Landings

The four bands

Every landing is judged from the board's real orientation at the moment it meets the snow — how far its up-vector is from the slope's normal, and how far the nose is off the line you are travelling. Pure flips reduce to the old "did you finish the rotation" test; off-axis rotations are judged fairly from the whole orientation instead of axis by axis.

Both tests only apply at speed. The tilt test switches on above about 22 km/h and the sideways test above about 32 km/h; below those a crossed-up or tipped landing is a stumble, not a crash. Slow landings are forgiving because there is nothing to be thrown by.

Notice that the sketchy limits are the same numbers the trick book uses to credit a rotation: 57° and 63°. They have to be. If a flip could land sketchy without being counted as a flip, the popup would name something other than what you rode away from.

The stomp assist

There is help, and it is worth knowing exactly how much. About 0.3 seconds before touchdown an assist arms and starts pulling the board level. It settles roughly half of whatever tilt is left on a rotation you have finished — and it does not finish one for you. Beyond about 43° of tilt it does nothing at all: outside that you ride out exactly what you brought down.

In practice this means a rotation stopped within a few tens of degrees of level will settle into a clean landing on its own, a rotation stopped a quarter turn short will not, and a rotation still spinning when the snow arrives will land wherever it is. The assist rewards stopping the trick; it never rescues not having stopped it.

Powder gives, ice does not

Deep powder widens every window by up to 17°, scaling with how deep the powder is where you land, and it swallows 45% of the impact. A rotation that would have been a wipeout on hardpack can be a sketchy landing in the fluff, and a sketchy one can come up clean. Ice offers no give; a landing on it is judged at face value and the board slides out from under a sideways one sooner. The surfaces page has the rest of what the snow does.

What to do with this

• Stop the rotation. Momentum carries you about a tenth of a turn past the release, more when grabbed. Let go early, and let go hard — extending brakes the spin.
• Spot the landing. The rider's eyes drop to it once you are falling; that is the cue the assist is armed.
• Take the sketchy landing. Riding out a bad one keeps your distance alive. A wipeout is the end of both numbers.
• Chase the stomp on the big ones. +15% on a 700-point cork is more than most whole tricks pay, and the speed it returns is the next air.