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First Day
1996 was a remarkable year in Medicine; “Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn't seen in years”, Health and Safety “Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted” and Astrology “Is there a ring of debris around Uranus?” It was a year which presented us with Happy Gilmore, Muppet’s Treasure Island and the rotten disbandment of The Ramones. For me, it was the year which started the biggest thrill ride I was yet to encounter.
As a British infant in the 90’s I was pre-programmed to enjoy cups of tea, have an obsession with S-club 7 and to one day meet the Queen. For this week however, my parents had dragged me to the village where adrenaline was invented and it showered flakes of white, frozen snow.
To the average skier, tackling a learner slope is about as daunting as a warm bath but at this point in my life I was still yet to master the art of tying my own shoelaces, which made the task ahead that little bit more challenging. I spent the first hour of my career in ski school hiding from the instructor in the human sized rabbit costume, but once he disappeared and I’d recovered from my ordeal it was on to magic carpet. I couldn’t tell you my exact feelings at the time as it was so darn long ago but it’s the same with any new experience; you fill with anticipation and anxiety until you push your own limits, embrace the challenge and realise you’ve just done something which will change your life.
The other kids in ski school and I spent the rest of the day shuffling down the 5 degree slope, trying to dodge cones and piles of other children; but aside from the boy who spent the day at the snack table with his coat on back to front, we all ached for that next test. Wanted to advance onto the mountain and attack the coming challenge.
However well the instructors taught us to make a snow-plough that day they never warned us about the long term side effects of skiing. How you will return home and spend countless hours watching mountain web-cams and reading snow reports; how you will dig out your skis at the first sign of frost, just in case; how you will regularly tell people that you “just smelt something which reminded you of skiing.”
The snow conditions here in the Midlands are equal to that of the Gobi Desert but you don’t need to be surrounded by bottomless powder to let skiing have its affect on you. Addiction. Obsession. Compulsion. These words only graze the surface of describing the possessive embrace which skiing has over it’s victims after that initial episode.
Every year I revisit my first day, when I ski a steeper slope or attempt a bigger jump because the beauty of skiing is, you will never experience the same day twice. Each day begins the search for a new adventure.
Robyn Benn
500 words
entry date has been extended till Dec 8th. Still a bit more time to put something together.
February at the earliest as Mr. Miller needs to read and judge. This is going to be a long process.
“Thank you, Laurie!”
I thanked my favorite cook for the face-sized cookie that she’d just handed me. She returned a warm smile before tending to another customer.
I walked over to my favorite table, the one beside the big window with the skier figurine on the sill. I took a crumbly munch out if my chocolaty treat and grinned.
Canaan Valley, West Virginia was getting pounded with snow. It was the middle of the week and not many people could drive in the storm anyway, so it was just me and the kitchen staff hanging around the lodge. My dad, followed by the rest of White Grass crew, tumbled into the breezeway. They looked like snowmen to me, their looks of avid excitement about the blizzard frozen to their faces by their ice covered beards. The motley crew shook off the snow that caked their coats and prepared to get in some skiing after their long morning of work.
I felt so grown up and respected when I came into White Grass on days like these. The guys would let me help rack up boots and skis, and sometimes I would venture out into the snow to give a brief impression that I wanted to put up heavy drift fences. A talkative post toddler must have been quite a nuisance; I was just another something to trip over and move aside behind the cluttered rental desk. Still, my lack of coordination and common sense was the source of some good laughs, so they let me tag along.
On days like these, mom couldn’t drive over the mountain ridges to work. So she would try and make her way over and enjoy the winter wonderland on her cross country skis, with me plopped in her kid carrier. Props to my mom for skiing to the top of the mountain with a small child on her back.
This particular day was different, though. I wasn’t going to ride ON my mom, or be towed behind her in a pulk. I was going to ski WITH her!
