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Each month, West Virginia Ski will bring you skiing tips tailored to conditions and challenges facing skiers in the Mountain State. This month we offer some advice on managing moguls, making great carved turns, and making your way through powder.

Stay Afloat in Powder

Morning's first light breaks through the window of your cabin to reveal a foot of fresh, soft powder perched on tree limbs and blanketing the slopes outside. The radio announces "the best skiing of the year so far!" - and it can be, if you're ready for it. With their high mountains and brisk climate, West Virginia ski areas get more than their share of such ideal days. But for skiers accustomed to skiing only on the tightly packed, groomed surfaces common much of the year in the East, powder presents its own unique challenges.

Nothing's more frustrating than finding yourself bogged down in snow over your knees on a day that's supposed to be "perfect" for skiing. Here are a few tips to help you stay on top of the powder, and on top of your game:

Find Your Line: Speed is your friend, not your enemy, in powder. Take a steeper route down the mountain than you might normally, staying balanced over the midpoint of your skis or even leaning forward slightly until you're ready to turn. You need the extra speed to "float" across the top of the snow surface.

Practice Staying Parallel: Remnants of that old snowplow form will get you in trouble fast in powder. When your skis are angled differently, they increase drag. The goal in powder is to use both skis as a single platform.

Turn With Your Whole Ski: Powdery snow offers less resistance to your edges, making them less important in turning. In powder, most of your turning power comes from the base of your skis. Press down and out to initiate the turn, then lift up and across to complete it.

Use the Hill: Small rises you might otherwise avoid can actually help you turn in powder. Use them for leverage and lift by skipping off the side, especially if you're having trouble maintaining adequate speed.

Most of these techniques - such as staying parallel and using your weight effectively to turn -- can be practiced even when you aren't in deep powder. Master them on groomed snow and you're already halfway to being an expert powder skier!

Making Great Turns - The Eyes Have It!

Here's a tip for turning out those gorgeous carved turns you see in the instruction videos. Try keeping your eyes focused on your path 10- to 15-yards ahead, especially as you're coming out of a turn. Focus on where your next turn will begin.

The secret here is that your body will instinctively tend to go in the direction you're looking, making your weight shifts smoother and more effortless. When you pull your hips across in the direction of the new turn, the back of your skis will "follow" behind the tips, giving you the clean set of tracks that mark a great carved turn.

Master the Moguls - You've just swooshed expertly down the top half of a black diamond when you're suddenly confronted by a veritable minefield of moguls. What to do?

Plan Your Approach: Visualize your path through the mogul field, including where you'll make major (reversing) turns, if any. If you will need to reverse directions (such as on very narrow trail), make the terrain help you by doing so on the inside of a bump. Don't wait until you've run out of trail to try to head back.

Make Steady, Rhythmic Turns: Shifting the edges of both skis simultaneously, try to flow from one turn into the next. You may need to make as many as 20 or 30 of these quick, short turns in succession, so the more you fall into a rhythm, the smoother your descent will be.

Maintain Constant, Moderate Speed: The danger of excess speed in moguls is self-evident, but slowing down too much can have its pitfalls too - most notably, you lose much of your turning ability. Plus, "starting over" in the middle of a mogul field is a lot harder than getting a good jump from the top. Try to maintain a steady, easy pace as you make your turns.

Backward in Time: Starting at the beginning in Mountaineer Country means a trip backward in time to the pioneer-era forts that recreate life in the earliest settlements of the region. The original Prickett's Fort, just off Interstate 79 near Fairmont in Marion County, was established around 1774. Now reconstructed on its actual site according to family diaries, this 18th century civilian fortress, which protected homesteading families from the wrath of displaced Native Americans, is a state park. Fort New Salem, west of Clarksburg on US 50, is a collection of authentic 18th and 19th century log buildings from around the region, several of them outfitted with their original glass and hardware fittings. Salem-Teikyo University offers Appalachian heritage arts classes at the fort.

