Warren Miller Essay Contest

 Exactly 500:

               Skiing is a sport where one can have an incredible time, learn new skill, be with your family, and…. Pick up girls? It all started when I was five years old. My father, brother, and I had all prepared our ski equipment the night before. “These boots looked awfully uncomfortable… and these planks are really long and sharp! This is going to be so dangerous!” thought a young BooRadley. I had nightmares that night, dreaming about all the possible outcomes of the day. The fact that someone would weld blades to the side of one’s ski just sounds horrific.

The next morning soon arrived and I finally acquired my desired explanation for these scary-looking pieces of equipment. My dad explained that they are called “edges” and they allow you to turn better. This definitely made me feel more comfortable, to say the very least. Later that morning we arrived at the beautiful Ski Sundown for my first of many adventures. My dad then informed me to get ready while he went to purchase passes for himself, my brother, and I. How was I ever supposed to fit my foot into these plastic blocks?! What an impossible task to ask of a kindergartener. After many trials of tiring to fit my foot in, my father finally returns and helps me complete the task. We get all of the rest of our stuff on and I slowly start to waddle toward the beautiful, white mountain.

It seems like he spent most of that day yelling names of food at me. It was somewhat strange because in no way was he mad, he would just yell goofy things like “PIZZA!” or “FRENCH FRIES!!” I kept thinking, “Dad, we just finished breakfast… You’re already thinking about lunch? Jeez…” He later told me these types of food were also used to describe how to learn to ski; “pizza” meant point your tips together and slow down, while “french fries” meant keep your skis straight and speed up. Well that made no sense, why wouldn’t he just say slow down or speed up?

After a couple hours of this “skiing” and many pounds of snow down my coat, I finally started getting the hang of this sport. Throughout the day I had noticed this other girl about my age who skied pretty well, she was also the most beautiful girl I had ever see in my five years of existence. Being my immature self, I instantly wanted to impress her. Following her off the chairlift, I started to gain a lot of speed. So much that I was actually kind of scared. “Well, now’s my chance!” I thought as I began to really start speeding up. I spotted my target- a small jump right next to those upcoming trees. I made eye-contact with the girl right before liftoff; I thought this would surely impress her. It would have, if I hadn’t landed face down in the snow… Needless to say, this ended my first day skiing.

Jump back to 1988, Loon Mountain NH. I was four. I had an obnoxious colored outfit, straight hot pink skis, and rear entry boots…leg warmers and all.

My parents taught my sister and me how to go and stop on the bunny hill. I was so scared. My sister was not. I kept thinking “wow this hill is huge”. That dreadful thought of “Oh my how am I ever going to get down this” filled my small head. I cried. The tears mixed with the cold weather and stung my face. I hadn’t realized it was cold until I started crying. I skied to the bottom and begged to go again. I was still crying. There was something, even then, about the adrenalin rush you get from skiing (that I interpreted as fear at the age of four) that I earned for.

By the end of the day my parents decided we had gradated to the lift. We took the train to the other side of the mountain where the beginner lift was located. I was so excited to go on a train ride! It had white smoke coming out of the top. The smell of the smoke pierced my nostrils with its burning wood odor. To this day when I ride the train at Loon I am taken back through my memories to this moment in time and smile like I did when I was four. The seats were metal and my feet did not touch the ground. I realized then how heavy my ski boots were on my feet. This was the only time I can ever remember my mom holding my skis for me. The rule was if you could ski them you could carry them.

We arrive at our destination and to my surprise there is a weird looking grey colored bubble with skis stuck to it on a thick string going up the mountain. My dad said it was called a gondola. He explained how you put your skis in holes on the outside and you ride up the mountain on the inside. I thought he was crazy. We continue to walk over to the Little Sister double chair lift. We will only have time for one ride up on the chairlift. While we are in line my mother is explaining how to get on the lift. I am not listening. I am too busy taking in all of the sights and sounds around me. It is our turn. The chair clangs around the corner and comes up behind me. My mom picks me up and holds on to me. Clank goes the bar. We rise up into the air. I can see everything. I can see the whole world. The sun is starting to go down and the sky is orange. I don’t remember getting to the top or the ride down but that first chairlift ride lives on in my memory.