I’d always wanted to try on the little Karhu toddler skis. I loved them with a joyful passion, because the top sheet was covered with animations of clumsy skiing polar bears. I laughed at the big graphic at the tip of the ski, a baby polar bear crashing into a snow drift. They had a simple binding system with Velcro straps, made to be used with any old regular snow boot, unlike the Nordic skis that my parents used.
I had no idea what I was doing. I managed to put them on in the lodge, but I couldn’t get the straps undone, so I scraped across the wood floor of the lodge and out the open door.
The rest of the day consisted of mini lessons from my mom and dad, most of which were interrupted by bathroom breaks or, “Daddy, I’m too cold!”
Thus, the passion was sparked. Now, as a 13 year old, I’m an avid freestyle telemark skier with a love of travel and pow-pow. Skiing is everything to me, a huge part of my life. I’m surrounded by it in my family and in my community.
I plan on working at White Grass ski school this year, showing all the youngsters out there what skiing is really about-- a passion that lives on forever.
The first time that I ever went skiing was at Grand Targhee, Wyoming. I was three years old and all though I don’t remember it, it still changed my life and my life will never be the same since I ski, I go to Grand Targhee every year over Martin Luther King Weekend. It’s great to know that’s where my life was changed forever and now skiing has become one of my biggest passions in life and there is no turning back now. I am addicted to the feeling you get when you take a face shot in the backcountry, Shred the park with my friends, or hit the set up I have in my backyard. My first couple years of skiing were just me flying down the groomers as all little kids do but then one day my brother came home with the ski move “13” me and all of my brothers watched it, next we built a basic rail out of some scrap metal and set it up in our back yard that movie changed my life, as it also changed many people’s lives. I am not sure the feelings I had when I first strapped my boots into an old pair of Rossignal kid’s skis, I am glad for the opportunity to learn how to ski because due to me skiing, I have converted two people to skiing and now it is one of their biggest passions in life. In the words of Tanner Hall, “We’re skiers from day one, and we are skiers until the day we die.” The feeling I get when I strap on my skis is a feeling that I have never felt anywhere else in my life. Skiing is easily the greatest thing that ever happened to me, no doubt.
This Trumps Snowball Fights
“Hey, Kiddo, we’re going skiing today!” is what I awoke to early one morning in third grade. No eight-year-old kid likes to be woken up at dawn, no eight-year-old kid likes to try new things, and, most importantly, no eight-year-old kid wants to waste a snow day going on a trip with his father as opposed to building forts and having snowball fights with the kids on the block. I, being a normal young child, immediately complained and proceeded to do so for the ensuing hour-long car ride. We finally reached our destination (it seemed so much longer than an hour), and my dad assured me that this would top any snowball fight. Curious, I stopped whining. I was then set up with beginner ski equipment and placed in the rope-tow line. The rope-tow is merely a rope hooked up to a motor. It pulls users less than one-hundred yards up a two-and-a-half degree slope. Skiers gradually make their way down, and then repeat the process. It sounds very unimpressive, which it is, but I had the most fun. I think I lapped those hundred yards for four hours before I got tired. My dad was right; skiing was more fun than any snowball fight.
However, my next skiing experience was not as enjoyable. My dad and my uncle planned a trip to go to the “big boy” mountain, Sunday River. This was only a week after my first time, and I was still confident and slightly arrogant from my success. I was comfortable going to this mountain and ready for the trip, even excited. Upon arrival, I realized that this mountain wasn’t all that different from the other one, just a lot larger. The terrain wasn’t too tough to the point that it wasn’t fun, and the rope-tows were now equipped with chairs. However, the problem with this trip was that the temperatures dropped considerably towards the end of the day. I was not equipped with proper gloves and ended up getting mild frostbite. Eight-year-old kids tend to freak out and do illogical things when something is even somewhat painful or uncomfortable, and I did just that. Little did I know that hot water accentuates frostbite rather than remedying it. To my undeveloped mind and eyes, my hands were the size of basketballs. I threw a fit and vowed never to return to Sunday River.
