Ski Day

Skiing Hausberg

Today Shelby and I took advantage of having Grandma and Grandpa in town to babysit for us, and let them watch Colin while we took ski lessons all day. I was not so sure how well this was going to go over, and in my opinion, snowboarding looks much easier. According to everyone I talk to it is much more difficult to snowboard than to ski, so we decided to ski instead. It just seems more logical that controlling both feet strapped to one board would be easier than controlling separate feet strapped to separate boards....but what do I know?
We got up there and learned how to put our skis on and how to maneuver around some. I felt pretty confident in my ability on flat ground and when the instructor thought we were good there he moved us up to the kiddie learning slope. I was one of the first people down the big (big to us, barely a hill in reality) hill and still feeling confident, I overestimated my skills a tad and went sailing down the slope. I learned that skiing is a lot like driving on ice, once you realize you are going too fast, it's probably too late to try to slow down and stop. I went from "I like this speed, I'm doing great, I can handle this speed" to "OH. SHIT. STOP. NOW!" pretty quickly and then I panicked just a little. All my training went right out the window and instead of attempting a wedge to slow down I stuck my poles in the ground to try to slow me down. Big mistake. Poles are NOT for stopping in case you didn't know. That just made a bad situation worse and I don't remember too much after that because I lost all control, feet in the air and flat on my back. I laughed the entire time (as did the rest of the class I am sure...many of them had already had their spill). I was seriously disappointed that I was the first to fall between Shelby and I, I was really hoping to beat him in that contest. So my first run down the bunny slope I ate it, but I learned from my mistakes and managed not to fall again on that hill. I got pretty comfy with myself and was anxious to move to the next area. After lunch we headed up to a steeper, bigger hill to practice. I did very well on my first run down that hill and got to the bottom just in time to turn around and see Shelby eat it. YES! Now we were even on the fall count! He had a good fall on that hill, and then another, and possibly even a third fall on that hill...I can't remember exactly. We had fun practicing controlling our speed and making turns and a little while after that the lesson was over.
Shelby was determined to get on a big slope and do more than just the beginner slopes, so when our lessons were over we drug our tired, beat up bodies to the next set of tow bars to go up a little higher. The hill looked semi intimidating from the bottom, the view from the top looked like a disaster waiting to happen! I got up there and asked myself what in the heck had I gotten myself into. Shelby, ever confident in his skills, started down first. He got a small part of the way down before deciding perhaps this was in fact NOT a good idea after all. Lucky for us, we are apparently not the only overachievers to climb this hill and then realize our mistakes. There was a nice path off to the side of the nightmare hill that was a much easier grade and it cut over to another hill which was slightly less intimidating. Shelby started down first and it didn't take him long to wind up on his butt. I attempted down, being cautious of my speed, and got another lesson not taught by the instructor. He taught us how to wedge our skis to stop, but he failed to mention that on some slopes that technique just doesn't work. I got going and calmly tried to wedge my skis. Not stopping. I dug in a little deeper on my wedge. Not stopping. Dug in deeper still. Ah screw it I'm going to fall soon enough, I may as well head over to the fluffy snow bank on the side instead of the hard packed stuff in the middle. I was proud of my turning skills and I did in fact make it to the deep soft snow before crashing. I failed to think about climbing out of deep snow with skis on, but I managed. Shelby and I made it to the bottom of that hill and then worked our way back down the smaller slopes to the lift that took us down to the very bottom. We called the day a success considering neither one of us was injured and we'd managed to ski more than the bunny slope. I'll need a day or two to recover from the pains of today, but I think I'd like to ski again someday.