Single in Sandpoint: To ski or not to ski, that is the question…
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 In order to answer this question, I must admit a secret that I've been hanging on to for approximately 22 years: I've lived in North Idaho for the better part of 30 years, and I've gone skiing precisely one time.
Yes you heard me correctly. One time. Once.
Sure I've been to Schweitzer for the occasional kegger, wedding or to sit in the lodge while others ski. But I haven't had a pair of skis on my feet since 1988, and it took me once, just once to figure out what it was that I was missing up there.
Granted, my first foray on the slopes was during a junior high field trip, and that may very well be the reason I haven’t gone since. You see, there is nothing quite like doing something – anything – in junior high when you don't know how and everyone else does.
There were three of us, two complete freaks and myself, who had to take "the lesson" on the T-bar while the rest of the 7th grade was out hopping moguls, shredding and basically being awesome.
The idea of the lesson was to teach us the basics and then set us free. Being reasonably athletic and from a family of skiers I thought I'd pick it up easily; compared to the freaks I would surely be a star pupil.
“The freaks” were two girls, one who refused to wipe her snot nose and the other who kept panicking and crying. The ski instructor was an old guy who probably only "taught" lessons for the free pass.
He was as irritated by them (us) as I was. He taught us snow plowing and a bunch of other stuff that I don't remember while we were on essentially flat ground.
He taught us all these things without poles and it seemed normal at the time – I figured you earned your poles at the end of class or something.
It wasn't long before he had talked the crying freak into quitting and spending the rest of the day in the lodge. At some point it became obvious that snot-nose and I were going to be harder to discourage.
Snot-Nose, it turned out, was a lot more determined than I thought. Sure, in my mind she was several rungs lower than I on the social ladder, but the kid had spunk. That or she thought I was the freak.
But how could she possibly think that? Was it the bright blue pair of ski pants I was wearing? The ski pants that MOTHER WORE IN HIGH SCHOOL?
(I knew it was a bad idea to listen to her that morning. To ease my reluctance at embracing those bellbottomed atrocities, my mother assured me that everyone on Schweitzer would be wearing these ski pants. She then cinched up the straps to the point that I had a major front wedgie – this was also necessary because my mother, even in high school, has always been tall.)
I had been able to combat the nerdy ski pants issue by wearing my hottest, tightest pair of stonewashed jeans underneath, coupled with teal eyeliner. I had a full bus ride of looking cool to remind the others that I had coolness running through my veins, even if I was wearing my mothers antiquated snow gear.
That’s right – that old craggy ski bum of a teacher wasn’t going to scare me into committing social suicide by going back to the lodge with the freaks. After the lesson, I would find my friends, we would find boys to torture and ski hills to conquer. Heck, my dad had told me that very morning that if I liked skiing he would take me up the next weekend. That ski instructor would have to earn his pass today.
Yes that’s the irony here. My dad is an awesome skier. AWESOME. He does flips and shit ON SKIS. Then he tears down the hill only to stop to drink fine liquors from his specialized flasks. A practice that he enjoys to this day.
I don't know why he never taught me to ski. Maybe he held me at as an infant, looked into my eyes and said, "this child will never be a skier," then moved briskly on to my brother and sister. Both of them ski, and yes, both of them are good at it. Oh well, it’s a question I don't ever ask. Sometimes it’s better not to have the answers.
Anyway, getting back to my junior high experience, after the ancient ski bum's tutorial he let us go on the T-bar hill/trail. I have heard a rumor that it's no longer a run at Schweitzer but honestly I don't know. What I do know is that when he set us free, Snot-Nose and I released a terror on that trail unlike any other.
First I realized that I didn't know how to stop – that is, unless I hit other skiers or trees.
Snot-Nose was my "buddy," and whether or not I liked it I was stuck with her for a few hours. I would quickly crash my way to the end of the run, and then pick up all of my mismatched early ’70s ski gear while she painstakingly snowplowed from one side of the run to the other – skis never pointing downhill, just side to side. It was maddening.
Then we would catch the T-bar together. The ski bum, of course, offered no guidance whatsoever.
After a couple of "runs" down the Bunny Hill, first blood was drawn. Snot-Nose and I were getting dragged up the T-bar when somewhere toward the middle of the drag she decided to – what, I don’t know? – sit down.
