This May Be Crazy

Have you ever thought about how ridiculous it is, this thing we do? We strap ourselves to strips of wood and throw ourselves down a mountain, dodging trees, rocks, people. And then we hop on a chair, or strap on some skins, and head back up to do it all over again.

Think about it: how would you describe skiing to someone who had never seen or heard of it before. How crazy would you sound? It's completely illogical, sounds stupid and deadly, and is the most fun I'm capable of having (don't know about you).

One of the crazier things I've noticed this year upon actually thinking about skiing at its basest form
(and not just that one fun thing I do every chance I get) is how it alters our perception. Take falling for instance; at a certain ability level you stop being afraid to fall on normal terrain (no fall zones are obviously a different matter). You may be doing something so much more dangerous than walking on a hiking trail or even just down the sidewalk, but falling in the latter two scenarios is scarier than falling while skiing. The argument many people may come up with is that snow is softer than rock/dirt or asphalt, which is true. But I am not capable of walking at 40-60 mph; I regularly ski in that speed range. Take into account that you have more horizontal momentum while skiing, there are plenty of things at the edge of the trail to collide with, and your helmet is likely only rated to around 15 mph; falling on skis should terrify us all. But it doesn't for some odd reason.

Being and acrophobic individual, heights tend to be my big hurtle when attempting something new skiing. However, I've noticed that I can stand on a ridge in hiking boots in the summer and be much more scared than in skis in the winter on the same ridge. This makes a certain amount of logical sense; if you start slipping of that ridge hiking arresting your fall is tough to impossible, but in winter if you start slipping off an expert skier can usually just decide to drop in and ski it to stay in control. I'm also more comfortable on skis than my own two feet (odd, but true; I have terrible balance normally), so that probably adds to my comfort level. But explain all this to someone who is not a skier and again with the sounding crazy.

I know I've previously talked about how skiers have a different language, but I'm realizing it's more than that. It's more than a subculture: we're another species altogether. Or we live in a completely different world. And, while our priorities may be different, our perceptions skewed from what society claims they should be, I love that world. As always, I'm so proud to be a skier, and I think being such has made me so much better because I can see the world through this different lens.