Is there any difference between "Carving" and "Edging"?

Question

Is there any difference between "Carving" and "Edging"?

Answer 1

Another thing between Carving and edging, is that edging is more commonly used for snowboarding, while carving is refered to in skiing

Answer 2

Let's keep this real simple

edging  means you're turning on one ski edge-all weight on one ski...this is the way someone should first learn to ski and how most intermediate skiers(who usually consider themselves advanced) ski. in this fashion weight is distributed uphill enabling a skier to control his/her speed

Carving is using both edges and following the fall-line(weight is forward heading down the hill) as opposed to skidding. this enables an advance skier to maintain speed control without losing speed in a corner. weight is forward and distributed evenly across the entire Length of the ski which makes for better gliding thus no loss of speed into and through a turn

Answer 3

Most definitely there is a difference.  Edging is holding the equipment so that the edge is engaged to the snow.  This can be done while standing still or while moving.  Carving is pressuring the edge into the surface while moving and causing the equipment to bend in an arc. Edging is a requirement to carving.

Answer 4

Another slightly different interpretation that I have seen is edging refers to dragging your edge across the snow perpendicular to the direction your moving in. This is ussually referred to as a skidded turn and is exactly as it sounds like. You can ussually hear someone edging by the scraping noise their edge makes against the snow and you can see the snow that has been scraped off. Carving is the exact opposite where your edges are sliding with the snow and in the same direction you are moving in. It is a much more elegant, efficient, and faster turn.

Answer 5

Another take on "Carving" and "Edging":

People learn how to EDGE on the very first day, in the form of a snowplow.  It's pretty tiring and the control is marginal, but it is enough to keep them from falling constantly or killing themselves.

Later, they learn how to shift their weight side-to-side to EDGE in the form of skids and "scarves".  This ability is enough to get people down almost any slope, so they (mistakenly) believe that they have learned how to ski.

Much later, they begin to realize that to utilize the sidecut of the ski correctly, it takes concerted side-to-side AND fore-aft weight shifts at various points in the turn in order to get the ski to bend into the arc of the turn, which then results in some version of a CARVE.  It usually takes more practice (and often advanced lessons) to do it consistently and in conditions other than great.

So yeah, there's a lot of difference.  Everybody EDGES, better skiers CARVE to varying degrees.