Last time I went downhill skiing was as a kid, let's say around 1979, which gives my efforts at skiing this last weekend something of a Rip-van-Winkle quality. Here's a short list of things that have changed in the last 26 years:
1) Snowboards
Snowboarders are ubiquitous. Every other person on the mountain has both feet strapped to a single board instead of two. I must say that despite how cool any individual snowboarder manages to be, the activity itself looks quite dorky. Especially when they unstrap one boot to limp sideways onto the lift and back to the top of the hill where they plop on their butts to do their straps up again.
On the other hand the snowboarders have the advantage in the lodge since their boots are more flexible than any downhill ski boot. They can almost walk normally while we have to perform that characteristically awkward goosestep.
2) Lifts
The lifts are fast -- really fast. And they carry four people instead of the two or perhaps three of my day. The interesting things about the fast lift technology is that no one seems to worry about ganging together to share the resource. In the old days we'd cry out "single!" and hope that another unpaired person from back in the line would come forward to get to the top sooner so we could avoid the stigma of being a lone person using a chair that could hold two. With fast chairs (and short lines) I felt no shame taking a whole 4-wide chair to myself.
3) Equipment
The skis I had in the '70's were at least as long as me, narrow, straight and had a grove down the middle, I guess for stability. The skis I got at the rental shop were stubby, no taller than my chest, with blobby spoon-shaped tips and perfectly flat along the bottom. My friend told me they had a "hyperbolic" shape which would make them easier to turn. The bindings had numeric settings which the technician simply adjusted to my weight and boot size without having to do any fiddling.
They glided across the snow like I had some kind of natural effervescence. I skied the best I have ever done after a quarter century. I was gawky and nonathletic in those days, and it's taken my until middle age to realize that I have some physical talents. But could it really be me that I was really that much better after all those years of not practicing? I blame the technology.
What hasn't changed:
1) Mountains
The Sierra Nevadas are some of the most amazingly beautiful mountains I have ever seen. That includes the Rockies, the Alps and the Appalachians. Some of those ranges may have a lock on sheer majesty, on certain days, but on any clear day in the Sierras you more more plain beauty than you can find in bigger or older mountain ranges in a week. And Saturday was very, very clear.
2) Community
People still think nothing of detaching their very expensive ski equipment, leaning it against a rack or just jamming it into a snow bank, and walking into the lodge. Somehow I figured in the 21st century there would be rows of ski lockers, or boards would have cables or chains to lock to poles like bicycles. Not only the skis themselves, but backpacks, boots and jackets would be left unattended while their owners got a beer or ate nachos smothered in something that resembled an elastic orange polymer. Overall the feeling continues to be one of cooperation as a community of users of a shared resource, not of competition to somehow get more enjoyment or better gear than someone else.
3) Kids
I loved the snow as a kid. I loved playing in it, sinking into piles of unknown depth, shaping it into men or missiles. I loved coming in from the cold to get warm and dry by the fire, watching the snow fall in cottony swirls, the fluffy drifts accumulating to soften every sharp feature and loud noise. Although the experience of being a child is gone, I now have the opportunity to share snow with my daughter, and play and get warm and watch it fall along with her and our other friend's children. The feeling is just as rich and pleasurable on this side of the generational divide.
- jack*
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