I am an avid Intermediate Mountain Skier. This Gadget Helps Me With My Games

Every time I stand at the top of a black diamond run I’ve never skied before, I have the same thought: “I know I can get off this, but at what cost to my reputation?”

Sometimes you just don’t know how things are going to go until you point your skis down the slope and put them on that first edge. Maybe the mountain will surprise you and you will ski with the same kind of panache that manages to combine green and blue runs. Or maybe it’s just that the first corner is uphill, steeper and colder than you expected, and you’ll be forced to shame-judge your way to a more forgiving place.

Not all skaters have this problem, but many do. I’m still standing on what is known in ski parlance as the middle plateau. It’s common among people like me who have been skiing for a long time (about 30 years for me) but rarely go, and forever one week a year.

Life on the prairie is comfortable and without challenges. You’ve received enough training and experience to ski at a solid intermediate level, unlocking many groomed runs at any resort. But your limited practice time prevents you from progressing to anything that can be called advanced — those double black diamonds are not for you.

That’s how I’ve been skiing for almost two decades now. After recovering from childhood trauma caused by endlessly annoying instructors at the Ecole du Ski Francais in the French Alps, I was able to reach a respectable level that allowed me to navigate any piste with confidence. With the exception of a few days of powder lessons in twenty years, this sums up my total snowboard tuition.

I just thought this is the way I’m going to skate forever. How can I hope to make significant progress on my route in my six annual ski days without an instructor?

But it turns out there is a way. Enter Carv, a technology that feels designed to give skiers like me the help we need to recognize our bad habits and break them.

The Carv consists of two sensor modules about the size of a standard matchbox — one for each of your ski boots — costing $250 a pair. They attach to your wristbands and measure your foot movements, connecting to a phone app, which gives you analytics and coaching. If you choose, this can be in real time through your headphones. It plays into the broader trend of wearable technology that not only tracks our activity (the most common steps and sleep), but also gives us actionable feedback that makes that data useful to us.

Given that a single day of tuition at the resort where I regularly ski will set you back $250, Carv feels like a decent value for what it offers (though it should be noted that you also need to pay a subscription fee to use it, which varies by program). That’s not to say that Carv is replacing a human instructor. But if you want to improve without taking time to ski with friends, or if, like me, you carry the scars of childhood ski school, it can be a big compromise.

“Carv is a way for you to get the answer without sacrificing yourself,” said Alex Jackson, founder of Carv. What the team found, he added, is that even small pieces of feedback given quickly and in real time can help make small changes. “In fact, if you can change one thing, what will happen is… you will open up a new feeling that you didn’t realize was there,” he said.

I was happy to see if he was right.

Hitting the slopes with Carv

In January, I had six days to check out Carv on my annual trip to Whistler, where I would be skiing with family on my own. The night before I hit the slopes, where fresh snow had just fallen, I charged the Carv units ready to attach to my boots the next morning.

To my dismay, my first day on the mountain brought incessant rain. Despite this, I managed to score 111 Ski IQ points on my first run, which Carv gives me the title of “super pioneer.”

Ski IQ is a Carv-specific metric that takes your best eight consecutive turns in any part of the run and gives you a score from 80 on the low end to 170-plus if you qualify for the Olympics. I was pleased to pass the average skier who uses Carv, who according to the company’s own information has a Ski IQ of 100, but I was disappointed to miss a friend of mine with a Carv who has a Ski IQ of 124, giving him “legendary line” status.

My competitive instinct kicked in and I was determined to beat him by the end of the week (spoiler alert: I didn’t). On the chairlift, I immediately started looking at the data to see where I could improve. I “nailed it” for keeping my skis aligned, the Carv app told me, but making smooth turns was “work.”

This has been the theme all week. The app identified the turn shape as a particular weak point, suggesting that instead of carving a nice wide C shape on the slope, I was instead forcing my legs to turn early, making angles in the snow where they shouldn’t be.

