Chapter XI: On the Use of Ski

Since Nansen published his book, “The First Crossing of Greenland,” the English public has known of _ski_ and their use. Ski (pronounced _shee_) are Norwegian snowshoes, now admitted to be the best form of snowshoe in the world. They are long, narrow planks for fastening one under each foot, so as to distribute over an area of soft snow, many times larger than the area of the foot, the weight of a man walking. They not only prevent him from sinking into the snow, but, if it is in suitable condition, they enable him to slide along on its surface. The common idea in England is that the art of using ski is very difficult of acquisition. This, as I shall show, is a mistake. No doubt the almost miraculous expertness attained by the best Norwegian and Swedish skisters (to coin a needed word) is beyond reach of ordinary Englishmen, who take to the sport when they are full grown and have rare opportunities for practising it. But for purposes of mere travel far less skill is required.

In fact, it is with skiing as it is with skating. Any person, with normal habits of exercise and control over his limbs, can learn to skate in a few days well enough to go straight ahead over good ice at a tolerable pace. Within a fortnight of his putting on skates for the first time, he might go a-touring along frozen Dutch canals without being much, if anything, of a hindrance to a companion, the most expert of figure-skaters. To pass the St. Moritz test as a figure-skater takes months or even years of practice, but that is to learn the art, not the mere craft of skating. So it is with skiing. The artist skister can race down steep slopes at an appalling velocity, leaping drops or crefts of almost incredible dimensions. A traveller who needs ski for the purpose of exploring the great snowy areas of the world has no occasion to acquire skill of that pre-eminent character. He is not called upon to advance faster than a sledge can be dragged by men or dogs, as the case may be, and that he can learn to accomplish in a very short time. Sliding downhill is a little more difficult; but any climber, who can make standing glissades with facility, soon learns to glissade on ski down any ordinary slope of snow.

When Garwood and I landed in Norway last year, we had never seen a pair of ski, and did not know where to buy or how to choose them. During the summer we travelled over 150 miles on ski, dragging our sledges behind us. Later on we went to Stockholm and saw all manner of ski in the Exhibition there, and availed ourselves of every opportunity that came in our way to obtain information about ski and everything connected with them. We soon learnt that there are ski of all sorts and kinds. They differ in the material of which they are made, and they differ in form. I am told that ash is the best material to make them of. The points to be seen to are the straightness of the grain and the absence of knots. Lightness is less important for a traveller than strength.

The questions of form and size are determined by the purpose for which the ski are to be used. Speaking generally, narrow ski are faster than broad of the same area. In soft snow, however, the advantage vanishes, for narrow ski sink in more deeply than broad; indeed, for very soft snow, ski require to be both broad and long. The edges and the hinder ends may be either rounded or cut off square. For hill climbing it is certain that the squarer the angle of section of edges and hinder ends the better, seeing they take a better hold of the snow, and prevent sliding sideways or backwards; sharp edges also make steering easier on hard snow. Relatively short, broad ski, are best for hill climbing, and, in general, for the work of a traveller. They are easier to advance on, easier to steer, and easier to turn round with. Their length may be anything from two to one and a half metres, two metres for choice; they should measure eight centimetres at the narrowest part under the foot, increasing forward to from nine to ten centimetres at the broadest part, just where the toe of the ski begins to turn up. The front ends should be well turned up, the points being raised from twelve to fifteen centimetres above the level of a horizontal plane on which the ski stand. Such ski are of the Telemark type, and can be bought under the name “Telemark ski,” from the Scandinavian manufacturers. A good pair, made of selected ash, costs about fifteen shillings.