That’s the way I remember it anyway.

Love, Meg

TheEnd

Due to an obvious raw potential exhibited at an early age, my parents, like most parents, had dreams and aspirations that one day their child would grow to be a doctor, astronaut, or cancer curing chemist. Well…enough about my brother. Considering that up until about age 17 my primary focus was skiing, soccer, playing in the mud, girls, and playing with girls in the mud, I think my parents had brought their expectations down a few notches. They were hoping for something more along the lines of reality TV show winner, trophy husband, or stay at home dad.

Sometimes in life, lower expectations can be a sanctuary for those who prefer to feel their way through the world rather than think their way over, around, and beside it. Low expectations give a person permission to fail and then try again later, something others have a difficult time coping with. It is only those who truly do not care how others perceive them, and pay no mind to the way others define them, that can choose to be exactly who they intend to be, and not who others think they should be. This is something I learned from my first day on the snow, and my understanding of it has been deepening ever since.

Anyone who has ever been a children’s ski instructor, or for that matter a child student, knows there is very little actual skiing in a beginner lesson. Lucky for me, all I needed was a glimpse. Looking back, I realize the day went no differently than any other day in ski school, with the exception of it being partly sunny in mid winter on Mt. Hood (a feat locals will attest happens rarely).

 At the time, Timberline had a cat track that allowed easy access to one of the intermediate chairs. This was nothing out of the ordinary. It was a perfect place to allow new skiers a chance off the beginner chair without risking a life-long fear of skiing. I had fallen to the back of the class and was perfectly content to be doing my own thing at my own speed. My dawdling pace pushed me far enough back to lose the familiar whines and shouts of my contemporaries and plunge into the wonderful blanket of silence the snow and the trees and wind creates. In this place I was introduced to a new world. It was the unfamiliar serene peace that only the mountains can give. The silence that quiets everything, even your thoughts, drew me in.

 I remember this moment vividly; it was the end for me, the end of all other life possibilities. It was the end of being a firefighter, a soccer player, or super hero. It was the end of so many life roads, and yet the beginning of the perfect path for me.  I learned from my first day skiing that my only obligation to life was to live it. To live it for me and only me.

It was a pleasureto cry on that hill.

Winter hadassiduously descended upon the Lake Tahoe region. Rivers froze, bearsslept, and a transcendent fire vigorously burned within every skier'sheart. Laughter echoed through the valley, powder glistened in theair, and high fives were shared by all.

Well, except me.

I was six yearsold, had just crashed into a Ponderosa Pine, and was vociferously wailing from within the confides of a tree well. I had also justpissed my pants. My father, mother, and sister were awaiting, hoping,that my limp body would move, illustrating some sign of life. Mymother was crying, my sister laughing, and my father nervously lookedat the both of them, trying to decide what the appropriate reactionwould be. Then to appease the impending motherly wrath, my fatherbegan to hike up the hill, his thoughts not possibly far from thathis great skiing experiment had failed miserably.

Yet, as my fartherstood over me and inspected my broken neon green Volkls, he couldn'thelp but crack a smile. I didn't know why at the time, but mychildhood self took this small token of happiness and applied it tomy own being. Ceasing my wail, much to the appeasement of my fellowskiers, I was soon too laughing. Having fun.

So my family and Iventure to the bottom of the mountain, pick up hot chocolate,cookies, but most importantly, new skies. That afternoon as the snowpeacefully fell, my sister and I tried to race down the bunny slope,get off of a chairlift without it having to make a full stop, butmost importantly, conquer the universally dreaded pizza turn, so thatwe may move on to the more accepted french fry technique. My father,encouraging this transition at every opportunity, would give us botha talk on the chair lift stating that, “Pizza is not on the lunchmenu today, only french fries.” The first time he tried thisapproach, the concept of a metaphor was completely lost on the bothof us, as my sister quickly responded, “But I want pizza forlunch.” My father would also shout when I held my arms exorbitantlyclose to my side, failing miserably to grasp the concept of a poleplant. Yet, this one is more understandable. I looked like aparalyzed bear, just having moved into the scope of a Sarah Palinloving hunter, and as a last desperate plea to retain his moralexistence sticks his paws up in the air. Clearly an embarrassment.

