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Chairlift Skiing for Downhill Endurance

by Mike Marolt October 16, 2019
written by Mike Marolt October 16, 2019
Chairlift assisted skiing provides opportunity to develop both technique and power, crucial elements of successful ski mountaineering missions.

Chairlift assisted skiing provides opportunity to develop both technique and power, crucial elements of successful ski mountaineering missions.

Yes, even ski tourers can benefit from chairlifts

In my last post, I discussed the need for resistance training. Despite the pleasant sensation of skiing, the reality is that gravity and your body weight combine to put tremendous force on your muscles, tendons, cartilage, and bones. So a training program that includes both power and endurance is critical to a skier’s general well-being in the short and long term. Many skiers have a list of friends who were diehards, but after a youthful life in the sport find themselves changing ski adventures for golf adventures. After a decades of ski mountaineering, I can attest that this notion runs even deeper for people who have spent a lifetime climbing to obtain their ski turns.

As a committed in-bounds skier as well as a ski mountaineer, one trend that I’ve noticed is how the mantra “earn your turns” is frequently the basis for related problems. Too often, the hardcore skimo or backcountry enthusiasts jump to the conclusion that the only way to go is to earn or climb to obtain their skiing. Chairlifts are a perceived opportunity to forego the needed training to gain peak performance for what these folks truly love: skiing down. Bluntly, there is a feeling in the ski touring world that using the ski lift is for “fat” or “lazy” people that don’t have what it takes to “earn your turns.” There’s some truth to that, not that all people who ski resorts are fat or lazy, but that many people who ski have no interest in the backcountry or earning turns. And that’s ok in my mind. Different strokes for different folks.

But, something is lost in this almost unwritten battle: the missed opportunity for diehard backcountry skiers to take advantage of a lift to enhance their overall ability to “access the goods”, and — more importantly — to make every hard earned turn even more satisfying. Lift-service skiing is not only enjoyable, but critical for success in skimo, and climbing and skiing the backcountry and high peaks. The farther and higher you plan to go in the backcountry, the more important the need for lift-service skiing becomes.

There are basically two reasons lift-service skiing is critical. First is to generate solid technique. The second is to develop the power and endurance that all downhill skiing requires.

Chairlift skiing for technique

At a gathering of backcountry enthusiasts on an evening years ago, a legend of backcountry skiing approached me and asked if I could take his aspiring young son out for some skiing. He was not asking me to become a ski instructor, but just to go skiing so the lad could see solid alpine technique. I don’t consider myself the greatest thing to grace alpine skiing, and having grown up in a family of Olympic ski racers, know all too well I am not. But this guy proceeded to tell me that my brother and I brought a very solid technique into the backcountry and that we seemed to handle difficult conditions, sastrugi, ice, mush, crud, you name it, better than most in the high peaks despite the limits of AT gear. In fact, we actually sought the unavoidable conditions with our passion to ski the highest peaks in the world where in general, the higher you go, the worse the skiing will be. The guy went so far as to suggest that his lack of skill was the culprit of some age related debilitations with his joints, knees, ankles, back etc. I assured him his technique was not the problem, but rather that lift service skiing made all the difference to me. It developed technique and power which enhanced my body’s ability to have a bit more “left in the tank” at the end of a long climb which then eased the load on my tendons, cartilage and bones by shifting the burden to muscles which may get strained but recover.

Solid technique aides in overall efficiency thereby allowing for conservation of movement on tired stressed out bodies after long, demanding climbs. The good news is you don’t have to take a ski lesson or read boring technical journals to hone the skills. In fact, my Olympic racing father offered advice on technique, but his mantra was always, “miles, miles, miles…. Great skiers can ski any conditions, and to ski any conditions, the more you do it, the better you will be….” He would come off the mountain after a day of dust on crust and when we asked him how it was, he would simply say “boys, that was gooooood practice.”

His premise was that with enough miles, your subconscious mind would “figure out the technique.” So as kids, that’s what we did. We looked for the worst possible conditions and we practiced. When we experienced, thank gawd, ideal conditions, it was amazing how that practice translated to ease of skiing beyond the conditions. We learned to embrace the less ideal with a mantra that suggested “there is no such thing as bad conditions, just bad skiers.”

