Hit the Slopes with World’s First Skiers | National Geographic

I thought it’s a fantastic idea to go
and see this ancient culture that maybe
invented skiing the places where they
still ski this way is a far out beyond
prepared terrain here they they still
make the skis the exact same ways they
must have done it thousands and
thousands of years ago one guy will go
out in the woods cut down with an axe a
good spruce tree it’ll haul it back to
the village well he’s a really simple
planar she saw a shape that entered two
thin boards that can be used as a base
for skiing after you bent the tips the
skis have to cure attached with nails
horse skin underneath because the
direction of the horse hair gives them
traction for traveling uphill and skis
smoothly and fast downhill
when you’re looking for villages where
people are skiing you have to kind of
look for where are their skiing tracks
coming down the mountain size another
difference from the Altai skis to what
we’re used as they use only one pole
they sort of lean back and use the pole
as almost like a rudder they have a need
to constantly go up and down and shift
between upwards and downwards and
sideways and through Russian trees out
on open ground and then you know it’s
all about chasing animals and going
where you can’t plan
I was always trying to just stay ahead
of the curve somehow to do photography
tried to get position tried to get past
them try to get a good angle we found
that we had quite a hard time keeping up
with that I just had to try to keep up
for me it was like a travel back in time
to what might have been the origin of
skiing but the whole tradition of skiing
is very much you could say on its last
legs the young generations are less and
less involved with these ancient ways
you