How did you get started?

[RISkier]

I've posted versions of my intro to skiing in various versions, but just to bore folks again. My wife skied just a little bit back in her college days. Just enough to make her want to ski. We moved to RI about 6 years ago and she started pestering me and pestering me and pestering me to go skiing with her. Since I was pushing 50 I was most reluctant but one day I found myself driving to Gunstock while she calmly held a gun to my head. Gunstock had this screaming deal; 3 days of lessons + equipment rentals + liftickets for $109. I absolutely hated it the first day and would gladly have gone home and never looked back. But we had a nice dinner with a bit of wine and the scenery was pretty, and there was still that gun pointed at my head so... Something clicked on day 2 and I started having fun and all of a sudden we started doing day trips almost every weekend. And my wife could even put the gun away. This will be our 5th year of skiing. I lost most of my 2nd year due to a pretty goofy injury. Took me some time to really get comfortable skiing again, but... Skiing has kind of become our thing. We've done a trip to Utah and two trips to Austria and plan another trip West (probably CO) this winter. Lessons and mileage have really improved our skiing though I have a long long way to go.

 

[askstowell]

I started 3 years ago because of my daughter. She took a lesson at age 6, took to it, and I figured I'd better learn before I wouldn't be able to keep up with her.

 

[hammer]

I'm seeing a lot of responses from people who only have a few seasons of experience...it's good to see that I'm not the only relative newbie/gaper around here...:wink:

 

[skibum9995]

I didn't really have a choice. My moms side of the familly is all hardcore skiers, my uncle is a GM of an area out west and used to live with the Mahre twins, my grandfather is 80 and still skis multiple times per week. My parents bought me gear and a pass to Sunapee before I even went once so luckily I loved it right away and took to it naturally.

 

[bigbog]

learning to ski later in life...

Learned to ski on my own(somewhat!;-)) in the 1980s:smile: ...while living in the Boston suburbs. Began on Thanksgiving wkend @Killington 1983. PT college courses & work M-F in Boston...however work ended ~4:30pm, and after having changed into ski clothes to work last two hours out in college parking lot, would jump into little Toyota and motor out to Wachusett for 6-10pm night sessions at $8/night:grin: What a change in attitude, especially in regards to Winter weather...and still with $$$ in one's wallet.

 

[skiprob]

Winter 1972-73

I was nine.

The local congressman had a J-bar installed on this ridiculously tiny little hill next to the state run golf course between Morristown and Ogdensburg NY. The lodge and the upper lift house are still there. The site is now used for cross country skiing.

My mom was struggling with being a single mother of four. Some of her friends talked her into trying out skiing as a family activity.

So she pieced together these setups of borrowed and used equipment for me and my three sisters. I think we did buy some ski equipment from the local marina as well. For some reason, Americana bindings come to mind.

Anyway, my first time was at this place. I stood there and cried and refused to go down. On of my mother's friends came up to me and said, "Look over there. I bet you can go down that part of the hill."

I did.

I never thanked that woman. I often thank my mom.

After that my mom would ship us off on the CYO bus trips to Big Tupper and maybe, if we were lucky, Whiteface.

 

[zook]

I think it was about 10 years ago when my father first promised me that he'll teach me how to ski....

My father used to ski back in Poland when he was in high school, really liked the sport. He then stopped because we were living too far from any mountain. After he moved to US he was once invited to Mountain Creek by hi friends of his and remembered how much he liked it. So ever since then we were making plans that one day we'll go together and he'll teach me.

So years passed by and I was still clueless about the sport. About two years ago I met some friends that were skiers and I decided that I just have to make it happen for myself. So one very cold day in December 2004 - what a nice christmas gift I got myself - I forced my husband to drive me to Hunter (I love their $89 beginner packages) and I've been hooked ever since.

At the end of previous season I forced my father to go skiing with me and now we both have passes at Windham and go every Sunday. The funny thing is he is even more obsessed with skiing than I'm right now. All summer long he is browsing ski related websites and complaining that winter is too far away

My mom (53) has never skied in her life. Last season I gave her couple of tips on a bunny hill and now she's hooked too. She's riding the easiest green trail over and over and she's very happy.

Now I just need to convince my husband to give it another try - maybe I have to put a gun to his head - Thanks for the tip RISkier

 

[skidbump]

I was 18 when i first went..hunter ..some blow,weed and beer.Went a few more times a yr for the party"76-85"...Then one sunday at a friends trailer watching football with the same blow,weed and beer thing going i decided that there was more to life than this and started skiing 1 day every weekend with wife and as kids were born and got older with kids..kids now 21,17...wife is ex and doesnt ski ..remarried to present wife who will ski 3 days a week...last yr she got 49 days to my 69..Oh and i stopped doin the blow

 

[RISkier]

zook,

You've got to get him started now! One of the really great things for us is that we basically started together are are very similar in terms of skills. We ski together, we take lessons together, we plan trips together. Deciding to go to Austria the first time was basically just one of those goofy ideas that had a life of it's own. I knew she had wanted to go to Europe. We started looking at guide books to pick a place to go out West and Lech Austria looked really good, and bingo. It's been a great mid-life adventure for us. So get him out and get him lessons so he can catch up. I predict he'll love it if you can get him past the first experience. BTW, my wife hasn't needed the gun for several years so I suspect she'd loan it to you.

 

[maplevalleymaster]

I actually hated skiing when I started at age seven or eight. My parents had to drag me out there. It is hard to believe I was like that judging on how I am now.

