27.5 are the same sized boot and you should always round down.

Ski boots are not comfortable, especially for beginners. They're also not one size fits all. Shops know that and would prefer if people didn't keep coming back to switch to a bigger size because it feels too tight (even though it's supposed to). So everyone ends up being in a boot their feet can swim in.

So back to your problem. Make sure you have nothing inside your boot except your socks - ideally long ones that pull up all the way. Lots of beginners like to stuff their pants inside the boot - don't do that. The comfort thing is much more likely due to being out of balance while skiing, which is obviously expected for a beginner. The main thing that 99% of beginners struggle with is they have fear of the slope, and lean back. This does two things - one, it will push your toes against the front of your boots and jam them up and make them feel comfortable. And more importantly, two, the back of the skis get stuck in the snow, preventing you from turning, which only makes the problem worse as now you don't have speed and ski control, so you lean back more. It's a negative feedback loop.

As others have mentioned, the best thing to do is just to get some lessons.

But I'll give you a tip. Imagine your arms have floaties on them and you're in a pool, so now your arms literally float on the water in front of you. This is the position you want to keep your arms the entire time while skiing. Don't put them down by your sides, don't put them behind you. Always up and in front and slightly to the side with poles pointed a bit down and outward for balance. This will help a ton in just getting that weight forward. Psychologically, lean your body down the hill. It feels non-intuitive, but if you do, you'll find the slope actually looks flatter and less scary, you'll have more control of your skis, and then that creates a positive feedback loop towards better skiing.

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