what is this fascination w/ hucking???

[gimpy]

i just don't get it. when there's perfectly good deep powder to ski all over, is it really that pleasurable to risk ALL the negative effects it has on your body including season ending injury and long term spinal compression effects???? to access powder fields and in chutes and couloirs i undersatnd the neccessity. but on its own....????? and i'm not dissing it, like i said, i just don't get it. please enlighten me.

[Lone Star]

'cause it's fun.

if there's perfectly deep powder anywhere, the risk of injury is largely reduced. there's just something about falling(flying?) through the air that makes it a sensation that's hard to beat.

[Yossarian]

When I was a little boy, I dreamed of running down my hilly street until eventually I dived forward forward down down but then suddendly began to fly up up up and I was airborne, swooping, spinning, gliding, turning, tumbling falling spinning down again whereupon I would gracefully cruise over the street slowly descending back into my run which would deposit me back at my front door at the bottom of the street.

Bound to the earth by gravity, who among us doesn't want to fly?

[Buzzworthy]

Paging Drugged Monkey!

"I still love to jump off of things, ever since I was a little kid. Skiing is an easy way to do that." -a jumper.

[Spats]

i just don't get it.

It's fun to jump off things and not die.

Of course, I'm a wimp. I don't like to drop anywhere that I'm not totally familiar with the landing, and the biggest I've ever gone is about 20 feet down into 3 feet of Utah blower. But it's a real rush to go even 10-15 feet into POOF.

Of course, I can see how if you skied Heavenly you'd be unfamiliar with the concept of "hucking" I was all over the mountain for three days and didn't see a single huckable rock or cliff band.

[yentna]

I'm the BIGest wimp when it comes to jumping as many people can tell you (hey now, back injury I don't want to aggravate), but even I'll huck a 10 - 15 foot drop on a pow day.....it's such a beautiful feeling to fly through the air and then just go poof! into a pile of fluff, no harm done no matter how poorly I've landed. Or to stick the landing and float weightlessly through the powder....that's what makes life worth living.

[altachic]

I fully admit i suck at jumping off things, but i like doing it...that feeling rules, especially when you know you've stomped it.

i wonder gimpy, have you hucked before, do you know what you're missing out on?

[phUnk]

And what's the deal with these fat skis?

I mean, do you really need a ski that fat just to have fun? Come on.

[Superstar Punani]

Hucking is like Fucking, with an H.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

hucking sucks. I would never do it.

[gimpy]

biggest i've ever gone is prolly 10' and no, it wasn't at the heave . you're right spats that the skis rarely leave the ground there. i'm mostly just too much of a wuss and am also afraid of re-injuring a past broken heel. but even if i wasn't a gimp, i'd still prolly choose to keep my feet on the ground most of the time. and yeah, maybe i just don't know what i'm missing. but looking at a steep entrance to an untouched powderfield next to an aired entrance, i'll take the steep over the air every day. and this inquisition was mostly brought on from the recent kwood reports of mass people hucking stuff at an unprecedented rate and a utah maggot's post (i forget exactly who...pow-something or other) about spinal compression from toomuch hucking. really just wondering if it is an ego thing or if it really is that much fun. i guess i mostly always assumed its just an ego-stroke for people like hey, look at me, but maybe it is all that. thanx for enlightening me and i'll still be making tracks instead of bombholes

[lph]

I SUCK at hucking, but those few times i have stomped a landing or even hot tubbed on a big powder day, god it felt good. It is an instant adrenalin rush, something a little different from skiing deep powder or jumping into a steep chute.

I didn't huck at all today, but I watched Kush and Hop huck everything in sight and it was a blast. Hop came up grinning from ear to ear on every huck, Kush wasn't so lucky, but we wouldn't expect any less from him.

I don't know T. I feel like I need to do some of each. Like anything else in life balance is good. Some days my feet don't leave the ground and other days I am searching out every 5-10 footer i can find. I know, I know 10 feet is pretty meager, but I still enjoy it. I will never go anywhere near as big as hop and kush did today, but I won't enjoy my little hucks any less knowing that.