Anyway, it caused her to fall, then the bar to become un-balanced and I fell too. We started sliding backwards knocking mothers and children and other novices off the bars they were clinging to. Piles of people, people who were good enough to have poles were writhing around cussing and trying to get off the track.
One thing led to another, and I found myself on the side of T-bar trail holding my eyebrow. My glove was covered in blood – the blood was easy to see because my gloves were also a nice little gift from the ’70s a white pair of leather ski gloves with little American flag designs on them. Apparently my parents’ goal was to make me into such a geek that they would NEVER have to worry about me being cool enough to get into trouble.
Snot-Nose was concerned, but I was too cold and annoyed to care about the gash above my eye. I felt like such a failure, so I did what I had to do: I started laughing. Laughing so hard that it was maniacal, and Snot-Nose caught on and she started laughing too.
The lift operator stopped the T-bar – I SHIT YOU NOT – and sent some other weird guy out to reprimand us. You see, they thought that we had caused the drama on purpose.
Even Snot-Nose, who lacked the sense to wipe snot off her own face (snot that had crystallized and formed stalactites), had figured out that it was better that the world thought we had caused the scene on purpose.
Better to be the rebel than the freak that can't ski, right? Maybe old Snot-Nose had potential? I mean, with a little bit of Wet-n-Wild cosmetics, a Kleenex and a promise not to talk about horses or unicorns she might even be someone I could hang out with in public.
It wasn't meant to be, though. We trudged up to the lodge and she returned to her horsey clan and I returned to my friends – the "cool" people. Everyone asked about my eye, and I just laughed it off, telling them the story of how we purposefully knocked everyone down on the T-bar.
I still had my cool intact, thank God. Unfortunately I was cold, my ill-fitting ski gear wasn't helping, I didn't know how to stop, I didn't have the slightest idea how to use a chairlift and everyone at my table was talking about going on the "backside" to ski.
I didn't really know what that meant. I hadn't even earned my ski poles yet. Did you need them for the backside? No one seemed to know what I was talking about.
I had seen the Bunny Hill – it was pretty scary – so how much worse could the “backside” be?
To answer that. WAY MOTHER CHUNKIN’ WORSE. SCARIER THAN ANYTHING I HAD EVER SEEN BEFORE OR SINCE.
Yes, at 12-years-old, on my first day of skiing, my "good" friends took me to the back side of Schweitzer on some satanic run called "Down the Hatch," which basically was an ice covered drop off that went straight down, and then you were going so fast you went straight up for a while.
WTF?
I tried to ski that hill, I really did. After two collisions with other skiers I decided to walk. I walked down and then up the hatch – no use risking my life or another eyebrow. I was cold and wet. What was I thinking? These people were nuts. Skiing isn't fun. It’s scary.
Then the only way to get back to the front side was skiing on some weird track thing. Which I did just fine on until it came to the time I had to slow down and turn. I went right off the track and into some trees. One of my friends was kind enough to stop and dig me out. It was a bad wreck – a clump of my hair was in a tree branch, I lost one of my dad's fancy Isotones, my mom's ski pants had a rip in the ass.
When I got home I was going to pack my shit up and move out of that house. Those people could not call themselves parents… letting me go up to a place where I would surely meet my maker. At least my dad could have warned me about "Down the Hatch.”
Thankfully by the time I limped back to the lodge it was time to get back on the bus. I wadded up my garish outfit, tried to comb some hair over my fresh new bald spot and severed eyebrow, and left that hellish mountain with my ego still up there somewhere.
I've never been skiing since and I don't even like sledding. I have an aversion to anything where you are freezing and hurling down a hill at a million miles per hour and stopping is impossible. In fact, I don't even like to walk on ice. It’s who I am.
So the answer to my initial question – “to ski or not to ski” – is, was and forever shall be: I DON'T SKI.
I say this knowing that all you ski freaks are super stoked because this is going to be one hell of a winter "up on the hill." I don't wish you any ill will; last winter was "easy," this winter you win. Have fun.
But to all of you who are sending your kids to ski for the first time: Warn them about Down the Hatch and please, please, don't make them wear your ski clothes.
Scarred for life (no, literally, I still have a scar in my eyebrow),
Scarlette "I DON’T SKI" Quille
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