It’s wintertime in America, which means many of you already are making some turns out there, with the rest of us hopefully not far behind. When I find myself with the itch to hit the not readily accessible slopes, a good way to go is to jam a skiing video. (My usual, trusted source for that cinematographic sub-genre is Andy over at MLP. For more skiing content on this site, click here.)

Today’s selection combines the ski sub-genre with what the semi-self-aware NPR-ish crowd has crassly dubbed “ruin porn.” On the sub-sub genre level, we have an urban skiing video set in post-2008 Detroit. On top of that, the executors of this brief venture seem too young (and, because it’s Detroit we can say, white) to be able to offer real gravity in their voiceover narrations.

Skiing is a physical negotiation with gravity, though, and like most good skiing videos born of conventional (wilderness and urban) tropes, the visuals eventually take over and create a worthwhile experience.

Such is the case with “Tracing Skylines.” It rides the thematic edge probably a little too closely at times, but the sum experience is one of a strong change of pace ski video.