Year of the Ski Bunny

by Kristi Parker

Blog Last Updated; 11/30/2009

When my sister was 16 years old in 1971, she took a ski trip to Purgatory with her high school Young Life group. Being from Texas, she and most of the other kids didn't own any official ski-wear. So they wrapped their socked feet in plastic bags and Scotch-Guarded their jeans to keep from getting wet on the slopes.

That was the first and only time any of my immediate family members went snow skiing when I was growing up. For more than 35 years of my life, skiing was a foreign concept to me, an activity enjoyed, I thought, by people with lots of money.

But when my children became teenagers, their father and I decided that holiday trips to Colorado would make better Christmas gifts for them than electronics or new clothes or money. We took three trips in four years, and my kids learned to ski and snowboard. I, however, chose to watch them from the snowy base of the mountain. I had a hard enough time just breathing in the high elevations, and I couldn't imagine trying to exert any physical effort beyond walking and talking.

Fast forward five years.

Here I am, a Texas expatriate living in Colorado. I've been here almost four years now, and I'm ashamed to say that I still have not learned to ski. Every winter, it's the same story ? I tell myself, "This is it, this is the year that I will become a ski bunny." But it still hasn't happened. Time and money constraints ? and a lack of enthusiasm for taking ski lessons by my lonesome self ? have kept me off the slopes. (And at 45 years old, I have to admit that I am less willing to subject my body to potentially painful experiences than I was when I was younger.)

Many ski resorts opened Thanksgiving weekend, and I find myself saying, once again, "This is the year?." Perhaps it will be. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

But just in case I really do follow through, I guess I better load up on plastic bags and Scotch-Guard and Icy Hot.

I should be prepared, don't you think?

Wednesday, December 02, 2009
at 2:14:31 PM

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Taylor says:

Ha... learning to ski is so expensive, getting the gear, buying the passes and so on. It's almost not worth unless you are an avid skier who will be out there everyday. Maybe you could just take one day and go out there with someone who has experience and then they can leave you at the top of the mountain so you can make your way down on your own... ha ha ha!! Thats what happened when I went to learn to snowboard!! It was a long day!!