This just isn’t for me (pt. 2)

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If you read my column last week, you found out that you’d probably have a better chance at finding me wearing a suit made out of steaks in a lion enclosure at a zoo than snowshoeing again after my experience with it two weekends ago.

The second part of that trip, consisted of skiing at Big Powderhorn Mountain near Bessemer, MI. I’ll spare you the trouble of reading to the end and just let you know now that this didn’t go very well either. We went skiing with three other couples who had all either skied before and some grew up playing hockey, which I came to find out involves similar mechanics to skiing.

We went from our cabin rental to the chalet early in the morning to get our rentals and get ready to hit the slopes. I had been snowboarding before and enjoyed that so I was thinking this would be a similar experience.

We got outside, strapped our boots to the skis and were ready to head to the lift. However, there was one problem. I didn’t know how to move forward on skis. I was told it was like ice skating and although that might be true, I had never ice skated on a surface that wasn’t completely level. Eventually, we made it to the lift.

Here began the second test. The lift stops for no one. My wife and I, both first time skiers, were on the same lift chair. The chair came swinging around the curve as we were scurrying to get into place so we could get swept away. The problem was, we didn’t make it in time. My wife bounced off the lift chair and ended up on her back to the left of the chair while I was holding on for dear life before the lift operator stopped the machine.

The operator helped us onto the chair and started the lift up again while everyone was watching and probably wondering who the new people were. Things didn’t get much better as we biffed it on the way off the lift too.

Finally, we were at the top of the hill and we were going to perform the very thing we were there to do. Once again, my feet, arms and brain failed me as I was a mess trying to go from “pizza” to “french fry” with my skis. It’s not that I had bad coaches, my friends were there giving me their best advice but I could not seem to get going straight without bailing and ending up in a snowy mess.

I fell numerous times and after one time, someone from the ski lift above shouted, “It’s your first time! Wohoo!” I raised my fist and shouted back thank you without looking. I then looked up and realized the woman on the ski lift was taking a video of her child who was no older than seven years old, who went flying past me while I laid there.

As I laid in the snow, I thought to myself, “That pretty much sums up the beginning and potential end of my skiing career.”