My dad didn’t take me skiing afterward, and I was fine with that. Frostbite hurts. It was over a year later that my mom informed me of another ski trip, also to Sunday River. “Mom,” I replied, “I am never going back there! No, no, no!” She just chuckled at me, “We’re going.” So I screamed and whined, all to no avail. I was so stubborn that, once we got there, I refused to ski - until she eventually threatened to take away my Pokémon game. Reluctantly, I stood up and went skiing again. After the third or forth run I realized that I truly loved to ski. The sensation of the ground below moving at seemingly supernatural speeds was unmatchable. It was really fun and, now that I was properly attired, not frostbite-inducing. My mom must have felt the same way because she purchased a season pass for both of us and has done so every season since then.
Since fourth grade, I have skied almost every single weekend from November through April. Now that I am in high school, I have realized that skiing is a passion of mine. Skiing has introduced me to so many people that I probably wouldn’t have even talked to otherwise, and, if we didn’t share the same passion for skiing, my best friend and I wouldn’t be nearly as close. I think we like to ski so much because, unlike other sports, it is an art form: there is not one identically styled person on the hill, and everybody is free to do their own thing by not adhering to a competitive system. This lack of competition allows for creativity, and it’s that creativity that allows for skiing to be more than just a sport: it’s a lifestyle.
The Beginning of Something Great
It was a family trip to Switzerland and I was about five years old. My uncle had a new job position there so my mom, dad, brother and I flew over to visit them and to ski. The first day, my dad took me up to the resort and we rode the bunny hill for a while. I wasn’t doing so hot and wasn’t enjoying myself at all, so my dad, perhaps seeing an escape, put me in ski school for the day.
My instructor took me to what I saw as steep cliff with many strange cardboard Disney characters stuck into the snow here and there. Looking back, the “cliff” was probably nothing but a small mound with snow on it. It couldn’t have been any more than fifty yards long and thirty yards wide. I must have skied that little run a hundred times, curving around countless Mickeys, Goofys and Donald Ducks. Finally, when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, my instructor deemed me worthy to take a trip up the chairlift to the big mountain.
I was more scared than I had ever been in my life. Hanging from a tiny cable in a chair hundreds of feet from the ground, I was sure I would die. I had my eyes shut tight the whole time and I’m not sure how long the ride was, but suddenly, my instructor was shaking me and telling me to stand up. I stumbled a little, but other than that, I figured I had done a fairly good job. I was starting to feel pretty proud and confident about my abilities—that lasted until we got to the top of the first run. All that confidence suddenly drained out of me. This cliff was way steeper than the other one and three or four times as long! There was no way I was going to be able to do this. I tried to make a dash back to the chairlift but my instructor stopped me pointed me back to the cliff. Seeing that I had no other choice, I tentatively pushed off and made my first turn. I soon realized that this run wasn’t so bad after all. I was having no trouble at all making turn after turn, and for the first time that day, I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. We rode that run for the next few hours and before I knew it, my dad was back and it was time to go.
As one would imagine, the first thing I wanted to do was show him all I had learned. Unfortunately, the resort was closing and we had to beeline it to the tram dock, so we wouldn’t be stuck on the mountain all night. At first, I quite upset, but then the thought came to me: because I couldn’t ski with my dad today, he would just have to ski with me all day tomorrow. Now I was satisfied and I couldn’t wait for the next day of skiing.
Dear Mr. Miller,
I realize that my entry to the contest is late. I don’t have any intentions of winning anything; I honestly don’t care about that. My only hope is that Mr. Miller himself will read this and understand that its coming from the heart.
When I was just a toddler, I learned there where many limitations in my life. Therefore when I learned my first word, it wasn’t the stereotypical “Mommy” or “Daddy”. It was simply “no”. I adopted that word because it was what everyone communicated to me, all the time; “no.” I found that I couldn’t stay on the swings all day, couldn’t fidget constantly, couldn’t pound my fists against the wall, couldn’t scream in anger management class, stomp in puddles and play in the rain. There were many things I could not do.
