Ode to Skiing
Ode to Skiing
Harris B. McKee
copyright February 2018
My childhood in Central Iowa provided no opportunity for skiing. Our winter sports were sledding and ice skating. There weren't many hills even for sledding but at our one room country school, we could get a run from the boys' outhouse, slide down past the front door of the school, down a ravine out onto the road and, if the road had not been graded, slide down the road for nearly a quarter mile.
When I got to college, the college had not one but three ski areas. But I was out for winter track and had no time for skiing. In my junior year I decided that my college experience would be remiss if I didn't learn to ski, so I didn't go out for the winter season. Instead, I found a very old pair of skis in our fraternity chapter room that no one claimed and bought a cheap pair of ski boots. Fraternity brothers took me out on the little slope of fraternity yard under floodlights on a Friday night and taught me a rudimentary snow plow turn which worked fine on that little slope. The next day they took me out to the Dartmouth Skiway where I somehow managed to ride the Poma lift to the top of Papoose. the easiest run at the Skiway.
As I started down Papoose, I tried the snow plow technique from my lesson only to find out that it didn't work! Faster and faster, I flew; ahead of me I saw a skier who looked as awkward as I and I was catching up with him. In fact, if I didn't change my direction, I was going to run right over him. Luckily, I was able to turn just enough so that I could race past him on his left but I was going to be close to him. Did I mention that he was awkward, too? Just as I caught up, he threw up his left hand for balance and I hit his arm on my chest. We both lost our balance and went sliding down the slope on some mixture of arms, legs, skis and poles. He asked plaintively, "Why didn't you shout?" It wouldn't have made any difference.
As it turned out, I was very lucky with those old skis. They had bear-trap bindings. Safety bindings were just being deployed so no-one made a big fuss about the danger inherent in bear-trap bindings. In fact, ski team members were still using skis that had toe releases but nothing more. The bear-trap bindings tied your foot to the ski; there was no release. If you fell and your body turned differently from the ski, your leg or ankle would yield. The danger was further enhanced by the length of the skis. The appropriate metric was to stand with your arm upraised; a ski whose tip nestled in your palm was the right length. I survived the year with only a knee sprain. The next year I installed state of the art bindings with both toe and heel release.
In my first year of graduate school, my new bride, Mary, and I bought each other skis for Christmas. So began a family tradition. In Vermont, there were half a dozen ski areas half an hour away. We skied one day every winter weekend. In California, our next stop, there were half a dozen ski areas four hours away. Now skiing became just a couple of times during the winter. When we moved to St. Louis, going to the ski areas meant an all-night trip to Colorado except for Chestnut Mountain, Illinois where our five and six year old daughters learned to ski.
We really cemented the family tradition when our daughters were 10 and 11 in Dallas. We began to take a week at Christmas time to ski in Colorado and continued this practice until after they graduated from college.
Back in Iowa in 1987, we took up cross country skiing. We had tried cross country once in Colorado. Friends we were with said that it was a good way to acclimate to the altitude. After an afternoon on Belly Ache Ridge, we decided that in the future we'd rather acclimate in some other way. But in Iowa, we had other friends who urged us to try it again and we did. In Minnesota, we even went twice to a cross country ski resort, Maplelag, operated by a college classmate of mine where I skied all 35 miles of groomed trails in the two days we were there. Nearly every winter we lived in Arkansas, I was able to cross country ski on the golf course a few times. Once I skied on Sunday and played golf the following Friday on the same course!
Here in Chicago, it's been fun to be able to walk to Lincoln Park and cross country ski. One challenge as I went out this week for my second time of the season, the glue on my 25 year-old ski boot failed and I had to walk home. I've reglued the boot and expect to test it this afternoon, but just in case, I have a new pair of boots on order.