Skiing is like riding a bike. That is, if you didn’t learn as a kid, it’s probably best not to try now.
It’s a children’s sport. Not reserved for children, like tag or hide-and-seek, but something to be learned in childhood. Like walking or swimming. Otherwise, you risk having the experience I’ve had over the last week. Some skiing. Mostly falling. More on that later.
I never skied as a kid. Not only that, but I didn’t even know anyone who skied. Central Pennsylvania is not exactly the Mecca of ski resorts. It’s not the Mecca of anything really, except maybe butter, pretzels, and the Amish.
Skiing was something of a myth to me in childhood. I lumped it together with sports like sailing and polo. Sure, I knew they existed. I’d seen photos. But they were reserved for Connecticut prep school kids. I somehow missed that there are states like Colorado and Utah where half the year basically revolves around the sport. I guess I didn’t think about it much. Pennsylvania is far from the Rockies — it was out of sight, out of mind.
So, when I first snapped into my skies last week, I got to experience the sport with fresh eyes.
Let’s start with some grievances.
First, what’s good with the word ski. Why is it spelled that way? Who made this decision? Apparently it’s a Nordic word. But, every other language turned it into something manageable, like “esquiar” in Spanish and “sciare” in Italian. These make sense. You can translate them using the normal conjugations! But, in English, we’re stuck with the words “skied”, “skiing”, and “skier.” I have literally never pronounced any of these words correctly the first time I read them. Ski is such a fun word to say, why did we have to ruin it by butchering the spelling?
Second, we need to stop turning inconvenient modes of travel into sports. Long-distance running. Rowing. Cross-country skiing. These were all once necessary evils of survival. You had to catch up to your dinner or cross some body of water or get home in a snowstorm. But now we have Whole Foods and motorboats and four-wheel drive. Why do we insist on continuing to do these things? We have sports that are not just repeating one motion over and over again. Did you see the World Cup? I don’t care if you’re the Mbappé of cross-country skiing, I’m still not watching it.
Third, there should be a separate bunny hill for adults. Ideally, with alcohol, music, and a different name. If I had any self-respect, I would have left the moment I saw the “lift” that brings you to the top of the hill. Imagine a clothesline with plungers suspended from it, and you’re not far off. You tuck said plungers awkwardly between your legs, and it pulls you along at an iceberg’s pace. Then, once safely at the top, you get to navigate between gaggles of five-year-olds, all little spheres of cotton and down. They look like the Goombas from Super Mario and should be treated the same: avoid at all costs. They do seem to be having a great time though. They’re laughing even as they’re falling, contorting in every direction, making little snow angels, and popping back up to their feet. It’s all fun and games to them. They’re six inches from the ground, their joints made of spaghetti.
Fourth, the mechanics of skiing are nonsense. They defy all human intuition. Surely, you’d imagine someone flying down a mountain would want to lean back on their heels a bit. Nope. You have to lean forward, i.e. down the mountain. The same is true for turning. Every ounce of self-preservation demands that you lean in and hug the mountain when you turn. Again, nope. You have to lean away from the mountain. Into the ether. Both of these seem like great strategies for plummeting off the nearest cliff. And what about your stance? All land sports recommend you stay “square” with your shoulders parallel to your ankles. In skiing, against all bodily intuition, you’re supposed to keep your shoulders facing down the mountain and let your hips and legs wiggle side to side underneath you.
Finally, the best parts of skiing – dear god, that spelling – have nothing to do with skiing. The chair lift. Apres Ski. The hot tub. These are activities I can get behind. The chair lift is clearly the best part. It’s like a free Disney ride where you get to float over pristine, snowy mountain ranges. People in the 1700s would have paid, like, a chicken to be able to do that. Skiers don’t seem to appreciate this. They’re too anxious to get back to hurling themselves down a mountain.
Personally, I’d buy a ski pass just for the chair lift. The good thing about sucking at skiing is you get to do the easy runs that other people wouldn’t get caught dead on, which means you get to ride the chair lift alone. There are few greater joys. The wind plays music as it rolls over the mountains. The icy air gives you a pleasant version of brain freeze, like drinking cold water. The views are breathtaking. I celebrated whenever it got stuck. Add it to the list of things I prefer doing alone: going to the movies, eating breakfast, riding chair lifts.
Okay, enough grievances. Now, the project of learning how to ski.
Every time someone tells me how they learned to ski, it’s the same story. “Oh, so-and-so just brought me to the top of a double black diamond and said ‘See you at the bottom!’ and voilá I learned how to ski.” This story is pure insanity to me. Haven’t they seen videos of ski crashes in the Olympics? It’s like a car accident minus the car. Horrifying. I have no idea if this story has actually ever happened to someone, or if it’s just a story so popular that everyone has become convinced it happened to them. Like folklore incepted into memory.
I’m more the slow and steady type, so I enrolled in “ski school,” which is how I got acquainted with the bunny slopes. On the first day, the other newbies and I were like a pack of newborn giraffes. We drifted around in random directions, fell over standing still, and generally looked lost and concerned. Eventually, we got our bearings. We started making it down the hill, passing the five-year-olds and looking down at them with pride. Our Italian ski instructor shouted “pizza!” at us the whole way down, giggling like it was still funny the thousandth time.
In the afternoon, we graduated to our first blue slope: the next boss after you beat the bunny hill. The big leagues.