The most important matter for a novice is to learn how best to attach his ski to his feet. There are various ways in which this can be done. In all alike the attachment is such that the foot can be freely bent and the heel raised, while the fore part of the foot is kept firmly in contact with the ski. The roughest attachment is a mere loop or strap of leather, fastened to the two sides of the ski, and gripping the front part of the foot. This, however, permits the foot to wobble, a most disagreeable condition for a beginner. Such fastenings were all that Nielsen and Svensen used, and they seemed quite comfortable with them. The common binding, and the best for a traveller, is more complicated. The broad strap, going over the fore part of the foot, is divided longitudinally on each side about the level of the sole. Through the two loops thus formed there passes a stout piece of cane covered with leather, the middle of which goes round the back of the foot near the heel, whilst the two ends are brought forward and drawn together in front of the toe, where they are fastened down firmly to the wood of the ski. This fastening has to be adjustable, so that the cane loop may be drawn close against the heel. There are several sorts of adjustment; one is shown in the illustration. Another, perhaps better, is a kind of vice that opens and shuts by a screw; it grips the two ends well and enables either of them to be pushed forward ahead of the other. A small strap, sewn on to the back of the boot, low down, holds the cane in place. The same result may be less well attained by using an additional strap that passes both under and above the instep, and is sewn on both sides to the leather covering of the cane. This form of attachment is usually employed by winter skisters in the Alps. For advancing over level ground, all the fastenings may be loose; but for hill climbing they need to be tight, so that the feet are firmly attached to the ski and can direct them with certainty. Beginners will certainly find tightly-attached ski much easier than loose to walk or glissade on.

The next question is that of footgear. For moderate cold, such as you meet with in summer in the arctic regions, ordinary climbing boots do well enough; but leather Lapp shoes are better. These seem to be known by different names. I find them called “pjäxa-schuhe” in a Swedish-German catalogue, which mentions two qualities, Norrbotten (price 8s. 6d.), and Norwegian (price 14s. 6d.). A particular kind of band is made, called a pjäxband, a kind of putti, for winding round the top of the boot to keep out snow.

Within these leather boots thick goathair stockings should be worn. So far as I know, they can only be purchased in Norway and Sweden, the price varying according to the length. For very great cold, such as that of arctic winter, shoes of reindeer fur, stuffed out with hay, are required. The adjustment of ski to these is a less simple matter, for if the hay is badly packed the cane is likely to rub against the heel and produce a painful raw.

One more part of the equipment for skiing has yet to be mentioned. It is the staff. Racing skisters use two sticks, one in each hand, but for glissading the two have to be held together like a single staff. To facilitate this, there are specially constructed staves made to fit together. The ordinary ski-staff is provided with a kind of plate near the spike, to prevent the point penetrating too far into soft snow, and to give resistance for a push off. Travellers using ski in mountain regions will probably find it best to carry an ordinary ice-axe and make shift with it. An axe is far less convenient than a longer bamboo staff, for mere purposes of skiing, but its other uses, when ski are laid aside on steepening slopes where real climbing is required, overbalance its obvious defects. It would be easy to devise some form of small, circular plate to slip over the point of the axe a little way up the stick, and wedge there, quickly removable when the axe is required for step-cutting.

The skister’s equipment is really simple enough, but its various parts are not easily purchasable in England. The following manufacturers of ski showed exhibits at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897: Helmer Langborg, 6 Birger-Jarlsgatan, Stockholm (who also sells the various kinds of boots, goathair stockings, gloves, pjäxbands, &c.); L. H. Hagen & Co., of Christiania; L. Torgensen & Co., of Christiania (who also make arctic sledges); Langesund Skifabrik, Langesund, Norway (a very good exhibit); Fritz Huitfeldt, of Christiania (gold medal at the principal Norwegian show for ski). I give this list of names quite ignorantly, just as I copied them down. I have no knowledge about the estimation in which they are held, their relative expensiveness, or anything else concerning them. One or two of these firms issue priced catalogues, which, I suppose, may be obtained on application. Ski are also made and sold in Austria; they will be found advertised in the publications of the German and Austrian Alpine Club. Ski of this make are sold in winter at the chief Alpine centres, but they are very inferior to ski of Scandinavian manufacture.

