Skivana

Winter Park, CO 2016

dana gonzalez

Mostly every year when we break out all the ski gear that no longer fits anyone I am reminded of the colossal pain in the ass that is skiing. Yep, as a Coloradan, I just said that.

Like sleepovers, birthday parties, snow days and summer, there are some things you just don’t complain about but it has to be said, skiing can be a headache. Not that I didn’t grow to totally love it – ha see, you thought this was going straight into the toilet, didn’t you? Ya, so after losing the parents, discovering booze, and beardy resort people, the sport became more than tolerable.

As it is, though, now that I’ve introduced my children to the pastime, I’m reliving my youth as a popsicle, and understanding some of my parents’ approach.  It was divided evenly between ensuring they enjoyed A-frame time as if they didn’t have kids and ensuring they enjoyed it in spite of us. I now see that sacrifices were made but back then it was hard to see the forest for the skis.

I grew up skiing, in the East – Stowe, Killington, Lake Placid, Pico, Bromley, where I’m pretty sure the weather was governed by the mafia. It was  demanding, unforgiving and relentless. We skied old-school style, as in you get up before the angry dawn, ski all day long in spite of the weather, and come down on skis or in a body bag. No, my parents were not Gambinos. Just very. Very. Eager.

The fun part was the cabin, the bunk beds, cousins, the hot tub and the communal game room usually featuring a ping pong table with no balls, archaic spring-loaded exercise equipment and other assorted rec-room castaways.

The horrible part of the ski holiday for me was the actual skiing. Or rather, every single step leading up to the glory of being frozen, claustrophobic and breathing through a ski mask of frozen snot.

It hasn’t changed much. Aside from the expense, there is still the lugging and hauling. There are pairs of everything, which means you tend to have exactly one-half of your gear at any given time. You’ve got your schlepping and traipsing. Don’t forget endless waiting for “WHAT are we waiting for?!” There is, let’s see, not being warm or comfortable ever, and to pee, you have to molt layers of overpriced lycra, each with eight or nine secret compartments containing something you couldn’t find that morning.

Skiing has always caused inner hostility for me, on the acknowledgment that other people were at the very moment still in bed or enjoying hot mulled wine and the warmth of a fireplace down below. I was always a touch resentful that these same people were most definitely not being sandblasted by hailstones far above the tree line.

Now, as a ski-mom, I have to multiply the schlepping and waiting by about 10 for each kid. I subtract my own discomfort, add theirs times eight, add another shell of annoyance for the vocalization of their misery and I’m scraping the pleasure barrel.

On the one hand as a kid, you do a bit of donkey work and then you get to  head straight down a hill with no destination and no known manner of stopping. In a dress, apparently, as that’s what my daughter packed for this trip to the mountains. Bottom line: Total Gratification. On the other hand, if the kids aren’t happy – you get no joy at all. Sorry, there is the sadistic bit of snickering when, every time they bend over to pick up a ski, they drop a pole…it’s only human. But that’s hardly supportive. So, like my parents, I could ignore their tinny whining voices or  get them past the ugly to the good and less than bad.

Alas, the first day of  this year’s lessons featured a blinding snowstorm. After a few runs on our own, my Dad and I retired to the shelter of the lodge for drinks while we waited for the children to finish their studies. (We applauded their stamina, but as adults, we have earned the right to capitulate to bad weather.)

While in lessons, the kids discovered “Dilly Dally Alley,” and this became their immediate raison d’etre. The mission our next day was to get to Dilly Dally Alley. And ski it from sun-up to sundown. If it was sunny, that is. I am a spring skier for a reason.

Because, when I was little, most mornings all of the adults would get up  before sunrise and get their cranky on, knowing the many battles to be won before skis were even brought into play.

The men would begin selecting and packing the wine for lunch. The mothers made sure we kids started our day with a hearty breakfast of hot cereal destined to create the need to poo as soon as we zipped to the top our one-piece snowmobile suits. That’s right.

At this point, the parents would make it clear that we needed to be ready to go. They’d start rattling off things that come in pairs, of which we’d have like a collective nine items for the eight of us. About the rush to put the stuff on, we were confused. “It’s only 6:30…?”

We kids may have imagined something catastrophic would happen if we didn’t leave the cabin immediately. At least, the “no-time-left-to-lose” urgency on the part of the parents seemed motivated by the possibility of, maybe, the mountains getting up and leaving or um, let’s see. . . what could be catastrophic about not being on the mountain exactly when the lifts cranked into action. . . oh right. Nothing.

Being old-school, there were at minimum, three pair of socks involved in pulverizing the bones of our feet, once buckled into ski boots.  Having discontinued blood flow to these extremities, our feet would numb and we would cry. Our parents would instruct us to wiggle our toes. Oh, that movement had been possible.

What kids don’t realize – I certainly didn’t – is that the adults were part of the ski culture, and in order to enjoy it, they had to get us kids up and running. Ass-biting cold, serious discomfort, major inconvenience are all part of the package. They couldn’t help the get-ups, the stuffed-boot theory of warmth, knit face masks or the mounting pressure of trapped farts.

