Watching little kids ski has to be one of the most fun things to do at a mountain resort in the winter. They are fearless. I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve been snowplowing my way back and forth down a bunny hill and had a three-foot bundle of speed whiz past me. Even when they aren’t bombing down the hill and are more timid, skiing between the legs of their parents, they are enormously cute in their puffy onesie snowsuits and helmets covered in stickers from their favorite cartoons.
I was fearless on the slopes before the fifth grade. It was then that I shot up almost to the 5’11” that I stand at now, and when I had the coordination and control over my limbs akin to a Great Dane puppy. I was all of a sudden terrified of my new six-foot skis and, quite literally, the much longer way that I had to fall down.
I didn’t ski for a long time after that. I went through a phase when I thought that, because I had an affinity for majorly wiping out on a wakeboard during the summer, this somehow translated into a natural skill for snowboarding. That ended exactly as everyone, except apparently me, expected.
A couple of years ago, though, after one particularly catastrophic snowboarding outing, my parents declared that they didn’t know what I was thinking and that I would be a skier. Thank goodness. I got back on a pair of skis that suddenly weren’t as scary (you know, now that I’m an adult), and that weren’t the behemoth planks that had been conjured in my over-exaggerated childhood imagination. I’m no Lindsey Vonn, and I likely won’t ever be, but I can now enjoy a relaxing day of easy (and sometimes intermediate) slopes and, of course, the grilled cheese sandwich or waffle that inevitably follows.
One of my goals for this year, though, is to become a more confident skier, something that can only happen with more consistent practice and experience. Moving to Boulder, which has a ski town feel in and of itself, has been great in that respect, as the Eldora Mountain Resort is just an easy drive away. You can read my Your Boulder piece, published on January 21st, about Eldora and its alpine and Nordic (another series of winters sports I want to try!) qualities. To read “Spotlight on Eldora: Boulder’s Local Mountain Resort,” click here.