For most people the bumps are to be avoided, or else treated with masochistic grit. But for the better skier they should be like a honey pot to a bear, so go and find some. If you approach bump skiing methodically, there is nothing to stop you skiing them well and with confidence within a week, and then only practising for half an hour a day.

Now that you have mastered fall line skiing, ie doing one turn after the other without traversing, you are ready to take the bumps in your stride, or whatever else you would like to take them in.

Most people want to know which part of the bump to ski over, and I tell them that while they are learning, they should always try to go over the top in order to maximize the unweighting potential that the bump offers absolutely free. If the bump is enormous, and you're not sure if someone is having a picnic the other side of it, then by all means take it on the side. As you become more of an expert you can start to ski in the valleys or wherever you like.

As you probably know, bumps are formed by people continually skiing in the same tracks which soon become troughs, and gradually building them up by pushing more and more snow from the troughs up to ridges.

Usually the crest of the bump, the ridge, is soft snow that has been pushed from the dip uphill from it. In the dip itself there is a lot of even softer and sometimes quite deep snow that has been scraped off the downside of the previous bump. The downsides of bumps can therefore be quite icy from people side slipping.

EXERCISE ON A BUMP

Read the following and do the exercises as slowly as you like  - the slower the better so that you take it all in.

Try these following steps:

Find some well formed, nicely spaced bumps on a gentle gradient. Make sure they are nice bumps, closely grouped, and not some horrendous sausage shaped monsters with cliffs and small bushes growing out of them. On the traverse ski slowly over the top of one of these nicely spaced bumps until the middle of the boot is perched on the very summit.

Stop and think about where to put the pole in. Remember that the skis are still on the traverse. If your body is in the driving position facing down the hill (which it should be for short turns), then you will find that the pole should go in about 12" from your boot, and slightly down the far side of the bump. You will have to bend at the knees and hips with your weight in the middle of your foot on the lower ski, in order to get the pole in.

So you are now standing motionless on the top of the bump, your upper body facing down the slope, your pole perpendicular in the snow down from your boot, and your skis still on the traverse. While you are standing there, let's just go over this perpendicular pole plant again. I have already mentioned that the pole plant is a crucial part of anticipation (ch1B) and while learning to ski the bumps it is imperative that you get it right, because everything else follows.

If you make a definitive pole plant with the point going right into the snow, and the pole is perpendicular as it goes in, you will have to angulate over the skis, you will have to weight the lower ski, and your body will have to be facing down the hill.

It is quite possible that as you stand on the bump, only a foot of ski is actually touching the snow, as the back and front are both off it, or only barely touching it. Now remember what I have said about the torsional qualities of your thigh and stomach muscles (ch1B); you will immediately twig that the skis should swivel round with the slightest encouragement. Back to the exercise.

As you put the pole in, your weight will be projected slightly over the downside of the bump, the skis will tip forwards, and will start to slide round. They will probably side slip into the soft snow on the backside trough of the next bump.

LINKING TURNS TOGETHER

Now try a few bumps linked together, so instead of side slipping to a halt in the dip, keep up some forward momentum by pointing the skis more down the hill. You should almost come to a stop on the bump before dropping over it. Remember the pole plant. Gauge your speed, and use the dip with the snow in it to brake you before the next pole plant. You will have to keep a very close look at the ground; anticipate the braking trough, and the accelerating downside, and move your weight slightly backwards for the dip and slightly forwards for the downside.

This weight shift backwards and forwards needs some explanation. You will recall that as a general rule the weight should remain over the middle of your foot. Well it actually should stay over the middle of your foot, but as the gradient is continually changing, there will be an apparent shift of weight all the time. Well something like that. The main thing is to anticipate the change in gradient. It’s one thing for the skis to slide out from underneath you as you sit down with a bump. It’s quite another for them to stop dead on the upside of a bump catapulting you head first out of both bindings. Even after a hundred catapults I still find it embarrassing.

You may find to start with that the uphill ski crosses over the top of the downhill as you come round, thereby putting you in a somewhat tricky position. Quite often there appears to be a lot of weight on the uphill ski as it crosses over, and you stop dead and fly out of the front. As long as you project your weight forward as you put the pole in, and keep it forward until the skis have come round, you should avoid this problem as your weight will remain over the downhill ski.

This tentative exercise of linking some bumps together should be done at the start of every session for twenty turns or so to get you into a good rhythm. If you do it slowly and methodically, there is a good chance that you will complete at least one run without mishap, and at this stage you need all the confidence you can get!

KNEE EXERCISE

As you start moving down the bumps a little more confidently, you will have to alter your technique slightly to absorb the uplift that they are providing. Can you imagine what would happen if you stood upright and took the bumps straight? By the eighth bump you would be wondering if you had paid your next holiday insurance, and by the twelfth you would be airborne. The next time you hit the ground could well be onto the terrace of your favourite restaurant. The secret technique to avoid this problem and prolong your good health is to bend ze knees, and use the thighs as shock absorbers, so that you can float over a mogul field like a softly sprung limousine.

As an exercise ski slowly on a traverse across some medium sized bumps. Imagine that your head is clamped in a vice that will neither go up nor down nor from side to side, ie, it will only run in a straight line above the slope. As you are moving make sure that your knees are already bent a little more than they would be on a smooth piste. You will also have to bend a little at the hips to keep the weight over the middle of the skis. This is angulation down over the skis without edging.

As you glide slowly over the bumps allow them to push your knees up even further. Keep your head steady and try to keep your weight over the middle of the skis. Do this exercise quite a few times to get the feeling of your new shock absorbers. It will be hard work on the knee joints and thigh muscles, but remember that skiing is good for you. As you come over a bump try and push the skis down into the trough so that you are in good contact with the snow for as long as possible. This angulation over the skis means that your centre of gravity is kept low. Just like the first exercises, it will be easier to keep your balance if you keep low.

You can now attack the bumps again head on. This time adopt the car driving position that you learnt for the short turns on the piste, with your hands held out slightly in front of you, and the rest of your upper body facing rigidly down the hill.

GETTING THE RHYTHM

As you start to get a rhythm and clock up the miles, you will not need to be so definitive with the pole plant, and eventually you will be able to dispense with it. Remember that the pole plant is intended as aid to the learning technique.

Accept the inevitable while skiing in the bumps, and that is they will get you in the end! You will find, psychologically, that if you are feeling on top of the world, you will also find you are on top of the bumps, and if by chance you are down in the dumps, you will be down in the bumps as well. Go for them on a nice sunny day and ski them for just a short time so that the experience sinks into your memory bank and is allowed to settle before giving it another go.

Minimize the bumps' murderous intent by choosing nicely arranged ones wherever possible, and a nice sunny day with a bit of fresh snow on the top to soften the falls. Don't go up onto the black run where those aforementioned brutes lurk, with their bottoms sheered into cliffs, just waiting to gobble you up.

If you get the chance, go and watch a bumps competition either for real or on a video. From the front the skiers' upper bodies will sometimes appear to be motionless except for their progress down the mountain. Their legs will be going like pistons underneath them. As each bump unweights the skier and tries to catapult him into space, he absorbs it with rapid angulation of his knees, which are thrown from one side of the fall line to the other. He is therefore edging slightly to brake him, but as he is skiing so close to the fall line, this braking is minimal.

The technique of absorbing the bumps in this way is known as 'avalment' from the French 'avaler', to swallow. This, in essence, is what you have been practising, and probably what you will be doing while watching him.

Points to remember while you are learning:

RETURN TO CHAPTER START

GLOSSARY