How often do you go out and the conditions are unfavorable or outright unskiable???? Is that a word?

[SDNAH2OSKIER]

We ski in mission bay san diego and contend with wind. Most days we can get 60-90 minutes of glass and or very good conditions, but somedays, like yesterday, it is just blown out. We cant really tell until we get down there. Just curious how consistent or lack thereof are the conditions where you ski?

[Horton]

One or twice a year

[kfennell]

unfavorable at least 1/4 of the time, but only once so far this year unskiiable, went from 5 to 40-50 mph winds in 5 minutes, hard to ski when the spray from the boat is 100% blocking your vision :(

[sunvalleylaw]

I have that problem up in the mountains of Idaho too. Better chance at good conditions early in the morning, but you never know until you get there. Probably a third to half the time I get to the lake and find not ideal conditions. But if I pulled the boat up there, I am almost always going to try and ski, even on the Aussie conditions days.

[Guest]

A good day is getting to go to the lake. An excellent day is getting to go to the lake and go water skiing. A great day is getting to go to the lake, go water skiing and then have a few frosty ones with your buddies. (add good conditions and it goes "off the charts"! (btw: Sunvalleylaw, where do you ski?) I am in Hailey this week.

[sunvalleylaw]

@oldskeer, I am just a free skier at this point on Magic Res, or up at the lakes north of town. I am pulling the family boat up there (at one of the lakes north if we can find a spot to camp) this weekend hoping to have some fun. The boys are getting into driving the boat, and can pull me in a straight line now. They are learning to ski and wakeboard. There are two private lakes in the area, but I have no good connection to hook you up with. See my other response about your question on comp boats. Lots of them here for sure. Most are not used for competitive or course based skiing.

[Guest]

Thanks, Beautiful area. Always looking. Have fun and keep it up.

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks. Hoping to get back into some course skiing this year and next, and focus a bit more again. I may find my way onto one of the purpose built lakes yet. And yes, it is about fun! Right now, I am glad to get to go to the lake with my wife and kids. If I get a good ski run in, all the better!

[Razorskier1]

I try to go out no matter what the conditions are. Figure I'm going to see crappy water at about 75% of the tournaments, might as well get used to it. Once the chop is big enough that the balls disappear under it I call it a day.

[gregy]

At the private lakes I ski at the winds are generally cross winds and tolerable. There's a light wind quite often but the other day we got there about 5pm, water was great. However, there was a dark cloud getting closer quickly. Before we could get the boat uncovered the storm hit. After the rain stopped the wind continued to blow right down the lake producing 2 ft white caps on a very small lake. We got my step daughter out, who is just learning to ski. She had a good time we packed up and left.

[gjohnson]

@Razorskier1 - I've got 15 tournament rounds in this year and only a couple with wind pushing me down the lake. You need to sign up and start skiing as the conditions have been amazing so far in the upper Midwest.

[Joeprunc]

We look out our window. Can tell whether its going to be a good one or not. Even with 15 mph winds we can find some good water. Our larger problem is other wakeboard boats, and wake surfers. The off times are the best. I try to get wet no matter what.

[SkiJay]

By choice, I ski in windy conditions a lot. I'm not as driven by raw ball count as I am by meaningful progress, and tough winds are a fascinating challenge. 3/4 of my professionally coached sets are in high wind, and I get just as stoked by making a tough crosswind or high tailwind pass as stroking my toughest pass on glass ... well almost.

[tsixam]

We have almost always perfect conditions...maybe 1-2 times a year.

Tsixam

[The_MS]

@Gjohnson Same here, no wind in 17 rounds.

[Than_Bogan]

So far this year, under 5% ideal, mostly thanks to backwash and sometimes wind. But almost never unskiable. Getting lots of decent practice and ready to kick purple butt if I ever get ideal conditions again!

[6balls]

I see a lot of nice practice water. Enough courses on local lakes that we have BIG SE, South, SW, W and NW protection depending on location chosen. Stuck if we get straight north or NE.

