"Have you been up much this year?" one of them asked. People always ask that. It's a little like asking what college a person's gone to or where they work: something you ask when conversation lags, but which is useful because it helps you know who you're dealing with.
"Not as much as I'd have liked, since we were sick over the holidays," I replied. "But I've managed to get up there three times so far."
And they confessed that they'd each skiied more than 30 days in the last six weeks.
*
Each of those women asked me to call them the next time I have a chance to snowboard, but I didn't. I am not quite ready to ride with women who ski 30 days in six weeks. I went up by myself instead, yesterday.
The weather was so strange. It was unusually warm. This rogue fog bank kept whispering around the base of the mountain, so that I began each run in the sun but on ice and ended it in a cloud but on slush. I had fun, though. Four times I took the same path down Northwest – in the sun then into a cloud, on the ice then onto good snow then onto slush – and by the fourth time I was so comfortable with that run, I felt like a superhero. I flew past the others feeling their way though fog. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!
Then I thought I'd better go home. Cockiness leads to injury.
**
People of all types visit Mt. Bachelor, which makes riding the chairlift like riding a bus. People talk to one another on the chairlift, though. I find it interesting. I rode with two teenage boys talking smack; a woman from Ashland just learning to snowboard; and a man from Bend who planned to ride down Rainbow, where he figured it was entirely sunny.
Query: If two teenage boys riding the lift with you swore casually and kept burping, would you reprimand them? I couldn't decide.
**
My eight-year-old had ski school on Saturday. He always looks ten feet taller after a day of skiing: older, more competent, more confident. He is somehow unreachable, unknowable. He smiles to himself. He smells like the wind.
3 comments:
No, I would think unspeakable things under my breath. I figure they want to get a rise out of adults and the worst punishment is not to notice.
Your ski day sounds amazing - and I totally agree that the full time skiers are not in the same class as the rest of us.
Happy snow time!
I wouldn't confront the boys either.
When did your kids start skiing? Writing about that very topic right now.
My six-year-old just went skiing, for the first time, last Friday. Your words about your son describe him exactly.
And, this, from a non-skiing family. I've gone exactly once and hated it, and plan to never go again. But, my son did seem a foot taller and smell of the wind (though, perhaps, only a very gentle breeze, since it was his first time).
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