And as I grew older, I became more angry and frustrated with the restrictions placed on me. It seemed that there was nothing to calm me down or satisfy my hunger for free-will. Until that day.
On December 17th, 1998, I had just turned eight years old. My dad fired up the pickup and our family took a trip up to Crystal Mountain, Washington. Upon arrival, my parents recall that all I wanted to do was curl up against the heater and sleep. After practically dragging me up a roadside hill, I slid down pizza style in-between my mother’s legs. After countless treks up and down the little hill, my parents decided to step it up. I stared, terrified as I was lifted high into the air on a chair lift that was named C-4 at the time. And again I slid down the hill, locked between my mother’s legs. On what I think was the eighth or ninth run down, something amazing happened, my mom let go.
In the ten feet or so that I skied before falling I experienced a rush, a glimpse of freedom. And as soon as my mother was beside me, I wanted to go again, and again. I learned by doing, not thinking. On next ski adventure I made more progress, until eventually I could make my way down by myself. It wasn’t pretty, but I didn’t care, it was pure freedom, and it was what I’d been waiting for. If I wanted to go faster I could point forward and lean, if I felt like zooming left and right, no one was stopping me. If I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs in joy, there was nothing holding me back. No one could tell me what I couldn’t do with a pair of skis on my feet.
The rest is history; as I grew and developed I discovered Warren Miller Films. Your awesome pictures, colorful characters, and hilarious commentary inspired me to keep improving my skiing. Whether it was books, movies, or contests, if it was the skiing lifestyle; I wanted to be a part of it. I owe the big improvement of my grades and my temper to the mountains and to you. I guess I could say you’ve tamed me in a way. And so here I am, fifteen years old writing an essay to the man that’s not only shown me my dreams, but is the voice of a entire generation. My hope is that by writing to the man that made such an enormous difference in my life, maybe I will make a small difference in his.
Sincerely,
Ben Merrill
^^^ *I apologize for the date mix up. I meant December 17th, 2003.
-Ben
any idea when the winner will be announced?
stoked to hear the results!
"There
is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy."
Robert
Louis Stevenson
story
by Kyle Wisner
Skiers
are some of the most enlightened, happiest people on the face of the
earth. Any one that has placed their lives, their love, and their
passion in the hands of the frozen giants that rule this perfect
world guides their lives with a steady hand, never knowing quite
whats coming, but taking advantage of and loving every second of this
crazy roller coaster ride. Skiing is an adventure, a magical quest
that begins every day with wrenching the plastic jaws of boots open,
with cold, frozen hands, and anticipation to the playlist of gently
falling snow. Nothing beats the feeling of sharp metal edges,
fiberglass and wood cutting a swath though deep pow, catapulting a
cloud of snow into the air and sending my body into a sea of frozen
water particles swirling around my windburned skin. Its speed,
airtime, exhilaration, and the feeling of pioneering a new line that
gets me through my week. Skiing is looking back at that line, seeing
the beautiful tracks I laid, my signature, my addition to this world,
my salute to the mountains. Skiing is standing on two metal edges,
carving, straining my whole body, tremors registering through my feet
and into my tensed quads. Skiing is the unknown, the untried, the
absolute challenge, the entrepreneur within me that asks “Can I do
it? Will this work”? It's also the part of me that screams back
“Hell yes! I can do anything!” Skiing is racing through an
ancient Forrest, green walls flying by my face. Skiing is feeling
every part of my body, soul, and mind working in perfect harmony, all
of my senses present, my being right here, right now. It's realizing
just how small we really are in this world. As the Buddha would say,
it's enlightenment. This sport lies within the people I share my life
with, the feeling of shredding a pow line, letting out a whoop of
joy, and hearing a response just as strong, looking over to see your
buddy enveloped in snow. Its the feeling of complete exhaustion,
knowing you did something great today. Skiing is spending months
nursing back a broken body, every second spent in anticipation of
making it back to that same mountain that knocked me down, to hear
the sounds of lifts churning once again. Its the blood, sweat, and
tears, the down days, and the hardships that make this sport so damn
good. But most importantly, skiing is what makes me feel like a
little kid again. Its what takes me back to that beautiful day 14
years ago, when I first found this magical lifestyle. I was only two,
so telling you a story about what it was like would be a total lie.
