skiing lessons: day one

on free expertise, ski-bums, and thrill-chasing

On day one of learning how to ski, I traveled down an expert run.

But I didn’t ski it. I bombed down the run while clinging to my best friend’s brother’s back like a spider-monkey, screaming down the mountainside.

Early that morning, Archer and his girlfriend Milly invited me out to ‘show me the basics’. I didn’t think a double black diamond was in the cards. Neither did they.

“Whoops,” he remarked with a laugh, peering down the face of the jagged, icy bluff. “We took a wrong turn!”

Archer was born and raised in a ski-town by lifelong skiers, and thus possessed borderline superhuman abilities. He’d ‘send it’ off cliffs, bomb down expert runs, and casually do backflips off ski park jumps. He bragged about skiing in Japan, and had a GoPro attached at all times to his helmet.

After graduating college with a business degree, Archer moved back to his hometown and became a ski-shop manager.

He’s who I’d normally call a ski bum under any other circumstance, but he doesn’t quite fit the description. Mostly, it’s because he’s not arrogant. Secondly, I can’t blame him for his ski-bummy qualities if he grew up on skis, especially since he always stayed humble about the leg-up. Archer shreds for the love of the gnar, not to prove that he can. When I met him, he wanted to share the thrill with everyone.

Moving to Colorado from Washington, I’d never skied before, nor entertained the concept—too rich for my blood. I wasn’t big into outdoor sports, either. Yet my barista work came with a reimbursed ski pass, and I could borrow gear through my friend’s family. All I really needed was an instructor.

The morning Milly and Archer invited me out, I agreed to join them on a whim; for the spontaneity of the choice, for the love of something new. When in Colorado, do as the Coloradans do. Why not?

Why not indeed. I repeated this bastardized phrasing out loud at the freezing peak of an expert-level run, where the only way down was through. After announcing a ‘wrong turn’ padded by nervous laughter, Archer gestured at me to hand him something.

“Here, Milly can carry your skis, and I’ll carry you down.”

I didn’t understand.

“You, carry me? On skis?”

“Yeah, you’ll be on my back.”

I could only laugh. I imagined us leaping over the bluff, Archer’s skis promptly disintegrating on impact due to the weight I’d be placing them under.

“No way. We’ll die.”

Archer wasn’t concerned. “Take off your skis and come here, we’ll be just fine! Trust me.”

the skis i bravely relinquished

Before kindly carrying my skis down the mountainside, Milly emphasized his talent, one I wasn’t accustomed to doubting before.

“I can do this. Don’t worry,” Archer doubly assured me with a long, kind stare. With no other way out, I decided to believe it.

Right as I climbed onto his back, he pushed right off.

We picked up speed immediately, flying past the iceberg-tips of spiky boulders, across wiry tangles of bushes, and underneath towering pine trees. He darted through these obstacles with an ease that made me feel invisible.

My screams melted into wild laughter as I grew increasingly certain we actually weren’t careening to our deaths, and I could actually enjoy the ride.

Looking around me, I was stunned by the view. Giant firs bowed as they passed; their lofty wings weighted by thick clots of ice. Sudden breezes scattered glitter from their branches, bidding a friendly hello and goodbye at once.

We sailed across a bonafide winter wonderland, and I experienced the kind of exhilaration that I felt taking flight might inspire in birds; the pleasure of a confident fall.

Once we reached the bottom of the run, I was completely sold on skiing. All I wanted was to do was go back up.

“I told you I could do it,” he made sure to remind me with confidence. I pretended to kiss the snowy ground below us.

Milly, Archer and I would go skiing almost every weekend to follow, even into ‘mud season’. They had boldly revealed the thrill of skiing that, on my own, I would’ve quickly given up chasing or never discovered in the first place.

I’m the type that must succeed at my first attempts at something in order to have fun, and if I’m not, will soon be crushed to conclude (as I always do) that ‘I must be naturally bad at this.’

Archer understood this fact about me. He coached me as if I was already a capable skier. Actually, a great skier, as he often had me repeat.

“You’re a great skier! You can do this! Don’t look down the hill, keep your eyes on me!” This pseudo-brother and my ski instructor of mine would patiently rinse and repeat these little phrases, guiding me in zig-zags through beginner-level runs that I’d clear at a snail’s pace. I used to cry after enough falls in a single day, and despite the fact he could’ve abandoned me each time to do backflips on double-black runs, he stayed by my side and explained to me where I went wrong.

For the first time in my life, I listened fully to his advice because I believed he was right about something: I can do this.

By mud season, I could keep up with him and Milly. Soon, I could ski intermediate runs by myself.

His confidence in my ability, real or fake, never wavered. It strengthened my confidence in myself as a skier and as a person.

Archer’s voice still rings in my ears when I ski, though I haven’t spoken to him in years.

“Bend your knees! Lean forward! Legs closer together, eyes on your path!”

And, anytime I’m staring uncertainty in the face, teetering atop the unknown mountaintops of life:

“You can do this!”

- Constanze