There is a secret that I don’t like to share amongst the outdoorsy types that make up most of my friend base, but every year around this time it manages to make its way up to the surface of our conversations.
I am HORRIBLE at winter sports.
Not just “bad”, not “maybe if I took a lesson…”, but terribly, gut-wrenchingly, someone-please-take-away-her-snow-pants-forever AWFUL.I’ve tried skiing many times, snowboarding once (you’d stop at once too if you ended up with as many bruises as I had by the end of that fateful day), and snowshoeing a few times, and at the end of each vowed to never set foot in the snow again, only to be foiled by the next year’s alluringly white winter drawing out my innate optimism. How hard can it be? I can waterski, surely it’s not that different? Snowshoeing is really just walking on a soft surface, isn’t it? My friends often encourage these musings, adding that they will help me learn, and loan me gear, and keep me company in the lodge if things start going sour. Sounds great, right?
Here’s what ends up happening: I don my snow pants and uncomfortable boots. As I’m tying my scarf and re-locating my one pair of waterproof gloves, my dog gives me a look that only be described as “This Will Not End Well” and goes to hide under the furniture. I am blindly optimistic until we get to the ski area or trail head, where the rest of the gear is obtained and the group begins to head out into the snow. Here I generally re-realize that I can’t walk on snow in uncomfortable boots, and fall down a couple of times. My friends begin to realize that I wasn’t kidding when I told them I am not winter-inclined and some begin to drift off to do their endless, effortless, sweeping loops up and down the manicured mountain or snowshoe ballet on the wild trail. Those who are brave try to teach me things, and I really do try to learn.
In fact, on my one snowboarding day I took an official lesson and actually learned how to do a heel turn in the 2 or so hours that the kind man tried to fill. The other students were doing both turns and stopping like pros, but my toes refused to cooperate and my only method of stopping was falling in the least painful way possible (honed to perfection by all of my attempts at skiing). The instructor brought us on the bunny slope and I did my best to fill out my boarding repertoire, but even his dedication to the cause waned after my feet solidly refused to turn the board in a way that resulted in movement any other direction than straight down. I used to get frustrated by this (hence the repeated attempts to learn skiing), but age and life experience has made me realize that there are things that I am just plain not good at, and the biggest of those is “Winter”. Now I simply laugh and devise unique flips and rolls to attempt to get myself upright again, and make snow sculptures when upright just seems too painful.
After my friends have given it the Old College Try and finally admit that I’ve learned about all I can, they generally leave me to my artistic face-planting and just catch up with me whenever they speed by on their way down the slope. Luckily, this suits me just fine! The snowshoeing friends just give me a radio and sometimes hang back with me to laugh at the various ways that my legs can devise to tip me off the trail. I once spent a couple hours contentedly making snowmen/snowcritters when the slope proved to be too much for my climbing skills and I waited for my friends to return down the path. Then once I’ve been collected and assisted off the trail, we all O.D. on hot chocolate and I return home to my dog (who has mastered the nonverbal “I told you so”) and try to figure out what outfit will best hide the multitude of snow- and rock-induced bruises for the next couple of weeks.
This winter, maybe I’ll just catch up on some movies and hop in a yoga class. I’ll let the rest of you folks hold down the cold outdoors while I stay in and meditate on how snow sure is beautiful when viewed from a distance.
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