How did you start skiing?

[RuthB]

Hi

I just found this forum - I was looking for some gear reviews since our season here (New Zealand) is just beginning. I started skiing when I was five (just before I turned six). Like some others here my mother decided for some reason that we needed a family sport. Luckily for us one of her friends was a ski instructor at a small field (Erewhon - now a heli-ski destination called Mt Potts, and also where Edoras and other parts of The Lord of the Rings was filmed) in Canterbury in the South Island. This friend (who happened to have kids, the youngest who was a year older than me) organised a week of skiing for us - just gave mum a list of places to go and to be to collect our gear, find our accomodation (a bach (cabin in North America) that had no electric power) and the ski field. The road up to the ski field was so rough that you parked you car at the bottom and piled into old LandRovers that operated a shuttle to the ski field. The field had three rope tows, including a perfect and long beginner slope, and no groomers or snow making. We had our first lesson that morning (a scottish instructor who trained in the Austrian method) and I honestly can't remember not being able to ski or use a rope tow. We had a ball, even if my skis (red wooden with very primitive step in bindings were too slow) - at the end of the week the whole family was hooked and the rest of my childhood involved winters at ski-fields, ski weeks with more lessons, including stints as volunteer patrolling at Erewhon and Mt Cheeseman which gave me free skiing and first and last tracks. Since moving to the North Island I have skiied less, but we do go to Wanaka for a week each year so I don't not ski. Before my son came along my husband and I spent three christmases skiing in Canada which was fantastic.

 

[Robyn]

Welcome Ruth! We're all jealous that you're starting your season there. :D

 

[w.ski]

Welcome Ruth! We're all jealous that you're starting your season there. :D

Ditto! I'm having fun with starting a running program, biking, kayaking, and gardening, but I'd trade it all to be able to go skiing!

 

[itri]

Hmm, I just realized that I never posted here.

I didn't ski for the first time until I was in college. I grew up in the flatter-than-flat part of Ohio where any skiing that was done was cross-country (which is just too darn much work!). My then-boyfriend (now husband) took me to Perfect North in SE Indiana. We skiied probably 5-10 times total over the 3 years of college that we dated, mostly at night, all at Perfect North. When we moved to NJ for a couple of years after college, we got another handful of ski trips in, once to Stratton, and a few times to Camelback. It wasn't until we moved to Colorado that I really learned to ski. Skiing was, in fact, one of the big reasons that we moved here! And hiking, biking, 300 days of sunshine a year, etc. etc. etc.

MIL keeps wanting us to move back to Ohio, especially now that she has a grandson. I keep telling her to figure out how to move the Rockies east, and we'll be there!

 

[cwmscm]

my grandparents had a beautiful place in Stowe Vermont so we always went there for vacations in the winter. I started skiing at about two between my mothers knees and then later my parents would drop me off at Tollhouse with a book of tickets for the lift and lessons (this was a long time a go). I was only five and six but I managed by myself. In the end I hated lessons so as soon as could assert myself I refused to take lessons until very recently in fact. It took me about six years to learn how to parallel and then about four years to vadel and then I stopped skiing for about ten years. When I started skiing again I found out that parabolic skis had changed the style of skiing and I had to take lessons. And the funny thing is now I love to take lessons and my family thinks that is a hoot.

 

[vklaws]

A few of my friends were really into it so like 5 years ago I said what the heck, and went for the first time. I crashed and burned the first few times, then took a lesson and been hooked ever since.

 

[snowski/swimmouse]

I, too, have just found this thread. When I was 16, 1968, my dad went to Perkinsville, Vermont (from NY) for a business meeting with four other men in one's barn-converted-to-ski-lodge. The following weekend my dad bought the adjoining property on the Black River with the Downer's covered bridge over it. The wife of the guy next door had grown up in VT and the two of them took my brother (22) and I to Ascutney and gave us a crash course (my brother did that part) in skiing. Mom and dad insisted the four of us take lessons, but for different reasons, I'm the only one who stayed with it. So, for 30 years I skied mostly alone, very careful, and never improved. And I never changed equipment. After my first day in rental lace-up boots, my painful feet required my own boots and, fortunately, the first buckle boots had just come out. For Christmas I received my 178 Head Skis with the new Solomon step-in bindings from my parents and poles from my brother. As someone else said, I still have them and wonder if I could still get down the mountain on them!

Just over ten years ago, my parents of advancing age, stopped going to VT in the winter, so I did something drastic, and joined a SC ski club. (My main mistake was NOT joining it a lot whole lot sooner!) They immediately said, "Yes! Another racer!" "A WHAT! You think I'm going to do WHAT!" Well, I'm hooked. It took me three years to qualify. I'm still somewhat of a careful chicken; I live alone and there's noone to take care of me if I get hurt. But racing has improved my skiing soooooo much. The more I race, the better I ski, the more I enjoy it.........

And may I stay healthy enough to keep doing so into my eighties!
(I WAS born in a blizzard on the first day of spring!)

 

[skiso]

This is a great thread and fun to read.

I mentioned my first ski day in the Father's Day commemorative at this site – shuffling through new snow at the local country club, wearing hand-me-down skis strapped to red rubber boots. That was in Claremont NH in 1960 and not long after that the Arrowhead Ski Way was built right in town, where I suffered through a few years of lonely, soggy lessons, jealousy watching my older sisters head off to Ascutney and Sunapee with their friends. My family moved to VT when I was in 6th grade and I started skiing for real at Pico Peak in Mendon. I downhill skied only occasionally after college, despite again living in VT (and just minutes from Okemo, no less!) until I relocated to the Pacific Northwest several years later for graduate school.

That was over 20 years ago and since then it has been a constant and favorite source of winter fun to share with DH and friends.

 

[LindsaySkiGal]

I started skiing two winters ago at the age of 24. I met this guy who loved to ski and he took me out a few times that first winter. I fell head over heels in love, not with the guy, but the skiing. The guy didn't last long. The beginning of last season I had no one to ski with, could only ski greens well, but I still went every weekend regardless. I ended the season with plenty of ski friends and was able to ski blacks. My home resort is 7 springs in PA and since everyone glorifies skiing out west, I had to go out there and ski those black diamonds as well. It was an amazing season at what I was able to accomplish. Now I miss the slopes, and on occassion put on my boots or pull out my skis.