realskiers

I agree. There are two headwalls at my home mountain. Both approach a 40 degree pitch. Carving slalom turns with speed control (getting a velocity that no longer increases which aso means that the radius of the turn never widens as one goes further down the pitch). Even when the conditions are good, this is a major challenge and requires early tip pressure in every transition (among other things!).

I really enjoyed watching both GS races from Soelden this past weekend. They said the pitch hits 61 degrees at one point on that slope (which is actually hard to believe). But not only are they skiing on a hill that is water injected, underneath is solid ice from the glacier. Carving tight turns on that is well beyond my abilities, but if you watch the better racers (Janka, Ligety, Hirscher, Pinterault) they have incredible forward pressure on every turn and they rock some amazing carves in the steeps on solid ice. Fricking amazing!! This is the mental image I want in my head and one of my goals is to be that far forward on every turn.