At this point, skiing for me was just repeating a series of instructions. As I approached a turn, I’d silently rehearse my game plan, “Stand up… lean forward… hands forward… put weight on outside foot… start to turn… turning… squat down.” Except, this took too long to repeat, given we were constantly turning (it being the only antidote to speeding up). So generally it was something more like “stand.. lean.. hands.. foot.. turn.. turning.. down”. Then, rinse and repeat till I fell or someone else did. Our crew traveled in a little train that snaked down the mountain. When one person fell, we’d have a little slow-motion pile-up of skis and bodies and poles. Good fun.
By day three, I started to get glimpses of what skiing is about. I learned to stop, which is a real game changer when you’re constantly approaching cliff faces. That reminds me: one more grievance. Why no barriers? I get that we’re going for a certain aesthetic on the mountain. But nothing? No barriers whatsoever? Just 30 feet of snow and ice with nothing but “sayonara” on either side? We have guard rails on everything else: streets, buildings, bridges, bowling. Give me a slope with bumpers: I want to know that, no matter what happens, I’m not going into the gutter.
Back to the fun. Yes, by now, things were looking up. By day four, I was even skiing on my own in the afternoons, though I just repeated the same run every time. My mental recital is now just “Lean.. weight.. turn.” I’m still enjoying the chair lift. By 3pm, I’m in the hot tub with a book and feeling happy tired.
The weird part of learning something new is that progress can be more of a drunken stumble than a steady improvement. This can be helpful to keep in mind when things go south, which is exactly what happened on day five.
It rained the night before. I’d heard a lot about “conditions” for skiing, but never thought too much about it. Standing at the bottom of the mountain, it looked the same as the day before. Just white and more white. I figured, unless you see mud or grass or an ice skating rink, the conditions are probably okay.
I also made a mistake. Overconfident from the previous day, I decided to improvise and take a different route to get to my blue run. At the top of the lift, I quickly realized I had no idea where I was. The signs, all in German, offered little help. I ended up doing some accidental backcountry – sorry, off-piste – skiing to find the slope. No luck. I stumbled on a different blue run and figured I may as well just head down the mountain and start over at the bottom. A hard reset.
I fell almost immediately. Not like a graceful gymnastics fall, but one where my skis ended up pointing up the mountain and my head pointed down the mountain. An attractive ski instructor stopped and asked if I was okay. I said something like “Yeah, all good here. Thanks!” as if I were just lounging there for fun, letting the blood rush to my head. She left and I laid in the snow, briefly considering that now would be an opportune time for a small avalanche.
Eventually, I got up awkwardly, requiring some choreography on skis, like a deer getting to its feet. I started off again, rattled this time, and fell again after just a few turns. My confidence was now at an all-time low. Everything I’d learned the last four days vanished.
As I sat and regrouped, a family of four passed me. Dad was in front. Two kids in the middle. Mom trailing behind them. Suddenly dad came to a full stop and turned back. “Deborah! You have to ski angry! Ski angry Deborah!” And then he took off, family in tow.
I audibly laughed at this. Ski angry? Is everything okay, Pops? Sounds like a real wholesome family vacay. But then I imagined this man as an expert-level jerk and began to feel bad for Debby and the kids. If this guy needs to be angry while skiing, I can’t imagine what he’s like after work or helping with algebra homework.
Then, a surprising third thought. Maybe he’s right? Maybe anger is a good antidote to fear. Or, at least, a strategy people use to respond to it. On second thought, I think this applies to most conflicts: personal, political, societal. Why be afraid when you can just be angry?
I decided to take his advice: to ski angry. Like I was pissed at the mountain for God-knows-what reason. Sure enough, I made it down without incident, huffing and puffing by the end. It turns out fear is the enemy of good skiing. It makes you do all the (completely rational) things you shouldn’t: lean back, hug the mountain, distance your feet, balance your weight, etc.
Oddly, the exercise was also kind of fun? Anger has a tempting sweetness to it.
By day seven, our last day, I felt comfortable on the mountain. I could reliably make it to the bottom without eating snow on the way. I didn’t need to recite my instructions anymore, so my mind was quiet, and I could enjoy the scenery. I was no Shaun White: I’m sure I didn’t look graceful or elegant. But, later that day, I handed back my rentals feeling satisfied. My body had learned how to do something new — a dance of balance and speed and coordination. I now understand why people say learning to ski is mostly a “mileage” problem. Once you’ve got the basics, it’s just a matter of letting your body learn to do it for you.
I’d be lying if I said the whole week was fun. By definition, there’s always the “getting through the suck” phase at the beginning. But overall, it was definitely worth it. Skiing is the closest thing I’ve felt to flying. Ignore what I said earlier. If you’ve never skied, try it. If nothing else, it will offer a giant dose of humility. And if it’s not for you, ride the chair lift anyway. It’s still the best part.
You captured this experience perfectly and hilariously. goombas part made me laugh out loud and the spelling of "skiing" has also always driven me crazy 😂 such a fun read!!
I’ve been laughing about this since I read it yesterday. I’ve long since given up my skis (and yes, a weird little word) but I learned when I was older than everyone else in my class and remember the humiliation falling, losing my skis and my five-year-old sister bombing fearlessly (not angrily) and spinning to a stop in front of me like a Tinkerbell in snow pants. Later in life, I “taught” skiiing. My specialty was adults. The instructors used to take the little ones and have fun while I more or less escorted the women who were there because they were outvoted on the family vacation destination or the men who wanted private lessons in snow plow so they didn’t look bad in front of their friends. Kudos to you for making it happen and kudos to you for this wonderful story.