So the clocksinevitably struck 4pm, the colossal steel lifts ceased operations forthe day, simply sleeping, dreaming, until tomorrow's adventuresbegan. The drive back to San Francisco that evening was not a humdrumslog, but instead an odyssey of nostalgia. We shared stories,exchanged memories, and planned for the future.

Thirteen yearslater, writing this in a cramped LA dorm room, I can't help butsmile. Throughout my life, skiing has been the source of great blissand hardship. Bones have been broken, blood has been shed, and peoplehave passed long before their time. Love is difficult thing to findin this world, but that is why we all endure the pain, the tragedy,the loss, because we love skiing. So I go to sleep, and I will wakeup the next day, knowing that since I have given so much to skiing,skiing will always have me, and I will always have it.

The first time I skied wasn't until I was about 19 years old.  I had snowboarded for almost four years before that in high school.  I remember sitting in my college class on my lap top and decided to look up some ski films, the first one that came up was Show & Prove, I sat there and walked that over and over for about an hour and remembered thinking then that I really wanted to try skiing because it looked sick and maybe was more of my style.  So half that year went by and I still hadn't tried skiing so finally I asked my friend if I could borrow on of his old pairs of skis.  So the next morning me and my brother headed up to the mountain earlier than we usually did because i wanted to try and get in a few runs and hopefully pick it up before all of our friends got up there. So we showed up and got ready and first thing my brother did was make fun of me because I was 6ft weighing about 200 pounds and was riding a pair of about 150 some race skis, it looked like i was rocking a pair of snowblades.  So we finally got to the top of the mountain and all he said was follow me, and took off, so I stood there for a second trying to figure out how I was going to keep up and why he had just taken off.  So, I pushed myself to run and started down and man did I look like an idiot, skis all over the place hands flailing in the air, out of control until I finally crashed.  Now I was pissed off because he was gone so I pry wasn’t going to get any help on how to ski and was going to look like a fool the rest of the day, I even thought about going back to get my board.  Instead I got off and tried it again, and again.  Seemed like forever before I finally got to the end of the run.  So, then I got back on the lift and on the way back to the top I seen my brother and all of our friends and it sucked because I knew I wasn’t going to keep up.  So, I just keep at it all day and my body hurt and I was mad but by them leaving me it made me want to push myself even that much harder to keep up.  Looking back on it now, my brother leaving me was probably the best thing that happened because I looked up to him so much and just wanted to keep up with him that it forced me to learn quick and just keep trying.  So now three years later, I look back and realize that was probable on of the best days ever because that was the day I realized how much I love skiing. 

The year was 2002. I was 12 years old. I had just joined boyscouts and we were all going on our annual ski trip to Timber Ridge in Kalamazoo, MI. I was so excited to try out what my friends had been doing for years. After standing in the rental line for what seemed like hours, I finally was ready to hit the slopes. I walked outside and clipped in for the very first time. It was one the most satisfying sounds I have ever heard. I grabbed the tow rope and headed up the bunny hill. After getting the whole pizza thing down and a few falls later, I was ready for my first real run. I hopped on the chairlift and, after what seemed like forever, I was at the top of the mountain. I skated over to the edge of the run and looked, and boy was that intimidating. After a little encouragement from my pals took the plunge. I felt like I was flying! It was the most invigorating feeling in the world. I couldn’t wait to head back up and try it again. A few more runs on the greens and everyone said I could move up to a blue (little did I know this would be a terrible mistake). I reluctantly agreed and looked down the last run of the day. It was called “Sequoia”, and it was my very first blue run. Long story short, I eagerly took off down the run, hit a really icy patch, and felt my ankle snap. Oh no! This was not good. My friends came down to help. We got ski patrol and I was taken down to the med tent. What a first experience on skis. 5 hours on the mountain and I ended up in a cast for 6 weeks. This didn’t get me down though;  I’ve been back out on the slopes every year since.

im here for free shit

oh wait, i dont fucking care

hehe

If you read the first post, it mentions the free shit.

