What did you do in Winter before you started skiing/boarding?

[billski]

When I was a kid I always liked the snow, but my parents didn't have the means to get
us involved with expensive sports like hockey, skiing, skating, etc. For the most part, as
a kid, we built snow forts, tunnels and the like. The best was sledding was down a particularly treacherous hill (or road) that often times emptied out into another road. (If my mother only knew!) The mean kid on our street used to put rocks inside snowballs and fight dirty during snowball fights.

My favorite memory of fall turning to winter was when the puddles would freeze over and we would insist on cracking every single one on the walk to school, inevitably making us late for school :dunce:

What did you do?

 

[skidmarks]

Breast Feed! A little sledding too

 

[Sparky]

Lots of sleight riding, until the age where it became uncool.

 

[bvibert]

I always loved playing in the snow, but never liked snowball fights (even without rocks). We were always out building forts or sledding or whatever. We even used to do 'glade' sledding behind my friends house, that was a trip. I started skiiing in the 4th grade and stopped for a bunch of years starting sometime in highschool for several reasons. Even during that long hiatus I loved snow and longed to get back out on skis.

 

[WWF-VT]

When I was a kid we had a great time sledding, building snow forts, snowball fights and there were always lots of kids outside in the neighborhood. After college I used to go on ski trips with friends and I was a professional at keeping the beers cold and the fire warm until one day in my late twenties I got out and skied. Now I can't imagine what life would be like in the winter without going to the mountain every weekend. I hate when people whine about the winter weather and being stuck inside.

 

[Warp Daddy]

B4 downhill -- it was XC, B4 XC it was toboganning and pond hockey. b4 then it was snow forts and snowball wars

 

[jaywbigred]

Lots of sleight riding, until the age where it became uncool.

Hmm, I missed that memo. Sledding is still fun, if you can't ski (see: grad school in Ohio), coolness be damned I guess.

Before I started skiing (~12 years old) I played a lot of indoor soccer, sledded, and went to a lot of NJ Devils games with my Dad. Skiing eventually soaked up a lot of the hockey ticket cash, so we went to less Devils games as a result.

 

[Trekchick]

Was there life before skiing?
Hmmmmm, who knew?

 

[Mapnut]

Ditto to sledding, snow-forts and all that great stuff. An occasional snowshoe hike with my dad. We actually had a couple pairs of wooden skis and leather boots that Dad had bought in the late 40s; he learned to ski a little at a NELSAP rope tow hill but didn't keep it up. We occasionally put on the skis and slid down hills on them; it was just another thing to do in the snow (which I seem to remember was always abundant back then, around 1965, in Sidney, Maine). I even entered a short cross-country race in my 8th grade Winter Carnival, and came in maybe fourth.

But our major activity was hockey. We had our own pond, which we spent many hours keeping shoveled off. We played in the Peewee and Bantam leagues in Waterville (Colby College's frigid Alfond Arena). We skated on the pond almost every day after school, and had pick-up hockey games with a few friends. We kept it up until the ice got irretrievably messed up by some combination of rain-snow-freeze, usually late February.

Finally in 1968, it snowed so much that we had to give up on the pond early, and Dad said, "Why don't we take up skiing?" It was off to Eaton Mountain, then Sugarloaf and we were hooked. Still shoveled the pond and played hockey, of course. I think all that skating made it easier to learn to ski.

 

[wa-loaf]

I've been skiing since i was 2 so that's always been there. But when my dad stopped working at the Loaf and started up a restaurant (on top of being a German Professor) the skiing was cut way back. So there was the usual sledding, fort building, pond/lake skating, and xc skiing.

 

[billski]

A common theme is quickly emerging here - being outdoors. I cannot imagine spending all winter inside!

 

[billski]

Was there life before skiing?
Hmmmmm, who knew?

Guess you missed the altar call! :razz:

 

[skiadikt]

sure sledding, ice skating & snowball fights as a kid but once i got into my teens i came to dislike cold. however once i discovered skiing in my early 20's i became a winter junkie. couldn't get enough cold & snow.

 

[RootDKJ]

I didn't start skiing until I was around 12, but I always remembered getting excited when I snowstorm came because, even as a pre-skier, snow = fun. In my post college / early career years (94-01) I couldn't really afford skiing so I'd just get baked instead. It probably didn't help that the girl I was dating at the time hated everything to do with snow/cold/fun.

In 2001, when I became a skier again, the very first thing that crossed my mind as I got off the lift and started my first turns as an adult was "why did I ever give this up?".

 

[Glenn]

Sledding and ice skating. I started skiing when I was 11 or 12.

 

[witch hobble]

One winter of basking in the sustenance of amniotic fluid. One winter of crying and crawling under cafeteria tables. By the end of the following winter I was tromping around Boyne Mtn's base area with cut off xc skis and going for rides in the backpack, which was called the "papoose". I have no memories of life before skiing.

 

[eastcoastpowderhound]

I was breast fed, crapped my diapers. and napped in the down east ski club lodge...started skiing at 3....like witch hobble, no memories of life before skiing.

 

[umby]

don't remember really? Started skiing when I was six. I didn't really ski from the time I went into college until I graduated. I went to school at QU just outside of New Haven, none of my friends skied much... beer and hot Quinnipiac girls took up most of my time during the winter... hot, drunk, and slutty college girls oh how I miss them...

I did a year or two of snowmobiling... very expensive and redneck-ish hobby... but some serious fun!

 

[Smellytele]

Drank, smoked and bumper skied then I turned 12 and started the down hill stuff.

 

[boston_e]

Like most I guess: Sledding, x-country skiing, and ice skating / hockey.

I think I went skiing for the first time at age 9 or 10.