Little need be said about how to learn the use of ski, but one or two hints, even from so poor a performer as the present writer, may be suggestive to an absolute novice. The first desideratum is to fasten the ski properly to the feet, so that the boards run truly with the feet, not with an independent motion of their own. The trouble at first is to keep the two ski constantly parallel with one another, and in the direct line of advance. People whose habit is to turn out their toes in walking, however slightly, will find themselves constantly impeded by that trick. To keep the ski parallel, the feet must be parallel. The motion is not one of walking but of shuffling. The ski are not raised from the ground, but merely pushed forward, the knees being kept bent, and the action resembling a sort of easy run. If the snow is in good condition, the ski will slide forward a little at the end of each step. The use of a staff or a pair of staves is to prolong the distance of this sliding. If a staff is used it is grasped in both hands and thrust into the snow on one side every time the foot on that side is advanced. If two staves are used, one in each hand, each is thrust back (like a walking-stick) against the snow, turn about, the left when the left foot is advanced, and _vice versâ_. Another way is to take three quick steps and to thrust with both staves at the moment of the fourth step. Yet another trick is to thrust with both staves at every third step; this changes the foot each time, but is more difficult. About four miles an hour is an average kind of pace on the flat with fairly good snow. Fifty kilometres in 4h. 20m. 17.5sec. was, I believe, the record for flat racing two or three years ago.

The ascent of hills on ski involves new problems. If the snow be soft enough for the ski to sink into it about half-an-inch, and if the slope be gentle, there is no difficulty in walking straight up. If the slope gradually and steadily steepens, there will come a point at which the ski no longer hold, but slide backward when the weight of the body is thrown upon them. The beginner must then zigzag, pressing the edge of the ski into the slope but, otherwise advancing as on the flat. This is easy enough; the trouble comes at the angles of turning, where his legs are almost sure to slide asunder, or he will tread with one ski on the other. In turning round, even on the flat, it is at first no easy matter to avoid fastening one ski down by treading on it with the other. You should begin turning by moving the foot which is on the side towards which you are going to turn; keep the legs well apart and make the rear ends of the ski the approximate centre of rotation. In turning round on a hillside it is easier to turn with the face, rather than the back, towards the hill. Another way of walking uphill in suitably soft snow is to turn the toes well out and lift each ski over the other; this is more difficult than zigzagging. In very steep places neither method can be applied; you have to advance sideways with the ski kept horizontal, an easy but slow method of progression.

Downhill the real fun begins, and the difficulty of maintaining the balance becomes serious. The weight must be thrown forward, the knees kept bent, and the staff, or pair of staves held as one, used as in glissading. The ski must be kept strictly parallel and close together, with one foot a little in advance of the other. The problem is to adjust the balance to every varying degree of slope and alteration in the slipperiness of the snow. Such alterations have to be foreseen and prepared for. The beginner must expect to fall often on hands and knees and to sit down with undesirable frequency when he least expects. He will find it much easier to fall than to rise again. He should practice glissading on a gentle slope, then on a steeper. Slopes that he finds too steep for direct descent can be negotiated by zigzags, but much time will be lost at the turns.

Whether ski could be advantageously used in summer in the Alps is doubtful. The ascent, still more the descent, of Mont Blanc between the Grands Mulets and the Vallot Hut would certainly be facilitated by them, but they are unsuited even for a broad snow-_arête_. Agreeable, however, as ski would be on any snowfield, and valuable as a protection against concealed crevasses, they are far too heavy to be carried by a mountaineering party for incidental use. Still they might be employed with advantage in certain places. For example, if a party of climbers were to make the Concordia Hut the centre for a week’s climbing, they could not do better than provide themselves with ski. Thus equipped, all the surrounding mountains, anywhere between the Lötschenlücke and the Oberaarjoch, would be brought within their easy reach. The new Monte Rosa Hut would likewise be an excellent ski centre, and so would the Becher Hut by the Übelthal Glacier in the Stubai Mountains of Tirol. For winter climbing in the Alps ski have already established their utility. I understand that several of the easy Oberland passes, such as the Strahleck, have been crossed on them, whilst at lower levels their value is even more obvious. Whether ski-running will ever attain in western and central Europe the rank as a sport which it holds in Norway and Sweden is a question that only the future can decide.