Today we all went skiing all together for the first time this season. J has been up with the kids many a time, but I have been wimping out since ski season began. This is embarrassing, but I kind of had a hard time falling asleep last night knowing that I was going skiing this morning. I really was nervous about it and was sure that I would fall a million times and not have fun at all and determine that skiing was not for me.
It turns out I had nothing to fear! Not only did I remember a lot from last year, but Coco was such an amazing teacher. I told her to go first and take it slow and then I followed in her tracks. She is a ridiculously good skier (more than a few people stopped us to say so!) and following her and seeing how easy she made it look made it easy for me, too.
Coco is so comfortable up at the mountain and Mt Spokane is such a family place where everyone knows her by name, that we can just let her lap us on the bunny hill as she wishes. She is responsible riding the chair by herself and never gets tired of riding over "the bumps" at the side of the bunny hill, a little jump course made into the side of the hill. J got me my very own skis and boots at the ski swap this year and they are AWESOME. If you're learning to ski, I highly recommend shorter skis to start out. They make everything easier.
In the morning, there was a lot of fog. But by noon it had begun to burn off. And for the remainder of the afternoon, we got a beautiful sunny day.
The sky was a brilliant blue and it felt like we were in a different world looking down on the fog lake below. It was breathtaking!
We took a couple different breaks for hot chocolate and beers and french fries. It was so much fun and I really can't wait to go again. Just before sunset, my phone died and then we stayed on for a few more hours of night skiing. I even went on the run that I fell at least 8 times and cried on last year - and had a blast! I really was surprised, but turns out I'm a skier! I feel rejuvenated and refreshed after a day outside in the sun. It was the absolute dreamiest day.
Do you do any winter sports? How do you combat cabin fever? Do you know how to ski - if not, would you be willing to learn?
PS - More (including Coco on the bumps!) in my Instagram stories if you're into it. ;)
This is so great to read!
ReplyDeleteIf it helps, I grew up skiing every winter, one big annual trip in Vermont and then a dozen or so trips to local NY slopes throughout the winters - I started at age 3 or 4 - and I STILL get very nervous the night before I go for the first time each season. It's the chair lift that really haunts my anxiety, specifically getting off of it. I should note that even as a child, I never once fell getting off the chair lift, or (far worse for my anxiety) failed to get off at all and made them stop it to rescue me, but still, each year I lay there in my bed, freaking out that IT COULD HAPPEN. I also feel a surprising amount of anxiety about just getting around - clomping around everywhere in the ski boots, side-stepping up small hills in skis, etc. It always feels harder in my mind than it turns out to be in real life.
Sadly, I last went skiing when I was 19 weeks pregnant with my first child! It's just been too hard to get out for a kind of "all day affair" like that with such young kids. My older son is now 3 years old and I didn't get around to signing him up for lessons this year - still seems too hard to work out logistically with the baby - but next year I will sign him up at a local slope and hopefully get to go skiing with him (once someone else teaches him the very basics, haha).
Some people are freaked out when I tell them that I went skiing in my second trimester, but honestly, I was surprisingly comfortable. On the harder trails, I had my husband ski a short ways behind me to run defense in case anyone was careening down the slope out of control, but otherwise, I actually felt really safe and in control. In some ways it almost helped to have some extra weight in front of me, since I (always cautious) tend to lean back and have to constantly remember to keep good forward-leaning form.
There is nothing quite like the wonderful refreshing fatigue that comes at the end of a long day skiing! I really don't know that there is anything like that feeling in the world. Here's a crossover bit of interest - when I was a teenager, I got to go skiing in the Alps, in both France and Switzerland. It was a totally different experience compared to skiing in Vermont (or Colorado, where my other familiar slopes are). It was something I will remember for my whole life - the sheer magnitude of the mountains, and the seeming absurdity of strapping skis on and careening down (a small part of) them. It was humbling - especially when we all felt very proud of ourselves for getting down a particularly nasty part of a tough trail, and stopped in a safe out-of-the-way place to regroup, only to have a ski school of Swiss elementary-age kids go zooming past us as though the whole thing were nothing at all!
Also, here is an article you might enjoy reading - it's about Finland's "ski soldiers" https://www.outsideonline.com/2267491/red-dawn-lapland
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