You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Tennessee skiing.
Skiing in the volunteer state is the equivalent of scuba diving in the Hudson. It’s murky and finding dead carcasses is not beyond the scope of possibility.
Is it fun? Of course it is. But it takes a while to get to fun.
Skiing unlike most sports is a labor of love.
Basketball takes a ball and a court. Done.
All you need for Bowling is a lane and a ball – Done.
Football, another guy who can throw and catch, done
Skiing. You need boots and skis and gloves. You need goggles and ski pants and a hat. You need a lift ticket, you need a mountain.
Most of all, when you ski you need lots and lots of money. It costs money to get there, to be prepared to ski, and ultimately to ski.
Once you are on the chair lift, headed up the mountain, your skis dangling under you, skiing is great, the worries of the world forgotten. But getting to that moment can be a bitch.
I recently took the kids to Gatlinburg. It’s a tourist town with a hill some 2,500 feet above sea level.
It’s a 4 hour drive to begin with, so you have to want to get there.
The hill is in Tennessee and the weather is all over the map. It’s in the 40’s and it’s spitting rain. The forecast is NOT for snow.
Will there be any runs open? who knows.
Every time the windshield wiper screeches across the glass, I think to myself; we will never ski today.
We arrive in the story book town created by Ripley’s Believe it or not. There are people everywhere sporting silly hats that look like bears and raccoons. There is a pedestrian traffic jam of crazy looking humans meandering down the sidewalk. Every block seemingly has a flapjack restaurant and a fat family who doesn’t need to eat at another flapjack restaurant.
We enter the Gondola. There is a surprising number of foreigners.
The cable car begins the 13 minute trek up the mountain.
The Gondola is conducted by a crazy Cajun telling us about local homes that are built on stilts and roads that wind up the mountain that tear up your transmission.
As we near the top, the rain turns to snow pellets. The hill is turning white. There is a wave of excitement in the cable car.
We are excited to begin the adventure.
We bounce into the ski rental shop and our excitement grinds to a halt.
A young man with dark skin and wavy hair like Elvis stares at us.
“Have you been helped?” he says. His accent is foreign. Most of his words seemed strained.
I tell him that we want to rent ski’s, snowboards, boots and bibs.
He stares at me awkwardly and asks me more questions with an accent so unusual, I’m wishing the Cajun running the cable car could translate.
Turns out the guy is part of a work study group here from Brazil. The idea is to learn English.
What?
Learn English while the all mighty dollar is being threatened?
This is a first point of contact. This is where skiers come to hand over their hard earned money to purchase equipment and lift tickets.
We’re here to have fun I repeatedly tell myself.
The young man calls the manager to assist us. It wastes 15 extra minutes. I am getting a little steamed. But the kids are holding their equipment, so I relax.
The kids are lugging snow boards and big boots. They are wearing a Michelin man amount of clothing. They are bright faced and sweaty.
I haven’t been skiing in almost 20 years. I forgot how hard all of this can be.
The boots weighing you down, holding your ankles tight. It’s like walking in quick sand with small anchors tied to your legs.
The layers and sweaters and ski jackets and ski bibs. It’s hot as hell. I’m broiling like a chicken in an arm pit. I find myself constantly wiping away the sweat and growing increasingly uncomfortable.
We get outside and the air is considerably colder. The ice pellets are like tiny mosquitoes stinging our faces with little sewing needles.
I lead the kids to the snow board lesson area. They are excited but a little nervous. The minute they put the boards on they begin to fall. They spend so much energy just trying to stand. Once they get upright, so much energy is expended trying to stay balanced.
“This is so much harder than skiing,” my daughter will say 10 times.
I am walking in man made slush on a hill that has brown muddy spots everywhere. I am not sure I am having fun.
I need to find some fun. Standing here watching people try and stand is not fun. I tell the kids I’ll be right back.
I have the skis on my shoulder. I have the poles on my shoulder. I am walking like a snow zombie trying to trudge forward. One awkward lunge of the leg after the next. God I hate walking in snow boots.
