glades/moguls

[rowan]

I know the season is pretty much over but i was thinking about next season and wanted to ask this question while i am thinking about it-  next season i want to concentrate on learning how to better ride glades and trees as where i ride is known for having awesome glades riding.  I am going to try to spring for some lessons in this area but i have a question on this-  I've heard that to be good at riding in glades you have to first be good at riding moguls.  Is this true? ( I am hoping your response will be "why nooo, rowan, this is totally not true"  because i TOTALLY SUCK when i ride moguls!!)

[Frosty]

Awesome question.  I would like to begin by expressing that glade riding is one of my top 3 favorite terrain features to ride!  Glades rule!  Why? Because on a day when pow dumped over night and it is blue-bird out, freshies get tracked out by hounds FAST; but glades retain fresh snow until much later in the day, making for run after run of a virtually semi-private trail just for you!  There are other reasons as well.


WHY GLADES RULE FOR SNOWBOARDING

1) Fresh snow longer
2) Shadows add definition in low viz
3) Thrill of a tree run without annoying branches or dangerous dead-fall
4) Snow fluffs in softer than open fields
5) They just RULE ... alright?


Now to your question about glades and moguls.  I don't think you NEED to know how to ride moguls to be able to ride glade runs, but I do agree that mastering moguls will offer you skill sets that make all the things difficult about glades seem much easier.
Some people like riding moguls, most don't.  The average snowboarder riding in a mogul run looks to me like a monkey having a seizure.  I have seen only a handful of riders who really truly rule in the bumps, and you better believe those guys are extremely versatile riders! 

I have gotten pretty good at mogul riding from my days at A-Basin and Keystone.  My advise is that you just got to put time in to reap the rewards of the skills that manifest.  Nowadays, I like them in small doses on occasion, but personally I don't go for a whole run of moguls like skiers do.  However, as I stated before, for skill development they are the stuff.

Now if some coaches are saying that mogul riding is a MUST for riding glades, I definitely see where they are coming from, but surely it is not an absolute MUST.  Bless the instructors.  I was one for years.  Those guys may be thinking to themselves, "If I take this guy to the moguls and he does well, then there will be no problem going to the upper part of the mountain to hunt for sweet glades."

I know instructors have a hierarchy of things:

1) Safety
2) Fun
3) Learning

Yes, in that order.  So they may be qualifying you to ensure a safe experience.  In my teaching days I have been suckered by bros inflating their skills verbally to get to the top of the mountain.  And sure, they may indeed have been there before and had a good time, but as you well know conditions can change and conditions can make all the difference in the world.  Those times I have had people in places they should not have been was hairy, sketchy, and no fun.

So, I may be rambling now but I just think that is where people are coming from who state that "you need to be able to ride moguls before riding glades".  You know?

[rowan]

Thanks for the information, what you are saying makes a lot of sense and has eased my mind somewhat.   I agree that glades rule!  Even though I only started to feel confident enough to start venturing into glades towards the end of this season and am very novice at it I still had a ton of fun.  It was addictive, almost as addictive as snowboarding itself!

I do have one more question that I didn't think of earlier, I noticed that when I was in glades I wished my board was a little shorter, like it might be easier to get around in tighter areas, I was wondering if generally you would want to have a little bit shorter board if you are spending a lot of time glade riding?