Would I have enjoyed more nice long powder runs today? Absolutely. But I still had a great day and still scored some of the deepest snow on kirkwood. Why? Cause I suggested we check out Danger Cliffs to see the boys huck and it turns out the snow BELOW danger cliffs was $$$$$$$$$.

[skier666]

The speed....and the float.

When you leave the ground, you start to go fast, and when you stick that landing with all that speed...its a rush.

I hear what you are saying about skiing the pow....but when there's pow, you have a million more options of the lines you can hit with a lower risk than say, on hardpack. I guess as I get older, I tend to weigh the risk versus reward....since I have experiences in the injuries department.

[Blurred]

Hucking sucks, stick to the groomers and bumps Stacy.

[bcrider]

There are different levels of hucking…

There are the guys that go big and land shit clean.

Then there are the guys that just huck their bodies without rhyme or reason only to human-crater and talk about how rad they are in the bar…or on the internet.

Same goes for straight-lining.

It’s a huge rush to point ‘em down the fall-line and it takes skills to pull it off.

But on the other hand, it can be easier to go straight down the slope than to make nice looking turns with style.

True hucking and straight-lining = rad.
Most hucking and straight-lining = big on balls, low on skills

I do agree that getting in the air is the shiznit…something about the whole process. IE waiting for conditions, looking over the edge at the top, feeling the heart beat right before you commit, the take-off, the visual of seeing the snow get closer and closer until you finally set the landing gear down…riding away. Good stuff.

My going big days are over thanks to a blown acl...but pow turns are just what the doctor ordered.

[powderwhore]

Its mostly about the rush and pushing yourself past your fears for me. Lately the fear hasn't been a problem, I just go. Theres something about coming off a cliff and having 40' of air between your skis, or airing that 20' into that tight chute you've been eying. Its a rush, some of us need it. After awile straight airs get old and you feel the need to get inverted off those some lines. Thats when you know you have a problem.

[schuss]

I've never really hucked on skis, but I want to. When I was in grade school, the thing to do was jump off my 10-20 foot cliffs into the wind deposited drifts at the bottom. Then I jumped off my 2.5 story roof into about 12 inches of pow, then jumped off everything I could. It's just a natural thing.

[bad_roo]

There are different levels of hucking…

There are the guys that go big and land shit clean.

Then there are the guys that just huck their bodies without rhyme or reason only to human-crater and talk about how rad they are in the bar…or on the internet.

True hucking and straight-lining = rad.
Most hucking and straight-lining = big on balls, low on skills

Paging The Elitist...

[cmsummit]

Hucking say like a 30' into bottomless pow is so overrated. The adrenaline rush is minimal at best. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[hop]

Like Plake said, cliffs are the natural evolution from steeps.

In all seriousness, hucking (to me) is something that's very calculated and avoided when conditions aren't right. Everyone that I've been skiing with the past few days has been super cautious, always employing spotters and checking landings before going off of stuff. We've backed away from almost as many cliffs as we've taken off from. And while it's nice to get a picture of the effort, that's not the reason why we're doing this. Most of the hucks have gone un-documented.

Edit: I want to stress the importance of having spotters like Hardrider, Kush, Arty, Bakerboy (even though he's not here) or others that you trust. If I'm on top and they say "go around" I trust their judgement.

[Huckwheat]

Hucking…..First, it is my absolute favorite thing to do in the world. But, I will also admit that I blew my ACL (on a 15 footer) on Dec 5th. So, if I could go back would I have done something different……well, no. It was one bad jump, but the injury is worth the hundreds of other times I have felt the superhuman ability to fly through the air and come up grinning like a kid on Christmas.

Now however, I was left with the decision of having a huck-less season, being really mellow on my skis, or getting my surgery ASAP. In the end I decided that any skiing was better than none. A day on a groomer (or even x-country), is still the best activity in the world. For someone who really has always used skis as a way to get from jump to jump this was an epiphany.