"the winner will receive a pair of K2 Skis, a jacket from Orage and a pair of goggles from Smith Optics"

I remember the first time I got on a pair of skis, I was 7 years old. A few weeks before on Christmas, my parents told me I would be going skiing for the first time in a few weeks. I couldn’t wait because I had always watched pros on TV but now I would get to try it for myself.

It was a cold January day, and when I woke up my family loaded up the car and headed to Pat’s Peak in Henniker New Hampshire. I took lessons on the bunny hill and was on a pair of light blue Elan skis. As soon as I got them on, I fell, but I knew that I had a new hobby. The first time going up that magic carpet I was nervous for the small slope I was about to face. But when I got to the top I saw a small jump. I had the temptation to go off, it so I did. At that very moment I knew I wanted to be a freestyler. That first run was awesome, but when I got to the bottom I realized I couldn’t stop so I just fell over. The second run was just as exhilarating as the first. My time doing the lesson went quick but I ended up making some new friends. I was glad that we were going to stay a few hours longer.  On my very first chair-lift ride I rode with my dad. We watched people skiing and snowboarding on the slopes. We also saw some nice wipeouts. But my dad said that could be me so not to laugh. We only went on beginner and intermediate slopes, my favorite was called Whisper. My day ended with some chicken nuggets and hot chocolate from the lodge cafeteria.

That was my first going skiing. And the start of a new favorite hobby.

If I were to say that I remember my first day skiing, I would be lying. In all honesty, if I were to claim that I clearly remember any of my first few seasons on snow, I would be lying. According to my parents, I started to do something resembling skiing when I was two years old. Since then skiing has always played a major role in my life; not always the most important role – growing up there were always other competing weekend activities– but when you grow up between Ketchum, Idaho and Truckee, California, a very significant one.

Outside of stories about wearing mini-Sorreles strapped into little plastic skis and sliding down Warm Springs Run between my dad’s legs, my first real memories of skiing were attempting to chase Babette Haueisen’s instructions on making it down the bunny slope at Northstar. At the age of five, when your speed is restricted by the wedge, you don’t realize how lucky you are not to be playing Nintendo, but looking back on it being instructed by one of the Tahoe area’s most iconic skiers (if you don’t know Babette stop by Wild Cherries in downtown Truckee and hear the stories straight from the horse’s mouth) made skiing the lifelong obsession that it has become for me. Trust me, even though I largely took skiing for granted until I left Truckee for school in the Bay Area, you never want to report back to Babette and disappoint her with news that you aren’t progressing and truly enjoying your skiing; with special emphasis on the later. But now I am starting off on a different tangent and should get back to the topic on hand: my first day skiing.

If it is not obvious by now, I am not going to write about my literal ‘first day skiing’ because doing so would be a farce, and for fear of sounding cliché, I am also not going to succumb to saying that every time I go skiing it is my ‘first day’. Rather, in my opinion, the feeling that one gets when they learn something new and there is a real caesura in their level of skiing, these are the first real ‘first days’.

So for me, my first day was when I traveled to Snow Basin in Utah with my father and skied my first double black (a big deal to my ten year old self). My first day of skiing was later that year on a nighttime pow mission during a blizzard at Boreal – the first time I truly understood how amazing it is to feel that floating sensation. My first day skiing was with my buddy Scott during a snow-day my senior year of high school, when I started to really appreciate how amazing it is to have such opportunities right in my back yard. My first day skiing was when my friends Chris and Case encouragingly pushed me to drop my first legitimate cliff. My first day skiing wasn’t even on snow, it was when I decided to move to New Zealand for the summer to work as a lifty rather than put my new college degree to work.

These were my real first days skiing.

I kicked in the door, grabbed it by the throat, and called it my own. In 2008 I pointed my tips downhill for the first time. Lindsay put out a message to provoke interest in a ski trip over winter break. Having no plans, I eagerly jumped on board. I gave plenty of warning to the fact that I had never skied before. Simply looking for a group of friends to spend a couple of days in the mountains, she was happy to teach me.