Chairlift skiing for power

In the process of developing that mantra, we also started to realize another benefit. Skiing difficult conditions often not only develops better technique, it also develops enormous power! In the last piece I wrote for WS, I also said that the only way to train for skiing is to ski. That becomes clear with miles as well. I have found this proven again and again in my own backcountry ski expeditions. For a few years, I bought into the notion that ski mountaineering was mostly endurance related. Before a few major expeditions, I started climbing and skiing at the expense of lift-service skiing and I paid the price. On a couple trips where I found myself with burning legs barely able to keep up, I had to at times actually (gasp) sit down to recover. My identical twin brother Steve who hadn’t fallen for such nonsense, railed me and explained simply “you need to pull your head out of your ass and ski more before these trips…” So for the next trips, I did. It made all the difference in the world.

How chairlifts can compliment endurance training

This is not to say lift service skiing should replace endurance. That’s not true. What I am suggesting is that you need both. Lift-service skiing is critical for total training and satisfaction of backcountry skiing, but obviously you need to also train to get to where you want to ski. So the question becomes: how much of each? Unfortunately, not being a professional trainer, I don’t have the exact answer. But the good news is that in today’s ski resorts, we have the relatively new concept of side and hike-to terrain. This allows a ski mountaineer to get a bit of both.

Consider Highlands Bowl here in Aspen. Coupled with the reality that AT gear has advanced so far as to enable a skier the technology for gear that works well in both the backcountry and in these quasi-off-piste areas, one doesn’t have to purchase two sets of gear as we did even only 10 years ago. Today, I can head to the Bowl, hike for 30 minutes, then do a non-stop alpine run back to a lift to repeat. After three or four laps doing that, I achieve a blend of endurance training at 12,000 feet with the benefits of a power workout that forces me to ski as efficiently as possible. The scenario almost identically mimics the fatigue of climbing at altitude and the following aspects of descending on skis. Burn is an understatement!

Then, a day or two per week, I will do one or two non-stop ski runs top to bottom on Aspen Mountain on the most difficult bump riddled terrain I can find. In the words of Glen Plake, “if you can’t ski bumps, you can’t ski sh#t.” The benefits are described, but the one aspect I haven’t mentioned is the absolute fun this type of training results in. The challenge is enormous, and when you’re standing at the top of a peak, it also has a mental benefit that you can ski “anything”. The bottom line is we are all skiers. Whether we earn our turns or ride the lift, it’s about skiing. Skiing demands power, and it demands practice. So buy a ski pass to your local area or get the IKON or Epic or Mountain Collective pass and just get out there. Ski ski ski!

Then, when you find yourself out in the backcountry — obviously a must if not the goal for many who are reading this — I can guarantee what you will find is more efficient, enjoyable, and satisfying skiing. Don’t discount lift-service skiing, but embrace it as part of your plan. Without even hesitation, I know it has been if not the key element, a significant one for the success I have found in my passion for the sport of skiing in the high peaks.

Still need to get your IKON pass? They’re available for purchase through CCBC and TBS Travel Company.

Mike Marolt
wildsnow.com
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15 comments

Crazy Horse October 16, 2019 - 10:31 am

Hi Mike
I applaud your recognition of the the benefits of chairlift skiing for developing BC skills, but suggest that the benefits are even more specific:

Mileage: If we consider an athletic individual who takes up back country skiing with the purist goal of only earning their turns it is unlikely that they will ever become a proficient skier for the simple reason that they won’t spend the time necessary to develop their downhill technique. Hard to match the 20,000=30,000 vertical feet of a typical full day at the resort.

Biodynamic alignment: For all it’s advancement in light weight, BC equipment does not provide as precise control between the skiers muscular and skeletal alignment and the snow as alpine gear. At bindings vary radically in ramp angle from as much as 7 degrees positive to 20 degrees negative. Ultralight boots rarely allow for cuff canting and boot fitters frequently ignore under binding canting. Stiff carbon shells tend to have harsh reaction characteristics. And women skiers anatomy invariably places them in poor alignment unless properly compensated. The bottom line is that achieving proper alignment with AT equipment is even more difficult than with alpine gear, and cannot be done properly without testing and verification on groomed slopes where the observer can determine whether his setup modifications are allowing the individual to ski more naturally.

Bump Skiing
If someone wants to join the group of my friends who are having hip and knee replacements at age 55 I can’t think of a better way than using chairlifts to access the moguls that grow under them and alongside groomer runs. Add in a bit of knar that has refrozen and the odds are strong for shortening a backcountry career.