But the only part of that day that actually matters I will remember
forever. And that is that it was the most fun I have ever had. And
thats what skiing is, the purest, most perfect form of fun on earth.
just wanted to say how awesome of a competition this is. thanks.
The instructor explained us to gripon to the T-bar and stay balanced. I waited behind all the other fidgety preteens until it was my turn togo up the bunny hill. I placed mygloved hands on to the bar. Ittowed me very slowly, but I was still a bit jumpy in the fear that I might geta freezing facefull of powdery snow. Once I reached the top of what I then thought was a massive hill, thefree spirited instructor told me to wait up for the rest of the “young shredders.” He explained casually and rather undetailedhow to turn and maintain speed without crashing and how to snowplow. He had two other resort workers standaround the hill to help us if we crash and give us tips. “Alright guys, we’ll go one by one.”
I watched as the very first kidwent down the hill. He swervedright and left moving sluggishly down the hill until one ski got caught ontothe other and his minuscule body toppled over on to the snow-sheeted ground. The kid slowly picked himself up andfiltered off to the very bottom of the bunny hill and leaned against his polesawaiting the next likely-unsuccessful run down the miniature slope. “Alright bud, you’re next!” the scruffyinstructor says as he pats me on my back. He briefly went over how to slow down using the snow-plow maneuver, thentold me to go for it. I lookeddown the gradual descending hill and pushed all my deepest-darkest fears ofwhat could happen skiing away. Itook a deep breath and pushed myself forward. My skis slid forward along with my body a little faster thanI expected. But what I felt wasn’tfear. It was thrill and excitementand it felt better than anything I had felt before. I straight-lined to the bottom of the hill, because Icouldn’t control myself.
This one experience developed intoso much more. I gradually beganliking skiing more and more, until I wanted to go every last minute of mylife. I love the feeling of powderspraying behind my back, the high of hitting jumps, the exhilaration of goingfast down the slope or just to be able to converse with friends and strangerson the lift. Skiing is amazing andI hope everybody gets a chance to experience it.
EndFragmentMy Parents decided that before heading out to Colorado for what would be my first ski trip, my brother and I should take a lesson at Perfect North, the closest ski mound to us. We had a lesson that lasted about an hour and then perfected our snow plow skills on the bunny hill serviced by a rope tow. Learning to ski was thrilling, and this was just a taste of what was to come.
Flying out to Colorado I was so excited I could hardly remain seated. Looking out the window, I was completely taken aback by the sheer massiveness of the mountains and the virtually infinite peaks and valleys. We were staying at my uncle’s house in Denver and then planned on going up to a Cabin my uncle had in the mountains, near Fairplay. All I wanted to do upon arriving was get into the mountains and go skiing. My parents decided to put us in ski school for a day and half. It was just me, my brother and the ski instructor. The ski instructor was extremely stoked and genuinely excited to teach us how to ski. We were soon skiing all over the mountain with are eternally stoked ski instructor. After our lessons were over, we met up with the rest of our family and skied with them.
I was so excited to show off my newly acquired ski skills to my family. Our uncle decided to take us down so more difficult runs unbeknownst to my parents. The most exciting part about this was that my uncle would occasionally ski in and out of the trees and me and my brother would follow him thinking it was the coolest thing ever. To this day tree skiing is one of my favorite terrains to ski. At the end of the day we were skiing down a run and I decided to show off and get some speed. I was bombing down this groomer way ahead of my family. Suddenly, I caught an edge and wiped out hard, face planting into the snow. My face was completely buried in snow and I had trouble breathing, which scared the crap out of me, but then I lifted my head up and took my snow filled goggles off and was able to breathe once again. We spent the rest of our time driving all over Colorado checking out other aspects of the Rocky Mountains.