I never skied because the opportunity never presented itself. Now that it was within my grasp, I didn’t waste any time. We rolled up on Snowshoe Mt., WV around noon. We found our room, dropped off our bags, and headed straight to the ticket counter. Within about ten minutes of spending the most money on a ticket I have ever spent in my life, I had my first pair of skis over my shoulder.

"Drop ‘em flat across the fall line." Lindsay began her first ever ski 101 course on a 15 degree cloudy afternoon in West Virginia. I was the only student present. Once I clicked into my bindings, skiing began to unveil itself to me. I crashed so many times. This was how I learned. From the beginning I pushed the limits of my ability. Most of the time this resulted in me cartwheeling down the hill. On the rare occasion I was able to relax and understand.

My first day skiing I made a wrong turn and pointed my tips down a black diamond. I don’t remember starting the trail. The first memory I have is saying to myself, "Breathe." Next comes the memory of ski patrol yelling, "Slow down!" At this point I was already traveling at a speed I had never experienced outside of a machine. Somehow I managed to take the breath that something from beyond was demanding I take. I bent my knees and let my weight melt into the skis. I weighted my right foot and looked down the fall line. This was the most fun I had ever had.

I skied two more times that season. Summer passed quickly, and through a stroke of luck I was able to buy a set of skis before the season began in December. Skiing began to fill all the time I wasn’t at work or in class. My friend who was living in Portland planned a backcountry trip to the Wallowas and I was all over it. Armed with my discounted park and pipe skis with AT bindings, I boarded a plane to PDX in March. I slayed fresh pow in the backcountry for four days. Two months later I was on a plane for PDX again. I’ve been in Oregon for six months now. In one Summer I’ve spent more time in the mountains than I ever thought was an option. Winter is upon us and I’ll be making my first turns on skis I designed myself.

Matt O'Keefe

mokeefemomoney@gmail.com

To what extent shouldwe embrace globalization?

Globalization is a phenomenon that brings the world togetherand allows the people from around the world to exchange information freely.Globalization is force that cannot be stopped; it should be reacted to appropriatelyand should be made the best use of. Sure there are some negative features aboutglobalization, such as that it removes culture, but globalization can befiltered so that we only accept the good things about it. Each culture outthere can be used to make advancements to globalization. The world is connectedmorally and economically.

There are many things that people want that are notavailable in their country, but because of globalization you can get in yourcountry because it is produced in another country and then shipped to whereever the demand is. When products are made in a different country (mostly inthird world countries) it is often an advantage for consumer’s in first world country’sdue to cheap prices which is the result of cheap labour and less laws. If theproducts were to be made in first world countries all the products would bemore expensive because of higher minimum wages and stronger human rights laws. Italso provides many jobs to people in third world countries who cannot get anyother jobs because they didn’t get a proper education. For the first worldcountries, it allows citizens who are educated to acquire higher paying jobs,rather than manufacturing which can be replaced by a uneducated immigrantwithout any education.

Technology is growing rapidly at quicker pace every year,around 60 years ago the first computers were so big and heavy they took up awhole floor of a building, today we now have portable computers that arethinner than a 100 page book , lighter than grade 11 science textbook. Globalizationhas hugely impacted the use of the internet and technology. The internet wascreated for the military communication, but is now the host of every possiblebit of information. Almost seven billion people around the world use the internet.People from China can watch any football game they want live using the internet.The internet is a giant archive of media, and is a creation of Globalization.Some people make millions of dollars by using the internet and creatingwebsites like Facebook and MySpace.

Globalization is here to stay and is something that willkeep growing as long as our human race wants to advance, in some peoples viewthey believe it is part of evolution. If we are to learn more about our planetand everything around us the world must come together and work together as one,as we are all equal.

my guess is that some kid thinks its funny to post his/her homework in this thread.  Real classy.  Warren Miller is reading these and is the judge.  Show some respect.

my threads.