At Watters Smith Memorial State Park, an 18th century agrarian homestead in southern Harrison County, the trials and victories of early farm life are evident.

College Town - Urban settlement began early on, as well. The Morgan family, credited with being the first Europeans to settle western Virginia, moved across the mountains to establish roots in what is now Morgantown. By 1785, the town was chartered and functioning as a county seat. Today, Morgantown is best known as the home of West Virginia University. When the WVU Mountaineers play at home in the fall, the state's attention is riveted on the 70,000-seat Mountaineer Field. In the winter, the WVU Coliseum attracts basketball fans.

A full calendar of cultural events and activities at the Mountainlair student center and the Creative Arts Center serve the university community and visitors as well. The Creative Arts Center is home to the West Virginia Public Theatre, producing a series of Broadway favorites and popular performances each summer. For a taste of old-time culture, visit the 19th century Cook-Hayman Pharmacy Museum on the WVU Medical Center grounds. To view a piece of the high tech side of Morgantown, take a ride on WVU's computer-operated Personal Rapid Transit System, or PRT. A US Department of Transportation research project operating since 1975, it provides daily transportation for students and residents alike.

Most of Morgantown's downtown action takes place on or near High Street. The past can be seen at the 1795 Old Stone House, a tiny structure on Chestnut Street, whose past included turns as a tavern, tannery, church, home, and now a craft and gift shop.

Gleaming Copper - Thoroughly modern tastes in music and food support a variety of pubs, bistros, interesting shops and bookstores. One of the newest attractions is the West Virginia Brewing Company, the state's first brewery pub, complete with gleaming copper kettles, one-of-a-kind brews and noteworthy food. Glass provides a tie between Morgantown's past and future. Only the Gentile Glass Company in nearby Star City is still in operation, but you can visit the historic Seneca Center, which produced crystal stemware for the Kennedy White House table. The rambling old factory building on University Avenue is now home to a collection of design shops, better clothing stores and fine dining, as well as the visitors center.

A favored spot for accommodations is Lakeview Resort. Its excellent championship golf courses have hosted the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead. Lakeview also offers a health club, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts and recreation on jewel-like Cheat Lake. Just east of town, Coopers Rock State Forest's 12,000 acres sprawl across portions of Monongalia and Preston counties. Camping, hiking on the northern section of the Allegheny Trail, biking, hunting, fishing, rock climbing and cross country skiing make it more than just spectacular scenery.

Pioneer and River Town - Going south into Marion County, the pioneer roots of Fairmont were in evidence at what is now Prickett's Fort State Park long before the city was chartered. Today, the fort's interpreters, dressed in period costumes, go about the tasks of daily frontier life as visitors observe and sometimes participate. The fort is open from early spring through fall and for a Christmas craft market the three weekends prior to Christmas. The summer theatrical production, Prickett's Fort: An American Frontier Musical, dramatizes the struggles of the early settlers in their wilderness home.

The city's location at the headwaters of the Monongahela River and the coming of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the 1850s made it a center of commerce. The discovery of coal beneath the ground clinched its industrial boom. Fairmont was the site of one of West Virginia's first teacher training schools in 1865. Fairmont State College maintains a one-room school museum as part of that heritage.

Folks from miles around who are interested in a little fast lane fun go to Fairmont on Friday and Saturday evenings year round. The Fairmont Dragway at Exit 132 off I-79 is a National Racing Association-sanctioned dragstrip, where modern stockcars race. For a spectacular taste of the outdoors, Valley Falls State Park, just off WV Rt. 310 south of Fairmont, is the setting for the Falls of the Tygart River. A popular Class I and III whitewater trip, the Tygart River run stops just short of the spectacular 25-foot falls. The day-use park features picnicking, recreational facilities, and 13 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails.

For more local history, head to Mannington, 10 miles north of Fairmont, where the Round Barn, a unique architectural structure, houses an early 20th century farm exhibit. The Old Schoolhouse Museum offers three floors of Civil War-era Americana--antique musical instruments, furnishings, farming and mining tools, even sleighs.