This ski trip as always stayed with me the smell of my uncles cabin, the excitement of first getting to the mountain, and the exhilaration of skiing all over the mountain has stayed with me to this day. Skiing is one of the best ways to commune with the mountain traveling great expanses up close and personally. Traveling through mountains puts my life in scope my problems diminish in comparison to the vastness that is the mountains.
I know its supposed to be 500 words or less, but would you really have a good powder day if you didn't duck a rope or two?
Where I’m from, skiing for many people means hopping in their overpriced SUV, on a Friday night an arriving at their overpriced, modernized ski condo at the base of some sort of Vermont “Hollywoodized” condo stricken ski hill. They wallow out onto the slopes at around 10:30 in their brand new North Face jacket holding their skis and poles in their arms like a stack of wood. An hour later they can be found sitting in the lodge sipping a cup of watery overpriced hot cocoa complaining that the top of the mountain is too icy and they’d rather call it a day.
My dad grew up in Ludlowe, Vermont. What is now the Okemo Mountain School was his residence throughout his childhood. So when he returned to Okemo 30 years later he ensured that I would not follow the average trend of the Connecticut gape show decked out in a new hot chocolate stained Patagonia jacket.
Many began their ski careers at a very young age, 3 or 4 years old. Considering that Ice Hockey occupied the majority of my winters at a young age I didn’t click in to my first pair of skis until I was 7 years of age.
It was a relatively warm, December day, slush at the bottom of the hill, hard pack at the top. Blue skies, a parking lot full of New Jersey and Connecticut license plates. I stand in line in a pair of hand-me-down boots, an old L.L. Bean fleece and a pair of relatively steezy Wallmart issued snow bibs. My Dad, stands at the counter, cracking jokes about the influx of tri-state skiers that fill the lift ticket office. Of course, at this point I did not understand the concept of a “gaper” or “joey”, in fact I probably looked and acted like one but I went along with my dad’s commentary as we walked out onto the hill below the South Ridge Quad. We met my group for my first lesson. Discouraged by the flashy North Face apparel that surrounded me I shyly sat at the back of line as we prepared to get on the chair lift.
I watch the skiers and snowboarders rip down the hill below me. Looking behind me at the Green Mountain landscape my situation seemed to improve. No more nagging mothers, no more muddy parking lots, no foul smelling, cold locker rooms to dress in; just the fresh Vermont air and my pair of skis.
Overwhelmed by this new feeling, I make a right hand turn promptly as I get off the lift tuning out the bellows from the ski instructors while my speed increases as the hill gets steeper. It’s a little different than skates, a lot more to work with but it felt natural. Coasting from side to side with the occasional pizza stop I completely forget about the overpriced lesson my father had just paid for.
Then by nature of reality, my ski begins to shake and a catch an edge, 270 to face plant, I hear a group of adolescents taunting me from the chairlift above. I don’t quite remember what they were saying but if I had heard them today it probably would of been along the lines of demeaning profanity referring to the main component of the female anatomy.
I proceed down the hill to find my Dad standing with the group of Patagonia and North Face jackets, pointing at me. I skied with my Dad the rest of the day, spent most of my time eating shit at uncontrollably high speeds for a 7 year old but that was a good day, one for the books.
Last winter I quit playing Ice Hockey, I could no longer stand watching all of my buddies pile onto the busses on pow days. This year I’ll most likely rack up around 90 days on the hill. Summer sucks.