Cold, wet, tears ran down my face the first time I locked into a pair of skis. I was one unhappy little three year old. The last thing I was thinking was “man that is going to be fun”. My parents dropped me off at ski school at Whistler BC and I cried until my tears soaked the foam of my hot pink goggles. Just picture a three year old in a teal one-piece suit crying his eyes out doing the pizza plow down a bunny hill. It was quite an upsetting scene to be had. It took me much of the day to understand that keeping my skis straight was much more fun then crossing them.

            I began skiing down the hill with no regard for my safety. I began straight lining the bunny hills. At this point a light bulb went off in my head “ O my god…..this is awesome!” now you see a little kid flying down the mountain with mischievous grin on his face. I still hadn’t understood the whole concept of turning and stopping so my skiing was limited to about twenty feet at a time accompanied by some variation of yard sale. My instructor was getting pretty fed up with me, and needless to say I was pretty fed up with being told to slow down and revert back to that darn pizza shape he kept telling me to do. I remember losing a glove that day which resumed the crying again. I mostly cried the entire day until my parents came back to get me. The instructor gave a report card to my parents and at the bottom under comments from instructor it read “tearful tot”. This has been a legacy throughout my family and always comes up on ski trips.

            Every day of that vacation I advanced to the next level of ski school. My outlook had changed a bit and I was more excited about trying to ski. However the remarks from my instructors didn’t seem to get much better. If you have ever seen an instructor making wide s-shaped turns down a mountain with a pack full of little kids following his tracks, I was the kid who was not even close to this pathetic looking conga line. I was more interested with finding the best path through the trees. This made my instructor angry.

            On the last day of skiing as I was boarding the chair lift, a ski school affiliate ran out and handed me a pair of green poles. I was beyond confused. I just finished learning how to steer these ski’s and now your going to give me two more things to worry about?  I lost dropped one of them going up the chair lift. They should know better then to make a rebellious three year old hold on to them.

            Eventually my parents got the hint that I was done with ski school. I learned the rest from my parents, Preston and Jan, whom without their support and interest in teaching me, my passion for this sport could not be possible. LONG LIVE THE TEARFUL TOT!

Hi, my name is Matt and I an new to this forum but defiantly not new to skiing. I saw this contest and felt the urge enter. I would like to share with you some of my skiing background as well as my firs ski day. This is my entry.

     I wasn't brought up as a skier like so many have been. My father used to ski before he met my mother, but stopped due to a knee injury and my mother had skied once with a friend as kid. At the time I learned my parents hadn't skied in over 15 years. When I was around ten, I remember my mom taking me to a now closed ski area about eight miles from our house called Shumaker Mountain. We sat in her van in the parking lot and watched people night skiing. I told her right then that I wanted to ski and she would have taken me that night, but my little brother (who was a baby then) was asleep in the back of the van so she couldn't leave him there and take me skiing. Sadly, that area closed a few years before I could ski it. My fortune in the skiing world though was going to change. When I was 14, a family friend and skier gave me a pair of old, yellow, Formel skis, complete with ankle straps and bindings with no DIN settings. To complete the package, we dug up some of my dad's old ski boots and a set of poles. My first real run happened at another small area about 20-30 miles from our house. This is the part where most people would probably be talking about how their ski instructor told them what to do and helped them learn to ski, this is not what happened to me. I used the sink or swim method. Without any lessons I pointed my skis down the slope and away I went. I didn't fall on my first run, but I did manage to sideswipe what seems like five people on my way down. Then, came the fun experience of using a chair lift for the first time. I wondered how in the world anybody could get on given how "fast" it was going. The lift operators were really nice though and showed me how it was done. The more runs I took throughout the day the better I got and at the end of the day I was hooked. A short time later my mother got some skis and we would go skiing together. Later, my father even joined in, despite his knee problem. My family has been skiing together ever since. Now I'm 24, and as I look back at the experiences I have had on the slopes I realize that I could have never would have imagined the places that skiing would take me over the years. I also look at my current, modern, equipment and realize it's a wonder I didn't kill myself or break something with those old skis. I don't know about you, but my ski session begins next week. What about yours?

my first day

If I would clam this story to be my memories and impressions of my first day on skis I would be lieing. As I was only one year old when I stepped on skis for the first time I will try to put together a collage based on the things my mom told me, photos of that day I've seen and the feelings skiing still gives me today. First let me draw you a picture of where I'm coming from.

