Mogul Skiing Technique Guide
Gear
While you can technically ski a bump line on any skis in any boots with any poles, you may be making your life much more difficult.
In order to maximize your mogul skiing ability and to shorten the learning curve, you will do yourself a huge favor by investing in
appropriate gear. If you're really serious about skiing moguls, you don't have much choice.
As far as skis are concerned, it would
be best to buy a pair of mogul-specific skis. These are skis that generally do not have much sidecut, are fairly narrow under foot,
and are a soft to medium-stiff ski. They are constructed for optimal mogul skiing performance. Current and recent mogul skis include:
Hart F17 (preferred ski of seven US Mogul Team members, and hundreds of other pros), K2 Mamba, K2 Cabrawler, Volkl Rebellion, Volkl
Dragonslayer, Volkl Wall, Dynastar Twister, Salomon 1080 Mogul, Rossignol Scratch Mogul, Rossignol Radical Mogul, Fischer
Lunar, Head Supermogul, and Head Mojo Mogul. You can find more details and reviews of many of these skis in the equipment reviews
section of this website. You can generally find a brand new pair of solid comp-level mogul skis in the $250 to $900 price range. It's
well worth the price, I assure you. Once you try them, you'll never go back!
For boots, mogul skiers generally want a medium-stiffness
boot. They need to be soft enough to aid in absorption and
not cause shin bang, while being stiff enough to provide 1:1
reaction from
your feet to your skis. There are too many
good boots to begin listing them. I would strongly
recommend visiting a boot professional
so that you can be
sized properly. Be sure to tell the fitter that you want a
boot for aggressive mogul skiing, and that you want
a medium-stiffness boot. If the fitter knows anything about mogul skiing and sizes your boot properly, you'll be golden.
Poles for
mogul skiing need to be quite a bit shorter than those for carving and other alpine skiing forms. As a general rule, you can size
the same way you would for a regular alpine pole (holding poles upside down beneath the baskets, looking for a pole size that gives
a 90 degree angle at the elbow), and subtract 3-5 inches. For example, at 5'10” I ski with a 46” pole for other forms of alpine skiing.
However, in the bumps, I ski with a 42” pole. The reasoning behind this is relatively obvious: skiing groomers, you're planting on
a surface at the same elevation as your skis. In the bumps, you're planting on the backside (downhill side) of the bumps, which are
higher than your feet. If your poles are too long, then you'll have to reach up and your hands will be pulled backward and get behind
you. Just remember to look for a pole several inches shorter than you'd otherwise buy for skiing corduroy.
Just a brief comment about
bindings: avoid any binding with a lifter (including a demo track). We want to stay as close to the snow as possible in the bumps,
and lifters don't help us out at all. Be sure to purchase a lightweight, solid, performance binding, and have it mounted and tested
professionally. The most revered binding among the mogul community seems to be the 2005 Look P12. Unfortunately, those are hard to
come by anymore. However, the new Look PX12 seems to do well. Any high quality non-lifted binding will likely suit you fine in the
bumps.
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