Heelside Carve
Carving. Every point along the edge of the snowboard passing throught the same point in the snow. Used down race courses and through halfpipes, on catwalks and the instant before spinning off a jump. If you are snowboarding you are either carving or skidding. Carving leaves a narrow line in the snow. Skidding leaves a wide track in the snow, it is used most of the time by the majority of snowboarders.
The pinnacle of carving performance a snowboard is being able to do it down steep terrain. It is a mighty challenge to carve consistent turns on a snowboard down a steep blue or groomed black run ( I am talking about carving on conventinal equipment, not hard boots and alpine board.) Of those who can carve down steep terrain on a snowboard most are doing toeside turns that have a much tighter radius than the heelside. Picture a kayaker paddling with one end of the paddle bigger than the other and you get an idea of the inefficiency at play. There is more effort being put into the heelside turn for less speed control.
The key to shortening up the heelside carve is to get extremely low, something approaching a "cannonball" body position very early in the turn. By lowering the center of mass you help to create stability. To understand how this is a more stable position picture two sunflowers, both are leaning at the same angle to the ground and they are identical except that one is twice as tall as the other. Which one is more stable when the wind blows?
To put it simply, get low over the heelside early in the turn, shift your weight to the back foot, and turn a bit so that your upper body is facing the nose of the board, and skim the snow with the palm of your front hand.
I think I have reached my quota of contrived analogies for a while, thank you.
A NOTE ON SAFETY: The potential for collisions is high on this maneuver. Do this on an uncrowded run and always maintain awareness of the people around you.
Posted On: January 28th, 2010 By: Dan Humphries