My grandfather was a skier from the times of leather ski boots, wooden skis that had no edges and had to be tensed during summer so they wouldn't curl up. Times when skis smelled like smoke and dried meat as they were stored in the attic next to hanging hams. My mom caught the same virus and although she had a privilege of modern equipment skiing was often 13h train ride away.

Born in December, whenever my mom took me out in a stroller I felt cold air pinching my red cheeks. Occasionally a fluffy white flake would land somewhere on a few inches of my exposed face, only to be quickly melted on my warm skin. Inpatient as I still am today eight months later I was making my first shaky steps, and than it was winter again.

My mother bought plastic red skis that can be strapped on boots and red poles with snow white baskets. I think she was so excited to introduce me to skiing she couldn't wait any longer. A park near by spots a few sledging meadows. Shiny snow crystals glittering, bathed in the winter sun drew my attention away so I didn't notice how cold it was. First step from the path onto the untouched snowfield produced a squeaky sound that still to this day makes me grins with satisfaction. Searching for my toes that disappeared under the snow with every new step I rose my head and looked at my mom standing over me, holding my hand. She lounged down, sat me on her knee and strapped shiny little skis to my boots. Wandering what she was doing I threw a few glances around to see if someone else did the same. Nobody, other kids were pulled around on sleds hidden under thick blankets and woolen hats. When she was done she put me down gave me a warm kiss on the cheek and whispered to my ear: “Lets go“ as if we have been doing it 100 times. Head bowed down, face still expressionless I tried to make a step. Wow this is slippery, I thought, as I started to loose my balance. Mom was ready, her palm landed between my shoulder blades and stopped me from falling. She pushed me around for a bit and than grabbed my poles and started pulling me. I looked left and right and when I saw trees staying behind I looked at my mom white teeth showing behind my read lips. She turned her head and answered with the biggest smile I ever saw. I think she knew than and there that it was the first day of a life long addiction.

   Im from Montana, My mom was a ski patroller so invariably, I ski.  In fact I dont really remember my tenth year of skiing much less the first.  What I do remember, is listening to Fleetwood Mac, You Can Go your Own Way everytime we went. Which its weird thats so much more memorable than the skiing.  Any way I skiied this couloir today in a blizzard, and straighted the shit out of it while listening to that song.  So nostolgic.

I’ve told this story a million times but it never gets old to me. My dad,
being the avid weekend warrior he was, decided to take the family up to the mountain
for the day. When we got there they told my dad I was too young to take lessons
so it was straight to daycare for me. Can you believe it, banished to daycare
while the rest of my family is enjoying themselves out on the slopes? I wasn’t
going to take that lying down. So I sat in the corner with a scowl on my face
all morning. When my dad came back to check on me I was in the same spot he
left me in. The lady told him she had never seen anything like it before, I just
sat their frowning the whole morning and didn’t say a word to anyone, didn’t
play with any of the toys, didn’t even move from my seat.  Now, my dad is a pretty smart guy (despite the
obvious mistake of leaving me in daycare on my first ski trip ever) so he got
the hint pretty quickly, I came to ski.

We got to the bottom of the bunny slope and I was bursting with
excitement, literally. It seems that amidst all the excitement I had wet my one
piece. After a quick outfit change I was ready to get back out there. As we
approached the bunny slope for the second time my dad realized he left his
poles back at the rack so he told me to stay put while he rushed back to get
them. Well I couldn’t just stay there and wait while my absentminded father was
off retrieving his poles, I wanted to go skiing! I scurried over to the j-bar
as fast as my little legs would go and zipped up to the top of the bunny slope.
I jumped off at the top, looked down the hill and spotted my dad at the bottom.
He was waving his arms and yelling to me; probably shouting at me to stay put
until he got up there, but I figured he was just telling me where to ski to. So
I pointed my tips downhill and went for it. At the time I was unaware of the popular
pizza/french fry technique so I just made a beeline for the bottom nearly hitting
everyone in my path. When I finally came to a stop my dad rushed over to me. He
was half in shock of what just happened and half in awe at the fact that I rode
the lift and skied down for the first time ever all by myself, nevertheless,
happy I was safe.  A lot has changed since
then, no more one-pieces for me, but my passion and undying love for the sport is
the same now as it was when I clicked into my first pair of skis and flew down
that bunny hill.