The data was presented to me in many different formats, each useful in its own way. The graph showing the curve by curve analysis showed me that on some of my best curves I was actually within the “legendary” performance zone, but not consistently. A diagram of my average turn lane showed me that I was making a smoother arc when turning left than right. All of this encouraged me that at least I was doing it right sometimes, and that with some focus I could improve.

That first day I kept the Carv app in “track” mode, and achieved a high score of 115 despite the bad weather. I spent all night watching tutorials on the app and looking for drills to try the next morning.

From couch to training

The learning was immediately rewarding. On my first run on the second day, on a wide, empty green slope, I focused on my turns and quickly hit a high Ski IQ of 116.

Perhaps the most important lesson in all of this is that I opened up to the “new feeling” that Jackson had described to me before the trip. By finishing my turns well, instead of forcing new ones too quickly, I found it easier to shift my weight onto my new outside ski and gain an edge. It felt smooth and natural, and I was able to keep my upper body pointed continuously down the slope as a result.

“The basic problem is that we’re teaching your body something that goes against all of its best interests,” Jackson had told me. “It’s very difficult to train your brain that that movement is the right one.”

On the third day, my family joined me on the slopes. My brother, who lives in Whistler and is surprisingly a much better skier than I am, hit a Ski IQ of 135 right off the bat (he’s gotten as high as 150, making him a “brutal ripper,” according to Carv). After our first game together, he immediately noticed that my skiing had improved from the year before. It’s been a few seasons that he’s encouraged me to look forward, not to be afraid to look down the hill, but it was Carv’s training and coaching that finally gave me the confidence to follow his advice.

Over the next few days I switched between Carv’s “learn” mode, which provides tips to your headphones when you’re on a lift, and “train” mode, which provides real-time feedback on your turns using a series of ascending beeps when you’re on your way to unlocking new highs.

This gameplay was especially fun when I was skiing alone, allowing me to focus on my turns and closing, and encouraging me to stay in a solid rhythm even when the pitch of the slope changed below me. I liked that I could isolate and train specific skills, take the emphasis away from the overall Ski IQ, and instead focus more on the initial transition by holding or steering with my legs.

It was in this mode that I raised my Ski IQ to 118 the day before going home — and in black diamond, no less — because as of the latest update, the Carv algorithm now favors more challenging terrain. It felt encouraging at the time and like an overall success for me to get my best score of the week skiing which might be the best I’ve ever turned on a steep slope.

Rediscovering my inner pleasure seeker

After years of lazily traipsing down blue runs, one eye always on my next chocolate stop, my experience using the Carv reignited my passion for improving my skiing in a big way.

“Skiing is one of those sports where the better you get, the more fun you get — consistently, to the highest level,” Jackson said — and he was right.

For the first time in years, I was focused on improving my approach and reaping the benefits. My achievement showed me life beyond the middle plateau and helped me rediscover the joy of sports.

As Jackson said when I tried to let him know that I felt low about my Ski IQ score, improvement isn’t always easy or linear.

“The most important thing to remember is that skiing is really hard, and getting better is a) scary (there are new sensations to get used to) and b) it takes time (we don’t get to ski every day!),” he said via email. “But even a little improvement, and a little focus on the skiing itself (rather than just sailing) can unlock a huge amount of control, confidence and fun.”

Carv may not be suitable for all skaters, but it has helped me tap into what Jackson refers to, gaining confidence, fun and (sometimes) control. For the first time in ten years, I feel like I’ve gotten rid of bad habits and opened up more opportunities for improvement.

When I got home, I continued to watch Carv tutorials on YouTube. Algorithms running my life quickly became available and I was constantly being shown Helly Hansen ads on Instagram and ski tip videos on TikTok. I’m already wondering how much of my annual leave I’m willing to give up to skiing, and I’m considering mortgaging my house to pay the instructor the next day I’m in Whistler.

Either way, I know Carv will be waiting for me, along with endless opportunities to tackle Whistler’s black diamonds — hopefully with more speed, style and grace.