Ski Trip

We are taking a quick break for the story of our dating relationship to share a few trips and adventures we have taken this winter.  Here is Arthur's account of his first ski trip.

Several men from our church have, for the past several years, gone out to Breckingridge for five days of skiing and fellowship.  I had been invited to go the past two years, but for this or that reason, had always turned them down.  Finally, my lovely wife basically insisted that I needed to take the opportunity to get to know the men of our church better, she needed a weekend to spend with her friends, and we needed material for another blog post, so I was going.

I had never been skiing before and really had no idea what I was in for.  I did want to show up prepared, and this prompted an extensive workout program designed by my personal trainer (Alex), so I thought whatever I lacked in natural acumen would be at least partially compensated.  I would say this was roughly accurate; it does take a certain amount of effort to get up after crashing on skies, especially at elevation, and my cardio did allow me to get up quicker and put in more repetitions.

On our first day out there, I took ski lessons.  We spent the majority of the day working on a little hill that probably rose about 12 feet over a 30 foot distance with a "magic carpet," basically a long treadmill, to take you back to the top.  Over the course of the morning, I was able to keep myself upright, but I never could get myself stopped before the bottom of the hill and I couldn't get myself to turn in any meaningful way, so they decided that it was time to go up one of the ski lifts.  This might seem odd, and I'm tempted to toss out the baby bird being pushed out of the nest analogy, but the problem with said analogy is that the birds who don't fly die.

Well, I didn't die, but I definitely was lacking in control.  I got to where I could kinda sorta turn, but I still couldn't slow down.  So most of my attempts involved me doing okay while I was building up speed until I was going so fast my best option was falling down before I hurt myself or someone else.  At one point, I got a pretty good turn in, except I overdid it and skied backwards about 40 yards before getting getting myself stopped (much to the delight of some six year old twerps who could ski circles around me.)  At another point, I crashed into a ski fence.  They had built up a nice steep back next to the fence to help slow you down.  I was coming in hot enough that I actually got airborne and just about cleared the fence.  It performed an excellent ankle tackle, and had it not, I might have skied all the way back to Kansas! 

I was pretty sore after that first day, and pretty sure that skiing was going to end up in that category of things that I'm just never going to be able to do very well.  I resolved to go back to the training area tomorrow and hopefully get competent enough that I didn't kill myself or anyone else trying to ski back in at the end of the day.  Much to my surprise, when I went back to the small hill we had been working on the previous day, I could turn with ease.  I hadn't taken five runs before deciding if I wanted to get better, I'd have to ride the ski lift up to the green we had spent the previous afternoon.

Things went a lot better.  One of the guys in our group really took me under his wing, and under his patient tutelage, I got to the point where I skied down a green without falling over once, an achievement I thought unattainable the previous day.  I was still taking it really slow, but I could not turn at will, and I took a lot of turns to keep my speed down.  There were times I'd do something that felt really athletic and I felt like I belonged up there.

The next day, I more or less spent the morning by myself.  I wanted to be able to check off all the greens nearby, but by now they were cake.  If I wanted to get better, it meant going on some blues.  So in the afternoon, two of the guys in the group and I headed off.  Initially, some of the inclines were steep enough that I found myself saying some Hail Marys, and this despite the fact I am neither Catholic and have always believe we have direct access to the throne of grace through the atoning work of Jesus (just had to get that in lest any of our Protestant readers raise an eyebrow at that last comment.  Of course, now I'm in hot water with our strong Catholic constituency.)  I actually handled them pretty well, however, and had an overall wonderful time.

And that was pretty much it for the trip.  Some of you might be wondering how spending time with the guys went.  It was really good building up those relationships, but the skiing is a lot more fun to write about, so that's all you get.  As Alex has already written, she had a wonderful time with her friends while I was gone, so the trip was a complete success.  Omnia Vincit Amour.