I owe my first day skiing and my passion for the sport I’ve grown up doing to my mum and dad.  You could say they are pretty keen skiers. My parents have belonged to a ski club on Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand since they helped build it in the 70s. The fact that their honeymoon consisted of a three week holiday to Mammoth may reflect the passion they have for the sport, or that our family moved to the small ski town of Wanaka to be closer to the slopes. My dad so keen he hurt his Achilles tendon while on a ski trip, but decided to ice it, strap it up, take some pain killers and get back out there the next day (later finding out that his Achilles was completely severed). It was therefore imperative that I start skiing at the young age of three.

My first day was short lived but an all-round win in my parent’s eyes. I was fitted out in a rather too big for me, hand-me-down, fluro  one-piece (so began my inclination toward brightly coloured ski gear leading to the nickname ‘skittles’) and full of energy that only a three year old after a can fizzy can have, I started sliding around he slopes of happy valley. After a few times up the platter lift between mum’s knees I was determined to have a go all by myself.  With the help of the Valley lifty I got the patter between my legs and jerked forward on my tiny ski. The ride took a turn for the worst when I did what many young kids do and assumed I was to sit down on the platter. After disregarding the shouts from my parents, “stay standing Lottie!”, I was being dragged along the icy snow on my stomach. Several metres later the platter was stopped and I was hauled crying to my feet by my father. Nothing a hot chocolate in the cafe couldn’t fix! I was soon back out on the slopes and up the platter with the encouragement of my parents.

            I do not remember exactly when it was, but I remember how it felt. For nearly forty-five minutes before hand, I had been trying to get my boots; I was getting uncomfortably hot in the overheated basement and began to get irritable. By the time my boots were on I no longer had any desire to go out. Nevertheless, my mother dragged me out by the hand. My cousin, Andy, who raced in high school at the time, was waiting for me outside. From what I heard, I assumed he was the best skier ever. He was my idol, and I wanted him to teach me how to ski. Not my mom. Not my uncle. Not his sister.

            Needless to say he was not as eager to ski with me as I was to ski with him right away. So, my mom put me in ski school. It felt like forever. I learned how to “pizza pie” and not let my tips cross. I was having so much fun learning everything, but I wanted out of ski school. All I wanted to do was ski with my cousin. When my lesson finally finished I was so excited to be able to ski with Andy. I wanted to show him everything I had learned on the “big” hill, but everybody wanted to go inside and get hot chocolate.

            After taking a break and getting warmed up, we finally headed out. I rode the chairlift for the first time with my mom; but on the way down Andy stuck with me. He would stay in front of me, stopping every three feet to turn around and watch me; or he would be behind me so that when I fell he could help me get back up.

            When my mom finally decided to let me ride up the chairlift with him, I missed the seat and got hit in the head. They stopped the whole chairlift, and interrogated me to see if I was okay. I was mostly embarrassed, and just wanted them to restart it so that I could finally ski down with my cousin.

            When we finally made it to the top, we waited for the rest of the family to get off the lift. When my aunt got off, she announced that this was going to be our last run. Andy left me and carved perfectly down the slope. I wanted to impress him so much, so I decided to follow him; straight down. I leaned forward, and slowly began to pick up momentum as I slid down after him. I started going really fast. My skis began to chatter, something I had never experienced before. Then I hit a bump, popped up, and lost control. I tumbled down, face first. When I finally slid to a stop, with my face covered in snow and tears, he skied over, picked me up and brushed me off. I couldn’t wait until I got to do it again.