Where and When Did You Learn to Ski?

[coskigirl]

1979 Bogus Basin.

 

[nay]

2011/12, Winter Park. Wait.

I sucked then.

2016/17 Loveland. Wait.

I still suck.

But, I haven't hurt myself (badly) (skiing) since my first full season. Will somehow be 47 this year. Like in a week or something.

 

[Chris Walker]

1971 at Boyne Mt. Michigan. Needed a little help from my mom to get up the beginner rope tow at age 3.

 

[Don in Morrison]

It was 1969. I was 17 and a senior in high school. My stepdad took me to Ski Idlewild, a now-defunct little practice hill near Winter Park. The shop measured me for 205's, but gave me 200's, since it was my first time and they wanted it to be easier for me. The skis were Hart Standards, with cable bindings (Marker Simplex toes) and lace-up leather boots. I twisted my knee in the afternoon, and limped around school the following week. The next week I had my only lesson, one hour on a 20 foot high plastic coated wooden ramp out behind Kenny's Marine and Ski Shop, across the street from Sloans Lake in Edgewater. By March of that year I had my own gear.

 

[doc]

1961. I was seven, and my dad took me to Loveland Valley (not Basin) and what I think was then called Squaw Pass (became Echo Mountain, but now closed).
Those were the days of rope tows, wood skis with metal edges, and cable (or Cubco!) bindings.

 

[nay]

2011/12, Winter Park. Wait.

I sucked then.

2016/17 Loveland. Wait.

I still suck.

But, I haven't hurt myself (badly) (skiing) since my first full season. Will somehow be 47 this year. Like in a week or something.

Actually, it was 2010/11. Tibial plateau fracture (non-surgical, no ligament or meniscus damage, lucky) in March 2011.

Took a lesson in Nov 2011.

Started mountain biking summer of 2012 for off-season training. Yuuuge.

Moved to knee friendly skis in 2014. Yuuuge.

April makes 29 months straight on skis on snow.

 

[squill]

March 1984. Deer Mountain So. Dak.

After a lesson, I ended up taking the big-boy platter to the top and french fried my way into a tib/fib greenstick fracture shortly thereafter.

 

[Johnny V.]

Swain NY 1981. I was 29. Can't say I learned to ski there, but it was my first time. Bought new skis in 1982 on my 30th birthday and I'm still learning at age 65.

 

[Andy Mink]

Back yards and farm hills of central Minnesota on way too BIG garage sale gear mid 1970s. First lift served skiing at Buck Hill around 1976.

I did Buck Hill too! Must have been about 70-71, somewhere in there. Then Camelback and even a stint at Mt. Airy as Junior Ski Patrol in 79-80. Somewhere in there @Philpug sold me my first real pair of skis. They were Blizzards.
Edit: my Buck Hill was in PA.

 

[Mendieta]

Actually, it was 2010/11. Tibial plateau fracture (non-surgical, no ligament or meniscus damage, lucky) in March 2011.

Took a lesson in Nov 2011.

Started mountain biking summer of 2012 for off-season training. Yuuuge.

Moved to knee friendly skis in 2014. Yuuuge.

April makes 29 months straight on skis on snow.

Interesting story, @nay . Way to go, 29 months in a row! How many days a year do you ski, roughly? And what skis sre those, out of curiosity?

 

[dean_spirito]

1990 at Campgaw in Mahwah, NJ. @Philpug you must have some memories there...

 

[SkiNurse]

Mammoth 1984, age 19. There was too much snow for a lot of the lifts to run and our lessons were canceled, so, we just skated around on the skis. The next 7 years were basically just being a ski bunny at Mountain High once or twice a season. I would say that my skiing (and love of) didn't start until I moved to Colorado in 1991.

 

[Bad Bob]

Mt Rainier and Snoqualmie Pass back when it was pretty much all rope tows in the mid 50's (I think they were powered by real horses then).

 

[nay]

Interesting story, @nay . Way to go, 29 months in a row! How many days a year do you ski, roughly? And what skis sre those, out of curiosity?

Summer skiing rocks. Until Sept.

Out of sheer coincidence (going every time I could), I have skied 48 lift served days each of the last three seasons. I'll turn 48 next year and now I'm a little scared to fall short .

I was skiing 25-30 days before that (my first full season cut short at 16 by the TPF). I ski the Salomon Rocker2 100 now. It's a relatively stiff ski in 186cm, mounted at -5cm from center with a powder design tip taper and twinned tail. So zero hookiness, happy to ride along or follow orders.

I took a backwards twisting flat light fall on any icy section under the Pali lift at A-Basin during a storm in Dec (couldn't see the transition from powder to icy hardpack) where I badly bruised my right tricep on a ski edge without either binding releasing. Think that one through without so much as a knee tweak .

 

[Scruffy]

Oh man, you folks are all old! Oh wait, what? you're my age

Learned to ski? or first time?

First time: Mt Beacon, Beacon N.Y. Let's see, it would have been 1968, I was 12, broke my leg on the first run. Haha. "Wait, what," you say, 'the first run?' Why yes. You see I didn't bother to take a lesson, or to even go to the bunny slope to teach myself. No, I went right to the top, on advice from my "friend", who was a skier and said he'd teach me from the top. Dumb12yo me went along with him. He tried to teach me on a green run from the top, but I would have non of that snowplowing nonsense, and wound up taking a wrong turn and "skiing" parallel on a double black mogul run. The problem was, I had no idea WTF I was doing. Long story short, left ski released, right ski didn't and very soon a boot top fracture ensued. I soon had a plaster of pairs cast from the toes on my right foot all the way up to my crotch. Made a nice ice breaker with the girls at the school dance a week later; sympathy can be a powerful thing, if used sparingly.

I didn't alpine ski again until 1994ish. I did XC ski though in the 1980s.

Learn? Jimmy Peak, 1994. My GF, ( now wife ) and I took a "first timer" lesson/rental/lift ticket deal. we both got hooked, and we've been at it ever since.

 

[Mickey]

Mid 80's at Mount Pleasant in Edinboro, PA.

 

[Guy in Shorts]

Mt Tom - Holyoke, Mass 1977 - Back home on leave after Navy boot camp. Went out to the used ski shop the next day and bought a pair of 190 cm Volkl skis. Never looked back.

 

[trailtrimmer]

Late 80's, Mt Brighton Michigan. Shitty Elan rentals with some crazy oval looking boot bottoms and proprietary bindings that loaded up with snow and were dangerous to walk in. Finally got my own Elan skis and Nordica rear entry boots in fashionable purple and black, I was stylin.

Brighton felt big to a 13 year old but seems tiny now, but we actually had cold winters then. It was still large enough to have fun and either keep us out of trouble or get us in trouble.

Didn't really ski much in high school or for years after that, but the bug bit hard four years ago and typically get two to three days a week in now.

 

[SShore]

I find it fascinating that the vast majority of responses have had their first skiing experience at small, out of the way ski hills and not the mega resorts. This reaffirms my convictions that we need these small mom and pop ski hills to "feed the monster" that the Big Boys are creating. If Vail/Aspen/Boyne have any long term vision, they will keep these small places alive and keep them affordable and beginner/kid/family friendly to assure they have a next generation to spend $25 for a hamburger at their marquis resorts.

 

[Jilly]

I didn't ski a "big resort" till I graduated university and was out on my own. Most hills in Ontario are 400-700 vertical. Our family skied one that was only 250' for years. It was a big move to go to that 780' Calabogie. I taught at a local hill for a few years. Because we were so small our motto was "you learn to ski one turn at a time". The industry needs the breeder - feeder hills to sustain itself.