Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Extreme Skiing

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

This Is How It Really Sounds by Stuart Archer Cohen

This Is How It Really Sounds

by Stuart Archer Cohen
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 21, 2015, 368 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2016, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Extreme Skiing

This article relates to This Is How It Really Sounds

Print Review

In This Is How It Really Sounds, one of the Pete Harringtons is an extreme skier – a sport, he complains, not many people find appealing or artistic because, unlike regular downhill skiing, it does not have as much cachet with the general public.

Shane McConkeyThe strict definition of extreme skiing is taking on very steep cliffs, with the skier making moves as he or she goes along. The cliffs must be at least at a 45-degree angle to qualify. Extreme skiers are judged, not just in terms of the challenges they take on, but also their beauty and grace while in the air. This is especially true when extreme skiers punctuate their drops with aerial calisthenics also called ski jumping.

Extreme skiing comes in many versions: heli skiing is where the athlete is dropped down on the mountain slope by means of a helicopter, often because the terrain is largely inaccessible. Even if heli skiing is named because of the method of transport involved, it qualifies as extreme since it accesses difficult areas much beyond the path of regular skiers. The potential for avalanches and sicknesses at such altitudes is extreme and organizations such as the US Heli Ski Association recognize these dangers and promote safety. Snow kiting involves skiing while being attached to a kite or sail that essentially functions as a mechanism to funnel air and allow the skier to be able to fly over patches of rocky terrain if necessary. Ski gliding involves much the same principle except it is executed with a hang glider.

Shane McConkeyArguably the craziest version is ski-BASE (Building, Antenna, Span, Earth) where the athlete goes off any ski slope at high speeds, and then throws away the skis to deploy an attached parachute to deliver him or her to safety. In 2009, athlete Shane McConkey was killed in such an extreme skiing event when he attempted a 2000-ft drop and couldn't shake off his skis in time to prevent them from entangling in his parachute.

A really great video of heli skiing:



Two images of Shane McConkey, professional skier and BASE jumper, courtesy of alchetron.com

Filed under Cultural Curiosities

Article by Poornima Apte

This "beyond the book article" relates to This Is How It Really Sounds. It originally ran in June 2015 and has been updated for the April 2016 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris
    by Evie Woods
    From the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    One Death at a Time
    by Abbi Waxman

    A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    Happy Land
    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.

  • Book Jacket

    The Seven O'Clock Club
    by Amelia Ireland

    Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

Who Said...

They say that in the end truth will triumph, but it's a lie.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

A C on H S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.