By Brad Northrup
Cover photo courtesy of Bri Loveall
What started out as a fantastic season for me kinda went south around the holidays. As I may have mentioned in previous articles, Sunday is the day my better half and I spend time together on the mountain, and we always look forward to the weekend no matter the conditions. Now I would be lying if I said every Sunday was magical, but we try and have as good of a time as possible. Well, at least she does.
Unfortunately, my partner in crime managed to tweak her knee during a non-skiing activity, thus leaving me to my own devices on our sacred day. Being the selfish dirtbag skier I am, I ventured out alone, forced to mingle with my fellow skiers and riders. Despite the fact that I detest most of humanity, I actually enjoyed chatting with complete strangers that were just trying to enjoy themselves on the hill. But man, some of the things I heard this season nearly made me wet my knickers and head straight for the bar.
If you made it up to any of our local resorts during the early portion of the season, you know that visibility was, well . . . challenging. With the sheer amount of moisture we received, foggy conditions were the norm, and some days it made skiing downright difficult. On one of those especially miserable days where you had to stop frequently and violently scrape the frozen fog from your goggles, I actually had a guy tell me that “It’s really not that bad.” Oh yeah? As someone who considers themselves a competent skier, it should not take me nearly half an hour to go from summit to base. And when I finally did get to what appeared to be the bottom lift, I should not have to question how the hell I made it down at all. Just sayin’.
On a day during the usual January dry spell, I rode the lift with a really nice couple that were visiting from out of town. Both were rocking super wide powder skis, despite that the fact it had not snowed in weeks and conditions were hard and fast and ripping groomers was the only game in town. Glancing at the race carvers I had strapped to my feet, one of them sneered “Why are your skis so skinny?” After providing a short but riveting lecture on the physics of skiing and how narrower, race-constructed skis perform better on hard snow, I could literally hear their eyes glaze over, and one of them had the audacity to basically tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I later ran into them midway through a run, and they both confessed that maybe I was on to something.
Halfway through an absolutely gorgeous bluebird day, I jumped on the chair with a dad and his son who looked to be about seven or eight years old, who I will call Jimmy. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, I asked Dad how the day was treating him. He explained that he was working with his son to improve his skiing, but Jimmy was having a hard time getting out of a snowplow and into parallel skiing. After telling Dad that I had spent a good chunk of my adult skiing career coaching kids, I gave him some fun drills to try out to help facilitate Jimmy’s transition. Dad just looked at me and muttered “The kid just won’t listen.” I laughed and asked Jimmy if that was true. Without missing a beat, little Jimmy smiled and said, “Nah, my coach just sucks.” The last five minutes of that chairlift ride went by in blissful silence.
Brad Northrup is a former ski racer, coach, and ski industry professional. He is no longer allowed to go skiing by himself.
