By: William Skipin
Submitted: 2009-09-12 10:55:44 | Word Count: 517
Skiing is a very popular winter sport and there are a lot of different types of skiing. These different types of skiing activities require the use of different kinds of skis. These skiing activities can be easily categorized into two main types, the downhill and the cross country types. Here are some of the more popular skiing types where snow skis are used:
Alpine Skiing. This kind of skiing has evolved a lot through the years and is the downhill type of skiing where skiers can employ acrobatics and other tricks like jumps, rails, jibs, and such. This type of snow skiing keeps on evolving with skiers trying more daring stunts and jumps. Alpine Freestyle emerged in the 1960s and evolved into what is called Hotdogging. This then developed into what is called Freestyle or Newschool in the later part of the 1990s and then into Free ride Skiing. Snow skis also evolved with the sport to help the people who indulge in these variations to perform their tricks, jumps, and turns better and with greater ease.
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Nordic or Cross country Skiing. This kind of skiing is actually the oldest skiing type around and is the skiing type that most people indulge in. Developed in Scandinavia, it was first used as a way for people to travel around in the winter and not as a sport or a recreational activity. This kind of skiing involves going up, down, or moving around on a flat snowy surface to get to where you want to go. The sport and race type of this kind of skiing actually makes use of all three terrain types equally with racers going on uphill, downhill and on flat surface routes in cross country racing. This type of skiing also requires a different pair of snow skis as compared to those used for alpine skiing.
Snow Skis for Different Various Skiing Activities
There are a number of different kinds of skis that are to be used when engaging in this sport. Here are some of the more popular snow skis that skiers have been using on and off the slopes:
Alpine Skis. These snow skis first began their evolution as a couple of plain wood planks that slowly developed into sophisticated and aerodynamic tools for speeding down a snowy mountain. There are a variety of alpine ski designs to choose from and these are often designed to be used specifically for particular variations of this sport.
Twin Tip Skis. This type is the one you see with upturned ends. These are the snow skis that are usually used for aerial acrobatics and other stunts.
Telemark Skis. Telemark skis are used for downhill skiing or touring. This ski has bindings that are only attached at the toe.
Cross country Skis. Cross country skis are lighter and narrower than the other ski types since these have to be used on different kinds of terrain. Bindings for cross country skis may vary from other snow skis. There are cross country skiing with three binding systems and some have the single toe binding design used in Telemark skis.