The first time i set foot on skis was not a little weekend event that gave my family and i something to do, it was life changing. As soon as i set foot on my very first 142 atomics i knew that this was something that was going to change my perspective on my 5 year old existence. Sure it was hard pack east groomers but to me it was like floating on air. I later found out that some of my friends that i still ski with today were also picking this up. two years later they were talking about hitting untracked trails that only we would know about, so i said "sounds fun, lets do it." Of course i was only 7 and my atomics might not be able to handle it, but i wasnt afraid to step up to the challenge. I set out and had some of the most fun i've ever had in my life. It was like i was flying, and then i was. Right off a cliff. It wasnt too high up, than again nothing is, but it was a rush i had never felt before. I liked it, but it scared me. With the loss of my right eye, i was very cautious as to how much was enough or too much. I like the feeling but it scared me. I didnt know when i was going to get that sudden impulse to just fly off something and get hurt. In other words i was thinking in terms of worst case scenario.Then my friends started jumping off things and flipping and doing 360's and all kinds of crazy stuff. I thought, hey, ive done everything in skiing with these guys why not this? Then i saw my answer. No twin tip skis, therfore no 180's 540's etc etc. Im not writting this to try to get skis or tell you my sob story but i just want to share my first times on different places in skiing. I also had some fear and precautions, i was scared. So now i just stick to the good old stuff, up to my shins in pow and gliding down groomers. Tricks look so fun and i deffenitley want to try them, but i think ill start in my backyard than get bigger. Im 13 and I ski everyday i dont have school, and even times that i do, so everyday is the greatest day in my life, it feels like i dont ski because its a new feeling every time so when i go out there im not skiing im living.
My first day of skiing was terrible. It was wet, cold, icy, just generally miserable. I got to the top of the hill with my best buds, and I fell straight down. I fell trying to get on the lift, trying to get on the lift, and everywhere in between. The worst part was not being able to stand up. Towards the end of the day, I was improving. It felt pretty nice to be making progress, but by the time I got home I still didn’t love it. Stubborn 13 year old me thought if I wasn't “good” then I never would be. Now that I'm older, I've learned a lot.
Skiing still sucks sometimes. It sucks breaking ankles, wrists, ribs, and arms. It sucks sitting on a lift 30 feet up and freezing my ass off. One thing skiing has taught me though, is this: every part of life has its ups and downs. Nothing beats the feeling of finally nailing that trick, racing down the hill, or clicking into bindings for the first run of the season.
As much as I disliked skiing my first time, I am so glad I tried it again. It has brought me so many friends over the years and has taught me many lessons. The first day was just the beginning to many years of fun.
The snow whistling, the lift lines growing, and the mountain calling my name. As I click into my skis with fear, the mountain seemed to get steeper and steeper. With only two and half years of life behind me, I knew this was one of the greatest challenges yet. As I stare into the eyes of the mountain, my old man grabs by my arms, and takes me to what I believed to be the beginning, of a wild ride.
Up and up we go, the end is nearing and my weak knees are trembling. The bar flies up and my father pulls me off the flying chair and away to safety, where I’m finally planted on the snow. My dad grabs my hand and I take a deep breath. Butterflies fluttering in my stomach, along with shaking knees and chattering teeth, I begin my descent. Why, this isn’t so bad. With the wind and the snow, and my old man by my side. Skiing isn’t scary, why it’s the most fun of all! As I fly down the mountain, my dad and I laughing, having the best time of my life, I knew right then and there, that skiing would be something more than a sport. It would be a passion for life. Boy, I have never been so right.
My first time skiing was nothing short of amazing. Since then, it has been a growing passion for me. I will never forget the memories I shared with my old man, whether it’s the chatting on the lift, or sitting next to each other in front of the computer deciding what our next trip was going to be. He had a passion almost as great as mine. He introduced me to skiing and now it is forever in my mind. My first experience is something unforgettable. All the laughs, time with family, perfect runs, gnarly wipeouts and more, skiing is with me forever… I hope its with you to. So I leave you with a motivating quote from my biggest inspiration to skiing. “Don’t take life too seriously, because you can’t come out of it alive.” – Warren Miller.
- Zak Jones
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