Mike Marolt October 16, 2019 - 1:11 pm

Nice comments Crazy Horse! Had a chuckle at the last paragraph, however. Also at age 55, I definitely can’t get on the lift at 9AM and pound until they close at this stage of the game. But for a morning or afternoon, there are not a lot of things more fun than lift service skiing. Miles definitely count in the sport of skiing. Also, regarding the gear, I remember back in 2000 before we headed off to attempt skiing Shishapangma, the old AT gear, especially the boots, were a huge question mark. Boot tech didn’t offer a whole lot of performance for what we envisioned we would need. So we tested what was available for AT boots. We picked a brand based on the lit test; we figured if we could hammer bumps on the Ridge of Bell Mountain here in Aspen, we could ski anything. Turned out to be a good test! Lol!

Crazy Horse October 16, 2019 - 6:24 pm

Hi Mike
At age 75 I don’t have a lot of UP left in my skiing. But I still leg press 720# and spend half my lift skiing time on a par of 28 meter radius FIS GS skis and bring out my 212 SG’s whenever the sun shines and I’m really feeling it. When groomers become boring, just go faster! The secret? To quote Marc Giradelli, best all around racer of his generation. “Ven I see der Mogelen und der Slopen, I taken my skis off und I walken”

Jim Pace October 16, 2019 - 7:31 pm

Your essay reminds me of a Fairy Meadows hut trip awhile back that included Philippe Monod, then in his late 50s. His technique, both up and down, revealed a lifetime of practice at the highest levels of alpine competition, along with an impressive alpine climbing resume. Ten thousand hours of practice make a master. A lifetime of practice makes art.

Mike Marilt October 16, 2019 - 9:11 pm

Mountaineering has some pretty stout alpine skiers like Lionel Terray who was one of the best gs /slalom skiers in the world a few years; Herman Buhl loved the downhill race, Andre Roche was a national Swiss team skier and many of the great Slovenia mountaineers today were ski racers. Alpine skiing is a huge part of mountaineering. Any time moving up or down in the mountains is experience. Agree with you.

John S October 16, 2019 - 7:50 pm

I was a chairlift snob that changed his mind when my daughter was learning to ski. The chair just gives you SO much more time going down on skis. Damn, it takes sooooo long to refine your skiing when using skins only. I’m still no fan of resorts, but they sure can make a huge difference with getting better at going down.

Mike Marilt October 16, 2019 - 9:16 pm

When my kids were learning I grabbed a pair atomic slalom specific race skis and beginner groomers became some of the most fun skiing I’ve ever done! Really arc those short skis into circles on smooth snow. Fun!!

XXX_er October 16, 2019 - 10:18 pm

I suggested to a ski aquaintance that the extra mileage of lift riding would improve her skiing so she bought a ticket and she promptly broke her wrist

Crazy Horse October 17, 2019 - 10:46 am

XXXER
So did she break her wrist during a ski fall or by hitting somebody trying to crowd in front of her in the lift line? Did I mention that cage fighting skills are a per-requisite to successful lift line skiing?

XXX_er October 18, 2019 - 5:44 pm

Not many lift lines up here and folks are pretty chill in narthern Canada, I understand she fell, so at 1st I felt guilty but on less sober second thot it just proves she needs to up her game … riding the lifts eh

Terrance October 16, 2019 - 10:26 pm

One of the best benefits of riding a chair is that you can spend the time carefully watching good skiers and learn.

Scott S. Allen October 17, 2019 - 8:57 am

Mike,
Another well timed article. I am deep into a 16 week UpHill Athlete Hut to Hut training regime with special attention to my downhill
skills and strength. I’ve added the Ikon Pass to the mix of aerobic endurance training/tours and resistance exercises for hips/glutes/quads.
At 56, I want to really enjoy the descents this season. Thanks to all for the inspiration!

Mike Marolt October 17, 2019 - 12:37 pm

Scott, sounds like you are well on your way. The Uphill Athlete is really a great resource, and then just ski ski ski. Have fun out there!

Eric V October 18, 2019 - 6:28 am

Mike, great article and long overdue on this site I think. I agree 100%. I grew up an alpine skier and have put in a lot of miles of lift skiing (a few years of that at CU with your Uncle Bill as a coach, BTW). At first, ski mountaineering was carrying the alpine gear up a mountain, putting it on and skiing down, so AT gear has been a welcome advancement. At 65 and no joint replacements (yet), I may be lagging on the uphill but can still hold my own on the down and can ski “anything,” which I attribute to many miles of lift skiing.

Matus October 19, 2019 - 2:24 pm

TLDR. There are no great skiers who learned to ski without any lifts.

Comments are closed.

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