Skiing 101

Last week I went skiing for the first time in 15 years. The last time that I went skiing I threw up in my dad's ski boot so I haven't really been allowed to go since then. It was my brother-in-laws 30th birthday and my sister knows how much he loves to ski. So she roped us into going along with them. After all the planning that was involved it ended up being me, my sister, brother and brother-in-law that went.

The first lesson that I learned is when you are borrowing someone ski's make sure that the boot fits into the binding of the ski. I learned this the hard way. All four of us got on the same lift, and right as I sat down, my ski flew off. The people behind us picked it up and dropped it off to me at the next stop. Me and my brother started going down the hill and I actually started to get a little confident in myself. I had a huge smile on my face and started going even faster and then CRASH! My ski flew off. I picked myself up and tried to get my ski on for the next 10 minutes then took off again. It flew off again but this time my leg twisted with it and I hurt my knee, bruised my bum, and scraped my back from the fall. This continued until my brother noticed that my boot didn't fit with the ski. Awesome! It took me an hour to make it down the hill without killing myself. I took the ski off, sent my brother down the hill again and waited for my sister which takes us to lesson number two.

Don't try and go down a huge slope on a snowboard when you have never done it before. My sister has never tried to ski, let alone snowboard, and she thought it would be easy to just get on and "smoke it" down the hill. This quickly changed as she got off the lift and immediately fell. This worker ran over to help her up and as soon as she got upright, she fell again. After these two times of falling she scooted herself over to the side of the mountain, and decided that she was done. My brother and I took off while her husband tried and tried to get her up, but it didn't matter. Everytime she stood up she fell and gave up after two hours. After that she took the snowboard off and walked the rest of the way down the mountain. We came up with a different plan.

Lesson number three: If there is a bunny hill you should try that first instead of the slope. My brother and brother in law took off and I took my sister to the bunny hill where she could stand and actually go down a couple of feet without falling. She did much better and I realized we should have taken her down that first. Was it more fun watching her try to go down the slope? VERY! We had a great day and I can't wait to try it again; as soon as my bum heals, I can walk with no pain, and my muscles aren't screaming at me everytime I move.