Poll Where did you start skiing?

[Uncle-A]

Whiteface Mt. NY just outside of Lake Placid it is a "Destination Resort" February 1967 bus trip with a social club and 20 years old. This info was covered in a couple other threads.

 

[Jersey Skier]

Big Vanilla at Davos in the Catskills. $15 for Bus from Queens, lifts, lesson and rentals. The lesson never happened.

 

[BS Slarver]

'67 in the backyard in Wilton Conn after opening my first skis for xmas that year, I vividly remember the black diamond back yard, a steep learning curve to put it mildly.

As adventurous kids with a lot of time and ample snow we even built a homemade toboggan run around and over the stone walls.

Followed up by family trips to the Berkshires over the next few year before moving to Maine and calling the tiny little hill of Sunday River home.

 

[Large Squirrel]

i learned at big boulder, pa and then skied in HS at camelback, pa. def both feeder hills (that's all we have in PA, lol).

 

[Philpug]

i learned at big boulder, pa and then skied in HS at camelback, pa. def both feeder hills (that's all we have in PA, lol).

When?

 

[graham418]

Blue Mountain in Ontario. I don't even think it was called Blue Mountain then, it was the Toronto Ski Club which is the North Chair now. It was probably 1964. Lift tickets were $4.00 I think. My dad would always make me do math, to get me to figure the cost per run. It was a goal to get it to 25 cents. With only a double chair and a T-Bar, it was darn hard. Uphill capacity wasn't what it is now!!
During the week, especially when I got a little older I would go to the Don Valley Ski Centre , in what is now midtown Toronto along side of a major parkway, and ski there in the evenings. A lot of times I would take the bus after school. An evening ticket was something like a dollar. They had a T-bar , a Poma and a couple of rope tows.And something like 250ft vert. When you're 7, who cares!!

 

[Jilly]

Blue Mountain in Ontario. I don't even think it was called Blue Mountain then, it was the Toronto Ski Club which is the North Chair now. It was probably 1964. Lift tickets were $4.00 I think. My dad would always make me do math, to get me to figure the cost per run. It was a goal to get it to 25 cents. With only a double chair and a T-Bar, it was darn hard. Uphill capacity wasn't what it is now!!
During the week, especially when I got a little older I would go to the Don Valley Ski Centre , in what is now midtown Toronto along side of a major parkway, and ski there in the evenings. A lot of times I would take the bus after school. An evening ticket was something like a dollar. They had a T-bar , a Poma and a couple of rope tows.And something like 250ft vert. When you're 7, who cares!!

Gawd I'm old...I remember Don Valley and Mount Garbage out in Etobicoke.

 

[bbinder]

Big Vanilla at Davos in the Catskills. $15 for Bus from Queens, lifts, lesson and rentals. The lesson never happened.

View attachment 26677

Me too!

 

[Large Squirrel]

When?

early 90's.

 

[crgildart]

Midwestern farm hills on garage sale gear that was way too big for me.

 

[Philpug]

early 90's.

About a decade behind @Andy Mink and myself.

 

[Nobody]

@Core2's thread about "where you prefer to ski, mega resort or ski area", made me think. Where did you start skiing, was it at a destination resort or a local ski area/feeder hill? I will add "other" to the options for the people who learned in their back yard or even a ski deck.

Example but not limited to:
Ski Area/Feeder Hill: Usually "local" or within day tripping range. Little or no accomidations on the hill. Smaller vertical
Destination Resort: Larger, tend to travel to for multiple days. This also could be your "local" mountain.

From where I live, most of the southern side of the Alps is within a day tripping range (from Chamonix to Austria, not to mention Switzerland and of course the Itian areas), so this poll is flawed, teehee.
Seriouy, though, I began skiing at little hills nearer home day skiing trips, then for week long vacations moved.to bigger, better known places. For years, our winter skiing cycle has been day trips on Sundays to a destination within 4/5 hours coach drive (or less, the closer area being now a mere 45 minutes drive away), a week long vacation on the Dolomites and a couple of long week ends in places in between...

 

[Xela]

Ha! What years? @Andy Mink and myself skied there too. Mo brother was a liftie...this goes back to the (late) 70's though.

We only went to Mt. Airy once. My parents didn't take to skiing. I'm guessing it was 1980 or 1981. It was a low snow year. I know because my parents complained about the lack of cross-country skiing. For our trouble, we got upgraded to a room with mirrors on the ceiling and a heart-shaped hot tub.

 

[KingGrump]

We only went to Mt. Airy once. My parents didn't take to skiing. I'm guessing it was 1980 or 1981. It was a low snow year. I know because my parents complained about the lack of cross-country skiing. For our trouble, we got upgraded to a room with mirrors on the ceiling and a heart-shaped hot tub.

That is exactly what came to mind when you mention Mount Airy. Memories of the TV commercial with the heart shaped tub flashed in front of my eyes.

 

[Eddie S]

Wolf Creek, March, 2015, at 58. Wonderful instructor who agreed I was too old for bunny slopes or starting with the wedge (bless him!), so we skipped them completely. Better late than never...

 

[BC.]

6th gr. ski program- Shawnee Mtn., PA

 

[CalG]

I first skied on the banks of the Red River, just off Elm Street and El Zagel drive In Fargo, North Dakota. My Home town!

At that time, Before the interstate highway went in, There were no hills higher than a car roof for as far as the eye could see. The Red River Valley is the bottom of the glacial lake Agassiz after all. Black loam soils as deep as deep can be. But the Red river has cut it's channels and ox bows, and left a series of head high "banks" that when covered with snow, can lead a 13 year old to wonder just what a mountain might be.

A few years later, we " skiers" had a "Ski North Dakota" tee shirt done up. It was a graphic of a barbed wire fence off into point perspective.

I would do it all over again in a Heart beat!

 

[Fishbowl]

Bulgaria, 1974.

 

[Prickly Jones]

I'm an MRG guy.

 

[Jack skis]

Berthoud Pass, CO in the early 1940's, maybe '43, maybe '44, and there's no one left to ask which it was. Short rope tow on one side of Hwy 40 and long rope tow on the other side of the highway. We rode the short one for a season two before we learned to turn. The snow berm made from the parking lot plowing gave us a way to stop at the bottom of the slope. The "we" referred to were school mates from Park Hill Grade School in Denver. Parents would drive us up to the top of the pass for one day of skiing on weekends. Those were good times. The introduction to skiing gave me much -- and it's still going.