How to Talk About Snow Like An Expert

Snow isn’t just snow. It has all sorts of different attributes that depend on many different variables, including the depth of the snowpack, prior snowfalls, altitude, wind, sun, air temperature, humidity, time of day, and time of year. As skiers and snowboarders it’s good to know what characterises the different types so we can speak the same language when we’re talking about our days in the mountains. 

The snow of skiers and snowboarders dreams is the super light ‘blower’ variety. This very low density pow, also known as ‘champagne powder’, happens when the air is very dry and the temperatures are very low. These conditions are sadly rare in New Zealand – but very common in Japan the land of ‘Japow.’ But while our pow is generally adenser and heavier it can still be amazing to ski. 

Powder skis generally measure 105mm underfoot and wider. They feature wide tips and a large amount of tip rocker and splay to help you plane up over the snow rather than ploughing through it. Your powder skis will tend to be about 10-15cm longer than your on-piste skis to add to the float.  

To make skiing powder easier and more fun these are skis you’ll need. 

Shop powder skis at Outside Sports Wanaka and Queenstown. 

Chop is powder that's been skied and cut up. It’s amazing how fast a pristine field of powder at somewhere like the Remarks or TC turns into chop when the local powderhounds get after it.  

TBH low density chop can be almost as much fun as powder when the snow is still flight and fresh, but as the day goes on chop tends to get denser. Skiing dense chop that grabs at your skis or board is exhausting and can make you feel like a worse rider than you really are. 

As Chop gets heavier and more compacted it turns into mashed potatoes or crud. 

To ski chop you want a burly ski with a bit of heft to it, so its tips won’t get deflected by the piled up snow. Because you’re not looking so much for float, as for power a wide all mountain ski is your friend in chop.

Shop all-mountain skis at Outside Sports Wanaka and Queenstown 

Skiing mashed potatoes is plain hard work unless you’re a very accomplished skier with legs of steel. It’s heavy, grabby, and like mashed spuds can contain unexpectedly hard lumps. The fate of most big dumps of snow is to turn into mashed potatoes, and sometimes it does it almost immediately if the snow is full of moisture. 

If mashed spuds are on the menu then most people prefer to stay on the groomers. 

This is a dusting of dry snow on top of firmer, but not icy, snow. Chalk is most often found on steeper off-piste south facing slopes, where it's been consistently cold and windy, but hasn’t been through a freeze thaw cycle. Chalk is brilliant to ski and snowboard on, and pretty much any all-mountain or piste orientated ski will shine on chalk 

These are the runs that have been groomed overnight by the snowcats to create smooth, packed, consistent snow. A well groomed trail can be a thing of beauty in the first few runs of the day, or throuhout the day when not too many people have been riding it. Groomer snow can vary in quality, depending on whether it’s natural or machine-made snow, and how cold and humid the air is. 

If it’s been nice and cold overnight, and the air is dry, machine-made snow can be extremely fun to ski, with an almost a chalky consistency. 

These are your go to piste skis at Outside Sports.

Corn is mainly found in spring when it’s created by repeated freeze-thaw cycles. It’s soft on top with a firm, but not harsh base underneath. Corn is great because it feels amazing to ski and flatters your skiing.  

Corn is another snow type that suits all-mountain skis really well, but you can definitley enjoy it with piste skis, and even powder/freeride skis. 

These eat skiers and boarders up. Death Cookies are icy lumps of refrozen crud that are scattered waiting to trip the unwary. Large areas of Death Cookies like conditions are known as Coral Reef because of the hard sharp spikey bits of icy snow that exist to make your day a misery.Ice axes and crampons not skis are what you need when there are lots of death cookies at large! 

Crust is exactly what it says – a layer of hard snow on top of soft snow two to around 10cms thick on top of softer snow. It’s not nice to ride because your skis or board can punch through the crust and cause a crash. Crusty snow is sometimes called ‘upside down snow.’ To be avoided if at all possible. 

This is a thin layer of soft, fresh snow on top of a very firm base. Dust on crust lurers you in by looking great at first glance, but it’s pretty much like riding on icy hard snow. 

The only skis that will make dust on crust approachable are piste skis with freshly tuned edges from our snow workshops at Queenstown and Wanaka. 

Moguls are the mounds of snow formed by skiers making lots of short turns in ungroomed terrain. They can vary a lot in size and spacing, depending on the snow conditions. Snowboarding tends not to create moguls because boards tend to push and flatten snow rather than create deep channels like skis do. 

Moguls scare a lot of skiers and snowboarders hate them, but they can be heaps of fun to ski with the right skis and a bit of dedication to learning the technique. If you can ski bumps well, you can ski anything. Dedicated mogul skis are narrow, straight, and fairly short – and you won’t find them in NZ unless you order them specially. However a narrower, quick turning all-mountain ski can work really well in the bumps. 

Slush is melted snow that's soft and wet. Snow turns slushy when the temperature increases so you’ll see it a lot in spring. Slush can be fun with the right skis – powder skis do well in slush. Otherwise, slush can be nasty to ski. It’s very grabby and causes a lot of late season injuries. 

This is powder snow that's blown over from another part of the mountain. Wind-loading is its evil twin.A wind loaded slope can be an avalanche risk because it creates instability with a ‘loading’ of snow on top of another layer that it’s not well bound to. 

High winds after a snowfall can strip parts of the ski field (hopefully depositing it nearby so you can enjoy stashes of wind deposited pow). Wind-scoured terrain is typically hard and not much fun to ski. Everyone usually avoids it if poss. 

Variable conditions are common in New Zealand with our four-seasons in one day weather patterns. In variable conditions you’ll encounter an inconsistent mix of firm and soft snow, and it’s the reason why all-mountain skis are so popular here. With their wider platform and rockered forebody, they can help you contend with a large range of different conditions, all on the same day. 

These are wave-like patterns that have been formed by high-wind blowing over fresh snow which has then frozen solid. It can look a bit like desert sand dunes. Sastrugi is a Russian word that originally was used to describe the patterns made by the wind in the snow on the endless Steppes. 

These are the cute little bowl-shaped depressions in the snow that form in spring when the snow is repeatedly exposed to sun and above-freezing temperatures over many days. Often you’ll see areas of beautiful sun cups in the snow at the side of the access road. 

In the snowsports section of our big stores in Queenstown and Wanaka we have a large hand picked range of skis from the world's top brands, and there'll be just the right ski for you - whether you're a enthusiastic beginner or a season professional athlete. We also have a giant range of ski boots and snow clothing.