Lust

You know the feeling. Heart skips a beat when you catch a glimpse. The gentle curves and playful lines you know so well.

I'm enchanted by the mountains. I'm in love with skiing. And I'm in lust with gear.

Without gear, what is skiing. You need your boots, poles, skis, bindings, goggles, helmet, jacket, pants. . . the list goes on and on. And one of each never quite seems like enough. It's a drug; once you have your pair of carvers, then you need a pair of powder skis too. If you remember the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, skiing is something like that, only it's not being given to you (unless you're a pro, but they suck and I hate them so they don't count). Instead, we skiers shell out thousands of dollars a year to get the next thing, whether it's because we need new and better gear, or we simply can't resist the newest pair of *insert favorite brand here*.

I know few skiers who have only one pair of goggles, who won't impulse-buy a pair of Smartwool socks (in case you don't know those suckers are expensive), and who think $600 is too much for another pair of skis. If skis were people, then skiers would be polygamists. They can't settle for just one, and they love every pair they have. When they're out riding their planks, they keep an eye out for something even more delicious. It's a flirtation between manufacturers and consumers. One tries to make something even prettier (not necessarily visually, but definitely performance-wise) than what the other already has, and the lust wins out more often than not. We trade in for the younger model and we know it won't be the last time.

Maybe this is why ski bums are stereotyped as being commitment-phobes. Die-hards don't ski the same boots for more than a couple seasons, trade-up in skis as often as possible, and a fair number live transient lifestyles, following the seasonal jobs and the powpow. What can I say, lust is a powerful force.