Anyway, they just wanted us to get past the bullshit and find what they had found. Skivana. The hard-won joy after the brutally masochistic demonstration of what goes up must come down, repeatedly, but in state-of-the-art equipment. For kids, as mentioned it’s just going down something, fast.

And for that, we had to get to a hill. When you’re young, walking in ski boots is the coolest thing. There’s a forced swagger in your step and it makes a very grown-up-serious bang and clatter. But there is also excruciating pain when you have to walk more than eight feet. Which we usually had to do, with our own skis and poles. From our “ski-on/ski-off cabin,” it would be a half mile to the slopes.

Commence finger-numbing, goggle-fogging, shin-splinting agony. Finally, we were ready to ski. Though already miserable, itchy and needing to poo we wanted to “go down” something.

This year with kids, I was worried that all the sherpa work of getting to the lift would be off-putting. Hell, I was put off. What’s with these boots? Did even my calves get fatter since last season? But, I put all my effort into distracting the young ones from observing other parents carrying their kids’ skis.

It took us a couple of hours but we did find Dilly Dally Alley. I recognized it for its totally un-skiable quality – these had been my favorite kind when I was three feet tall.

Hurtling is really the only word for it – and the kids were doing it gleefully. I passed through this mangled, iced-over, tree-strangled nostril of a trail with the grace of a three-wheeled shopping cart. I gritted my teeth to stop them thrashing down on my tongue, and decided finesse was out of the question. Barrel I would.

Smoke pouring off my angry thighs, I emerged, barely missing an unenlightened skier on exit. My children, excited to know if Poppa and I had loved their discovery, had actually waited for Dad and I on the other side. I felt like I’d been thrown up. They wanted to “go again.” And again, as it turns out, so we did. They were discovering Skivana! 

Adults – mine, anyway, didn’t get that once on the mountain all we wanted to do was ski. They would frolick about with bota bags, and cameras, dad with an iced-over mustache below his cowboy hat, everyone  laughing and cavorting and taking pictures of us kids freezing our asses off, and, for the love of all things Pacman, would they ever just ski already?!

Mixed in with the adult mirth and revelry, we’d also have to examine the map of the mountain, in case any one of us had missed the previous 47 viewings and despite the fact that there is only one way to “down. On the lift, my father would already have unfolded and blotted out most of the paper map with a gloved pointer finger, somehow discerning possible next routes before painstakingly refolding the thing and stowing it back in his pocket.  

More than skiing and tipping the bota bag, it seemed to me that the adults adored loitering on an icy precipice, while the wind lacerated all in its path, to consult the maze of “Wickedly Wizards,” “Tweedle Dees” and “Ho Hums” the resort had on offer.

They would then invariably select “Certain Death” as the ideal path back down to the tree line and off we would tumble, I, fantasizing about the kinds of injuries that might warrant one of those snowmobile things to zoom up and whisk me away.

Finally it would be time for lunch. Never mind that it took the adults 45 minutes to construct a sandwich, they would spend inordinate amounts of time over the wine. They were getting their Skivana on and all we could do was watch the snot melt on our ski masks.

I might have given up on the pastime, but bits and pieces of the ski culture caught up with me. First and foremost we lost the adults. We came of an age to discover The Flask, and also to enjoy the whole aprés ski tradition with vigor.

Turned out boys ski too! So, naturally, there was a brief ski bunny phase, which thankfully took place before the internet. We now we had the skikini element to keep us entertained as well as the organic party aspect and it all snowballed, if you will, into a legitimate hobby.

These developments along with my attendance at the University of Colorado, allowed important study time and book money to be funneled toward a pursuit that was literally, a family tradition and therefore, if not sanctioned, at least not openly forbidden. I became a very good skier.

Today, as a parent, in addition to the responsibility of making my children’s existence on the planet generally wretched, I am intent upon passing on to them the laboriously-won joy of skiing. I now get that one must begin early and endeavor often in order to acquire the skill, the discipline and the true appreciation for spending entire days without feeling your fingers and toes; enduring a pebble in a ski boot for hours on end, for carting skis hither and thither, for itching where you can’t scratch, being hungry when you can’t eat, cold when there is no warmth to be had, and needing to poo when there is no bathroom in the foreseeable future.

I get that as the adult, I need to draw a hard line in the snow. No we don’t take the lift back down. No, you cannot play on my phone while we ride up. Yes, if you pee in the snow I will leave you behind. I understand that waiting for people is not popular but necessary and that taking pictures for Facebook is a completely unwarranted use of hill time; smile! I will not cavort.

My plan is to entrust the bulk of my kids’ misery to ski instructors, whom I will gladly pay to undertake what could be my misery. We will be a ski family one way or another, and, I fantasize that once my little guys are able to throttle down the hill with minimal difficulty, they will earn a leisurely lunch with the adults on the deck of the lodge, watching us drink wine and gaze lovingly at the trail map.

Exhausted and weary we’d wrap up the day of Skivana and head for the hot tub. Me, not really caring what happened next as long as there were a solid 12 hours before I had to do this again. On our own schedule, at our own pace. I would also teach my children that part of the joy of skiing is not going anywhere fast.