This year two courses have yet to rise, one with NW protection because of weeds and one with south protection as owner has been super busy with work. Luckily a lot of SE wind so have been ok.

[cwillygood]

not too often for us, but i think its still good to go out because you never know if tournament day is going to be nasty,

[Razorskier1]

@MS and @gjohnson -- you don't want me to come -- that must be what brings the wind!

[9400]

Are whitecaps skiable or unskiable?

[jipster43]

As long as I have a willing partner and the boat is in no danger of sinking, I'll go out. Sometimes it's nice to be forced out of chasing balls and into pure technique.

[Garn]

Unskiable.

[Chef23]

I don't ski in real bad conditions very often. I prefer to not get hurt

[skibug]

Our lakes are very well protected (one runs NE-SW and the other is N-S) and I would say that they are skiable about 95% of the time with near perfect to perfect conditions 60% - 70% of the time. NE winds over 10-12 mph will make the NE-SW lake not fun. A North wind of the same speed will make the N-S lake not fun. I am with @Chef23 on the real bad conditions and getting hurt part.

[ForrestGump]

After watching all those guys at the Big Dawg running 39 1/2 off in the driving rain, my thoughts on what is skiable or unskiable have changed.

[Marco]

With a private lake and glass conditions most of the summer, it is hard to motivate to ski in bad conditions. I'll ski in mild-medium wind occasionally if I have an upcoming tourney, just for the practice, but I'm with Chef23 about not skiing in conditions that are borderline unsafe. After missing most of the last 2 seasons from 2 separate ski injuries, I'm a little more conservative than I used to be.

[ral]

I am on the same league than @Marco. Have usually perfect conditions and, with a recent metal plate in my neck, I am not into risking under unsafe conditions.

[Dscholfield]

Weekly, but I will never not ski because of it. Any time on the water is good time, even if the conditions are poor, there are always things you can work on(Like sometimes practicing your fall technique). The hardest part is finding a driver who wants to go out when the ice just came off, its pouring rain, or incredibly windy.

[PatM]

Say no to whitecaps!

[sunvalleylaw]

I will say that I prefer a bit of wind chop to boat rollers any day. That was one of the benefits of skiing in the bays of puget sound at mid tide, boat rollers died on the flat beaches. No lakeshore or bulkhead reverb.

 

In fact, when I was skiing a lot, I almost preferred just a bit of wind ripple on the water to absolute glass. I said almost.

[mopowpow]

I usually need wind < 10mph to ski. Over 10 out of the north or south it can be pretty rough on our lake. so far this summer it has been about once every 5-8 days... we are having the hot, dry, windy Kansas weather here in Iowa.

[Razorskier1]

My course was blown out today. Went to the opposite shoreline and skied open water. I spent the set trying to imitate the position posted on another thread showing pictures of the body position and handle control the Big Dawgs have in the second wash. I considered it great technical training. Hopefully will get a chance to put it to work in the course this weekend.

[sunvalleylaw]

@Razorskier1, moved question over to the other thread. More on topic there.

[Razorskier1]

@sunvalleylaw -- I was going for the whole enchilada. It was quite interesting. What I noticed most of all was that it required me to lean less hard than I typically do so that I could have a controlled roll through the edge in that position. I also noticed that it required me to be "coming up" earlier than I typically do, probably by 5-10 feet. I'm sure that it will possibly create a short-term setback in buoy count, but it must be important since all of these guys look like that and they all run 39, while I do not!

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks! I am basically starting over at this point, but I find this fascinating. At least I got an invite to a private ski lake for next Friday! Hopefully will get some good water, and will get in the course for the first time in a long time. Will be fun to start playing with stuff again, especially behind a good boat and decent conditions. I better start off with good fundamentals before I get too worried about what the BigDawgs are doing. but then again, maybe not. Might as well shoot for the good stuff as I am starting over I suppose.