A typical skier's learning curve
March 02, 2005
As I recounted in my last skiing entry, I've been pleasantly surprised with my progress on the slopes (after only my third time out in my life) and I wanted to write about it while it is still fresh in my mind. I think that it is easy to get intimidated and label yourself "not a skier" if you have never gone by the time you reach your early to mid 20s. I know that I certainly felt this.
I don't think that many people realize just how easy it is to get up to speed and have a lot of fun in the process. Below is my experience with the skiing learning curve. Others may find it useful as a gauge:
| Date |
Location |
Experience |
|---|
| Winter 2002 |
Boston Mills * |
- This was my very first time touching skis period and began with the very basics of learning how to put on ski boots, snap into the skis, walk in skis, and go down a bunny hill.
- I had help from a rather experienced friend, who was a very good instructor.
- Only about a half day was spent on the slopes.
- Periodically much hilarity would ensue when I would fall down while standing in the lift line with my skis on and not be able to get up.
- By the end of it I was able to make it down a fairly small green slope without falling, and was able to make it down a very small blue slope without killing myself (but not without falling).
|
| <three year interlude> |
| January 2005 |
Snowshoe |
- Two days were spent on the slopes in total.
- Even the small slopes at snowshoe are considerably larger than slopes of equivalent difficulty at the imitation resort of Boston Mills.
- On day one I started off on *real* green slopes right away.
- By the end of day one I was barely able to make it down certain green slopes without falling.
- By the end of day two I was able to consistently make it down all green slopes without falling and was able to make it down an easier blue slope without falling.
|
| <one month interlude> |
| February 2005 |
Snowshoe |
- Two days were spent on the slopes in total, with the first day including roughly three hours of night skiing.
- As usual I started off with green slopes, but it quickly became apparent that I could easily make it down any green slope on the mountain without falling (this was quite surprising to me).
- Early on in the first day I moved on to some easier blue slopes, which I was able to take without falling.
- I moved on to some intermediate blues, which I was able to initialy take without falling about half the time. Difficult blues would still regularly trip me up.
- By the end of the trip, I was able to regularly take any intermediate blue slope on the mountain without falling.
- Though it happend rather infrequently, I would still fall occasionally on blue slopes, and these falls would tend to be considerably more serious than I was used to (as recounted here).
|
* Boston Mills is a really small ski resort in Akron OH, with a website that should be featured in
suck.com. Don't click on the link above if you can help it.
UrbanWildernessDesign, the company who designed the Boston Mills site, should be ashamed of themselves. A note to the UrbanWilderness guys when they find this page while searching for themselves in
Google: websites that play sound in the background make me want to poke my finger through my eye up into my brain and swirl it around, especially when there is no apparent way to turn the sound off. I would watch network TV if I wanted to listen to advertisements all day.
Therapy.
The future:
My next time out, I'm planning on taking some of the harder blue slopes until I can make it down them consistently without falling. I anticipate this taking about a half a day. I then plan on moving onto my first black slope.