 

[loafer89]

I started skiing in February 1982 at Vernon Valley/Great Gorge as my brother had already been skiing since the late 1970's and decided to teach me. I quickly fell in love with skiing, snow and mountains and was skiing in Summit County Colorado in 1983-1984 in March, April and May. In July 1985 my parents sent me to summer ski camp in Europe and I skied in Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland for the whole month.

I have started my son out at age 23 months and so far he has 4 1/2 years of skiing experience, and we wil be skiing together alot more now that we will be living closer to the mountains.

 

[wintersyndrome]

Skiing:
In Fifth or Sixth grade I took a bus trip up to Jiminy Peak with my school. Took lessons, rented some Elans with Saloman 727 bindings and hit the massachusetts alps...
I had wanted to go on the ski trip becasue my older brother had been doing the school trips for the past three years and it always sounded so cool. So our schools had the same trip scheduled, and we ended up running into each other somwhere near the Base Lodge, He convinced me that there was an "easy green trail" from the top. Riding our way up the old triple chair lift over upper and lower fox i got the distinct impression that he knew there were no "Easy Green trails from the top" at least not from this lift. So he says to just follow him. which i do slowly making turns using the wedge technique. feeling comfortable I continue to follow him, and then (to my eyes those days), the bottom of the hill fell out and I was doing 90mph down the hill I had to fall just to slow down. About an hour later I made it down the hill thinking to myself that "doing the difficult stuff first helps me learn quicker". Kind of like when dad sent us out dinghy sailing in real heavy breeze (the method to his madness being he wanted us to learn how the boats handle in case we were out alone and it just picked up out of no-where) so looking back, I could tell where my older brothers educational theory for my skiing instruction was based.


Snowboarding:

After a few years of skiing I got to the point where I wasnt falling anymore and being the glutton for punishment that I am I decided to take up snowboarding for two reasons:
A.) It always looked cool and I was at the age we're looking cool mattered (17)
B.) I needed a way to remove myself from my brothers shadow becuase he could always ski better than I could, (though i was always in more control of my skiing, evident from his multiple concussions)
C.) Hey I surfed and most of the guys who surfed in HS were starting to get into snowboarding over skiing, a HS cliquey "keeping up with the Jonses" if you will

So I rented a burton and spent the day at "Kelly Irish Alps" falling alot until it just clicked, the turns came together, i had control of my edges, dragging knuckles and hammering down runs on a snowboard faster, in more control, and having more fun than when I was skiing...Instantly I was hooked it took all of 3-1/2 hours to make the transition from skiier to snowboarder. I was able to go snowboarding a few more times that season, but still without a board, well fate must have been on my side. I entered a raffle at a local Surf Shop and won an Apocalypse 150 Fuse...the rest is a long story

 

[Birdman829]

April 11th and 12th, 1992. I was 4 years old. It was at Sugarloaf. My parents have a trail map from back then in my baby book. They marked it with the dates, and put brackets around my favorite trails. The Landing, Lower Guage, Lower Winter's Way, Boardwalk, Birches Slope/Snowbrook (I liked skiing through the tunnel, my dad hated it because it often involved skating for him).

 

[kingslug]

My wife made me do it. She said if I didn't learn I would be alone on weekends. I had gone twice earlier in life, and hated it. It took a year of crashing on solid ice at Vernon Valley before I starting getting the hang of it. It clicked at Belleayre and I was hooked. She created a monster. It was funny that I started skiing after one of the best winters in history, when we had one of the worst droughts in history.

 

[Razor]

Grew up poor. Skiing was something that rich people did. We spent winter playing pond hockey. Later, playing high school then D-1 college hockey, skiing was not an option. I went up once my senior year of college after the season ended, but I was drunk most of the time and had lousy rental equipment. After I got married, my wife shamed me into going. She grew up in the Berkshires and was a real good skier. It killed me that my wife could do any athletic activity better than me. I didn't really enjoy it that much until I got some 150 K2s, the ones with the red, white and blue stripes. This was back in the early 70s when the GLM method was popular. With the shorter skis and the crossover benefit from skating, I started improving. Now we ski everything together, from moguls to steeps to trees. We're retired now and get 40-50 days in a year midweek. We're still improving (and there's still much room for improvement). Wish I had started much sooner.

 

[cyrk007]

my parents live in a cabin in the woods. I grew up skiing back country runs in my backyard when I was 4-5.. then when i went in 4th grade with a school program after my first lesson I played hooky from the group, I jumped on the lift to the summitt, and the rest is history.

 

[Jonni]

My mom and dad originally both worked at Mt Sunapee. It was kind of a natural thing, as skiing was the best baby sitter. I started skiing at age 3.

 

[Mapnut]

I grew up in Maine and loved playing in the snow, but didn't take up skiing until I was 16. We had some old wooden skis of my father's and occasionally slid on them down little hills near home. But that doesn't count. We had our own pond and were into hockey. One year there was so much snow, we got sick of shoveling off the pond. My father said we should try skiing instead. We learned on the little rope tow slope at Eaton Mountain, and made it up to Sugarloaf by the end of our first year.

 

[YardSaleDad]

My ex-wife was ill two years ago, and could not take my boys skiing. I had never skied before in my life. They had been skiing six seasons at that point. So I gritted my teeth and went with them to Butternut on MLK day in 2005. Even in that holiday insanity, I got bit by the bug the very first time. Friends and family were very patient with me as I struggled to "catch up". I am looking forward to my first full season able to ski the whole mountain. I am even planning to try that snowboard thingy too

 

[SkiDork]

Buck Hills Falls - Poconos PA.. 1965...

Mom and Dad take us down to the golf course in winter... where they had a poma lift set up...


Hey - they're doing this thing called "skiing" - lets try it out...

The rest is history..