"No, I don't ski"

For once the National Weather Service got it right and their threat of 10-20 inches of snow actually came true. My scientific snow measuring equipment (the table on the back deck and a long ruler) tells me that we received 19 inches of white stuff this weekend and the patches of ugly gray ice that have been sitting around the yard since before Thanksgiving are tidily buried beneath a blanket of fluffy fresh snow.

Fortuitously, my car Angus was fitted with a brand spanking new set of tires last week, with visible tread and everything, so the fresh onslaught of winter weather worries me not one whit. True, it was something of a challenge getting out of the driveway come Monday morning but that was mainly due to the four foot high drift left by the snow-plow driver which nearly barricaded me inside the property until the warm weather returned. However, in 4-wheel drive mode Angus can tackle most things and after making short work of that, the only real issue was avoiding the other boneheads on the road.

Being only about 15 miles from the coast, it didn’t snow too often in the North-West of England where I spent my formative years. Living in Phoenix of course, we had to get in the car and drive for ½ a day just to see snow at all so even though this is my third Colorado winter (I’m almost a native), snow is still something of a novelty for me. I love it.

The only downside is that whenever we receive a fresh fall, the conversation inevitably turns to winter sports and the perennial question “Do you ski?” And I have to admit that despite being in love with almost everything Coloradan, the sad fact is that no, I don’t. At least I haven’t in many years. And even in those days one would have to be generous to call what I did "skiing".

This wasn’t entirely my fault. I saved a bundle on lessons by having a friend teach me all he knew about the sport, which would have been fine if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew almost nothing and simply invented the rest. The techniques he taught me were hopelessly wrong and while they allowed me to make my way down the hillside, sometimes for several yards without falling, I was never able to develop my skills beyond the basic moves. Even worse, by the time people who actually knew what they were talking about tried to help, my bad habits were too entrenched and I too lazy to change them.

Another challenge for the British skier is that in order to participate in the sport, one inevitably has to travel to the continent, see above re: snow, the lack thereof. Skiing the Alps is a pretty fabulous experience but the limitations of cost and available vacation time mean the majority of people can only manage this for one week a year at the most. The usual routine was to fly to some major city, then clamber aboard a tour bus before being transported for several hours up near-vertical mountain roads before arriving at your resort of choice. This might be anything from an ultra-modern, purpose built resort to a quaint little mountain town straight out of a Dracula movie, with cuckoo clock houses and people in lederhosen. Well actually, I made that last bit up. If you ever see anyone in lederhosen you know you’ve fallen straight into tourist hell.

My first continental ski trip was to the Swiss Alps which are, as anyone who’s seen The Sound of Music will tell you, breathtakingly pretty. Which was good because for a rookie like me, they were also bloody difficult to ski. You might think I'm cowering here at the top of the slope, too afraid to make that first move over the abyss, but I'm merely admiring the view and will move when I’m good and ready.

In Switzerland, they don’t so much have “slopes” as “cliffs”. Great vertical drops disappearing into the distance like something from a Roadrunner cartoon. I spent many an anxious moment peering nervously over precipices wondering just how on earth I was going to down this one. Experienced skiers of course, know that the secret is simply to make constant turns. This repetitive slalom motion has the effect of reducing your speed to a (hopefully) manageable level. I on the other hand, was scared of turning. And with good cause, because I usually fell over.

So instead I would careen at breakneck speed diagonally across the slope, (apparently screaming quite loudly), until I reached the soft snow by the trees. Once there I would employ a shuffling, duck like motion until I was facing the other way before hurtling back the way I came. Lather, rinse, repeat, until painfully slowly, I made my way to the bottom where my friends would already be on their second pitcher of beer. Arguably, if it hadn’t been for the cafés in the valleys I might still be stuck there today.

And it’s not as if that system ever prevented me from falling anyway. I fell plenty and rarely in the graceful sideways topples that more elegant skiers employed. No, my tumbles tended to be the dramatic, cartwheeling, great clouds of powder, skis spinning off into space, people telling their grandchildren about them, wipeouts the like of which no stunt man could produce in a million camera takes. Looking back, it’s a wonder I never hurt myself as I’m sure limbs have been broken in much less spectacular circumstances than those. But, other than a nosebleed after I once punched myself in mid-air, I suffered nary a scratch. doG looks out for drunks and idiots right enough.

My final ski trip was a booked-at-the-last minute visit to Italy. It was late in the season, and realistically, there wasn’t enough remaining snow for skiing. Rocks and dirt aren’t kind to skis and in the process I trashed mine pretty extensively. They weren’t particularly expensive, but I had to make a decision. “Did I really enjoy skiing enough to make the kind of investment replacing them would require.” And the answer came back, “No, I didn’t.” I moved on to other sports and even living close to one of the world’s greatest winter playgrounds, have never really felt the urge to start up again.

If I ever do, I suspect it will be cross-country rather than downhill; that just seems more appealing to me now. But until that day, the answer to the eternal question will have to be “Yes, I live in Colorado. No, I don’t ski.”