Everyone loves to ski freshly-fallen light powder snow, but Mother Nature is not always so accommodating. Sometimes you have to ski the nasty stuff to get to the good stuff - or sometimes, the nasty stuff is all there is. Whatever your level of skiing, you should never stop trying to push yourself, if you want to improve. This means skiing the tough stuff, as well as the "hero snow".

Light and heavy snow

It may come as a surprise that not all fresh snow is alike. In mountain ranges near the sea (California, Alaska, western Canada or the Alps), it tends to be heavier, with a higher water content. As you get closer to the centre of a continent (Alberta, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado), the snow becomes drier and lighter.

Lighter snow tends to be easier to ski, because you sink through it and usually reach the firm support of the older snow underneath. In heavy snow, such as the "Sierra Cement" of California, you need to be more precise and forceful with your movements, although the technique remains the same.

Crud

Fresh powder snow soon becomes "skied out", or "tracked out". This is sometimes known as "crud" (although this term is also used for breakable crust - see below). The problem is that the fresh snow is now packed down in some areas, and piled up in others. So the amount of resistance that your skis encounter is always changing. You need to constantly look ahead and anticipate this. When you're about to go through a deep pile, push your feet forward slightly. For the firmer sections, stand more in the middle of the ski. Rather than persisting with the short, bouncy turns of true powder, you will be better served in crud by longer, rounder, carved arcs.

Crust

Too much wind or sun can turn the top layer of powder into a hard crust. As long as this crust remains fairly thin, skiers can break through it easily, and barely notice it. And once the crust becomes thick enough, skiers remain on top of it, and it's almost like skiing on a piste. But between these two extremes is the worst-case scenario: breakable crust. Sometimes it will support you; sometimes it will break through. There are only two reliable ways to negotiate breakable crust: jump turns, or step turns.

With jump turns, you have to make the whole turn in the air, pivoting your feet beneath you, and only touching down to make a brief edge set. But this is exhausting, and even experts cannot keep it up for long. The other option is step turns, where you don't try to turn your skis but merely step them around, using four of five steps to complete a long turn. This is only feasible if the terrain is not too steep, and make sure you don't catch an edge doing this.

Slush

Once the air temperature becomes warmer than the freezing point, the snow starts to melt. Its water content becomes very high, the delicate snow crystals change into large grains of ice, and "granular snow" or slush, is formed. These conditions make it hard to pivot your skis, because whenever your skis are moving sideways, they need to push aside large piles of heavy snow. So, to cope with slush, you need to "round out" your turns. This will ensure that your skis move forwards through the slush, rather than sideways. If possible, you should even try to carve these longer turns.

With rounder turns, you will pick up speed in the middle of the turn. But as long as you finish off each turn, carving your skis all the way around across the hill, until you're nearly heading uphill, you'll always be able to bring your speed under control at the end of each turn.

Sticky snow

One more tip for the spring: when the snow gets really sticky on the lower slopes, you should aim for the higher parts of the mountain. If you have to ski low down, below the tree-line, then try to use areas of the runs that are shaded by the trees; they will be slightly cooler and less sticky.

• Martin Bell is running ski courses for intermediate skiers this summer in Vail and Breckenridge, Colorado. For more information, call 0170 8224080 or visit: www.unmissable.com/index.html?mod=product&f=product&productID=2075