I get to a clump of snow without mud and throw my skis down.
I step into them uneasily.
SNAP
The bindings lock me in. Quick sand gives way to smooth glide.
I bend and thrust my poles into the snow and propel myself forward.
woosh.
I’m floating on an icy path.
I slide into the ski lift line and trudge forward with the rest of the novices who are barely able to stand up right.
I get to the red line and bend slightly. I let the chair slide under my knees and with a single rock, we are airborne, heading up the small bunny hill, the only trail open.
The 5 minute ride is relaxing, easy. Nothing to do but take in the night filled with spitting ice pellets banging me in the pupils.
Sure wish I had remembered to rent some goggles.
I get to the top where I am met by Father time in a Gatlinburg ski coat.
“exit to the right,” he says his words stifled through his bird’s nest sized beard.
I feel the hill under my skis. I feel gravity tugging at me. I remember simple lessons like weight on the down hill ski and proper placement of poles.
Like riding a bike it all begins to come back.
The hill is steep but short. It is littered with snow board fools. Some people think they are X game bound, others are inept, simply trying not to eat bark off the nearby wood line.
I get down the hill in 30 seconds. A little satisfaction courses through my veins. I didn’t fall. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t skied in 20 years.
I head to the training hill where I find the kids laboriously huffing and puffing. They are on a training hill, going 3 mph.
Some times they make it, but most of the time they fall.
“Having fun?” i ask my youngest. “No,” he says his face bright red from exhaustion.
“Skiing is so much easier,” my daughter shouts from her back, the board spread outward awkwardly beneath her.
I watch for a while as the snow pellets continue to belt us all in the face.
I feel the rental boots slicing into my shins.
“That’s gonna leave a mark,” I mutter to myself.
“I’ll be back in 5” I say. Nobody is listening.
I glide back to the lift line and wait. The chair hits my knees. The easy rock and the tug and we are once again aloft.
I head back up the mountain. I feel the freedom, the cold, the memories come swirling back.
I skied a lot as a young man. I grew up in California where there are many options East of the Pacific.
Tennessee skiing, well it is a joke compared to the West.
I have skied all the resorts around Lake Tahoe, and Grand Targee and Jackson Hole in Wyoming. I’ve skied Sun Valley in Idaho. These are the slopes where Gods come to ski. The powder is perfect and the sun always shining.
I’ve heard people from the East coast talk about skiing.
No offense people, but West Virginia and Vermont are nothing more than rocks covered by ice with a lodge and hot cocoa at the bottom of the run.
I zip back to the scene of the crime. The snow board lesson finally ends.
The kids are mostly whining now. They are tired. They are sweaty. Their new ski coats are covered with wet and frost and mud.
The kids are moping and don’t seem as excited as you would expect.
“Come on let’s make a run,” I say. “There’s no way to learn other than to learn.”
So we trudge to the lift line. The kids are asking how they get on. How they get off.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say.
The four of us ride up the mountain. It is spitting needles. The kids are shivering, and I wonder how it is going to go.
We get to the top and everyone stands. It is uneasy to say the least.
Gravity takes hold and we begin to accelerate. The two big kids wipe out off the lift. I grab a hold of the little one and hold him up by his jacket as we maneuver out of harm’s way.
I wait for them to inch their way to the crest of the hill and the slow motion falling down the mountain begins.
It is not pretty to watch.
As soon as they stand, they pick up an alarming amount of straight line speed and then wipe out. The wipe outs are gargantuan, like snow men falling out of a moving car.
We get to the bottom and I ask if they are OK.
“My head got smashed,” the oldest says.
“My ankle is twisted,” the girl says.
The youngest seems without injury.
“Again?” I querry.
Ok they say.
And up we go.
And we come down and go up and come down and go up.
All in all, it is a great evening. The girl is limping badly, but the boys had fun and I think they want to do it again sometime soon.
That’s good to know.
So much energy to make it happen. It’s a nice feeling that the effort was appreciated.
and that is crazy.