So, why is it so fun? First it is weather dependant…..how big you can go is controlled by your courage, but more importantly by mother-nature. So, to step up to your biggest jump (whether that is 10 feet or 60) is something you have to patiently wait for, and may only happen once a year (or not at all). This aspect makes a big jump a really special occasion.

Then there is actually jumping, lets break it down:
• Standing on the top and mustering the courage to point the skis off (this is probably my favorite part).
• Finally you hop the skis straight and know you have just committed to something a bit crazy.
• Then there is the actual flying……that part goes by in a flash (no matter how big).
• Then the landing…..this is the athletic part. Ever instinct and muscle in your body needs to work together to stick the landing.
• Then skiing it out…..which has completely new challenges when your skis hit the ground full speed.

When I am all fixed up with some new parts, will I risk injury again when I see three feet in my landing and a chance to fly for a few precious seconds? You better believe it.

My 2 cents…..I hope all the huckers are out there getting some for those of us who cannot.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Edit: I want to stress the importance of having spotters like Hardrider, Kush, Arty, Bakerboy (even though he's not here) or others that you trust. If I'm on top and they say "go around" I trust their judgement.

FKNA

..........

[Baconzoo]

i just don't get it.

Do you want to get banned from this forum? TGR would be Teton Groomer Research if it wern't for the fun of it. I love seeing all the bomb holes on a fat pow day in Jackson.

But the story about the guy who butt checked a rock on a landing... He almost bleed to death from the whole in his ass.

[Big E]

I am far from being a hucker. My biggest to date is about 10, maybe 12 ft. Last year I was really looking forward to trying to go a little bigger than that, if I lucked out and got a big fat dump on a trip. Blowing out the knee (not on a huck) ended that, and has me a bit cautious about it even now.

But it is a pretty cool feeling. I still remember the very first time I ever went off of anything. I was about, hmm, 12 or 13 I guess (I started skiing at 11 or so), and I was cruising down a blue run, kinda steep up top then flattened out for a while. A trail branched off of it along the flat part, a nice smooth ramp if you turned off early, or a more abrupt drop off of a bank if you waited a little while. It had just snowed that day, maybe 8", and since this trail sorta went over this long flat part, and it wasn't groomed, you pretty much had a slog if you went that way, so no one did. On the chairlift ride back up, I told my dad I wanted to go off that little bank (it was maybe 2 or 3 feet at most), so I stopped up top above the steep section, he skied down to where I was talking about so I wouldn't miss it, and when the slope had mostly cleared I pointed my 175's (! - ahh, straight skis...) for all they were worth. I sailed off the bank, unaware that you're supposed to pop off things, and I remember as soon as I was in the air, it was like time slowed down, almost stopped. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do about landing, but it was pretty cool. Then I remember finally, after what must have been a good 1/100th of a second hang time, touching down and it was like time had to speed back up so as not to disrupt the space-time continuum. Yard-sale mania! All my gear went everywhere, and my dad just stood there laughing.

Damn, I need to go skiing.

[Arty50]

Also getting hurt is just a part of skiing.

I'm sitting out today because I sprained my knee yesterday. It's only slight though. I probably could have skied today, but would rather heal up and hit it later this week. Yes, I did this hucking.

But, I would have done the same thing if I had been maching down Thunder Saddle and buried a tip. I've twisted my knee several times in the past and hucking was never involved. One instance two years ago forced a one month layoff from anything. Thankfully it happened at the end of spring.

Sure there are other bad things that can happen when hucking; but then again, when just skiing I could catch a snowsnake, hit a tree, or have a gaper get caught in front of me.

Besides, I consider it practice of sorts. I suck at landings, and that limits me from skiing some lines. I can think of an awesome chute at Whistler that I want to bag, but have been worried about since there's a mandatory 5 footer towards the bottom. But wat if I get there and the 5 footer is now 10 or 15? And then you have to ask, "Why do I want to ski this line?" Because the turns above it look soooooooo saweeeeeeeet.