The olympics start in a few days. The flame has almost made its way to Vancouver. Today, 104 days after leaving Greece, it travels through West Vancouver into Richmond. In my family, our own athletic flame has almost reached the new generation.
Decades ago, I started teaching my kids to ski. Cody, in February 1982, suffered being dragged between my legs across the frozen fields of Paradise at Mr. Rainier. After all, he could stand and toddle on his own; what’s to stop him from having a bit of fun like the rest of us, sliding down the slopes.
As Shaine and Annie came along, they each got the same treatment. A bit of time being carried around by dad, then into ski school at the earliest possible time, usually about age 4. A few years of that, and they got bored, wanting to ski with the big folks. I spent many runs going as slow as I could, carving beautiful ski school turns across the gentle slopes of Sneaky’s or Max Park so they could follow and learn.
They got to ride the Ski Bus from Gig Harbor to Crystal or Snoqualmie each winter weekend. They each turned to snowboarding when it became the rebellious thing to do. Unlike other ski parents, we didn’t Nazify the experience, and insist they remain faithful to two boards. If they could have fun with us on the snow, that was the whole point.
Annie and Shaine converted, but each mumble a bit about wanting to try skiing again. I point out to Annie that it’s best to get really good at one, rather than be a dilettante at two. Besides, it’s double the cost for equipment. Cody tried snowboarding, and found it wanting.
“It’s too easy to be good at it,” he says. “It’s almost cheating.” He went back to parallel tracks in his early 20’s. By that time, he was getting supremely accomplished, dangerously close to the magic point I’d promised him all his life.
“When you get to be a better skier than me, I’ll buy you a car.” Actually, I said that as a general statement to all the kids, but Cody was the only one still skiing well enough to make it meaningful. The one rule was – the kid (Cody) had to be the one to make the judgement that he was “better” than me.
As a subjective sport, skiing offers innumerable options for comparison. There’s pure speed; steep slopes; different conditions like ice or chopped up powder; bumps (moguls); trees; deep fresh snow. That list is pretty much in increasing order of difficulty, but of course, there are various levels of difficulty within each element, and combinations of all of them offer an endless set of challenges. For example, skiing in very tight Aspen trees on a steep slope in crunchy snow is WAY harder than a gentle wide open slope with a foot of new snow on it.
Add to that the difficulty of equating what one feels internally while skiing, compared to what one sees someone else doing on the same slope, and asking Cody to judge whether he’s “better” than me is a tough deal, if approached honestly.
For various reasons, the last time Cody skied was in Spring, 2006. At that time, he could certainly ski faster than I, and could hold his own in powder conditions. He was also pretty good in trees, having followed me for so many years. Bumps, he didn’t like so much, and stayed away from. I could see then it was only a matter of time, and there was no way I would remain his teacher after one more season, especially if he ever took the trouble to do a little strength and endurance training for the sport.
A couple of years later, he decided to buy a car, and wondered when or how he could demonstrate he was a better skier than I, so I would pay for it. SInce it was May, that wasn’t going to happen, but the 60/40 (me/him) ratio of payment we backed into (we basically pooled our spare funds at the time) in hindsight was just about right for the skiing prowess we potentially had at the time.
Now we’ve spent the last week together on the home slopes of Snowmass, and I’m convinced he’s better; he’s still got his doubts. Yesterday, I took him up to High Alpine, and on two different courses, he showed he can do everything I can, and maybe a little more.
Reidar’s run is just about the perfect bump run. The top section is gentle, above tree line, and not really bumped at all. If you don’t go to fast here, if you started turning quick, you get the rhythm going just as you pass the tree line. It’s a wide run, like all at Snowmass, and they’ve left a few tree patches scattered here and there, which alters the course enough to let you find different patterns and depths of bumps as people shy away from the timber. This section is a little steeper, but not enough to build up big bumps, or pack them together. You can really motor here, going straight down, but turning quickly around and over the baby bumps.
We each did our thing here, and Cody seemed every bit as smooth, as graceful, as confident, and as quick as I felt myself to be. I wanted to make sure he was mentally attacking the line in a way to prepare him for the more difficult section ahead. I stopped him near the lone fir tree overhanging to cliff like lower section.
“When you’re going through here, what do you have in your mind as you’re deciding where to turn? Are you aiming for the tops and trying to stay out of the grooves? What is your strategy for skiing here?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” he responded. He seemed to understand fully what I was saying. When the going gets steeper, and the bumps get deeper, the valleys in between them are a dangerous place to be. It’s very tempting to just cruise among them, but the size of the bumps means eventually, you’ll get to one when you can no longer absorb all of the terrain variation with knew bends. Trying to ski along the tops of the bumps as much as possible is actually easy in the long run, although it requires more tactical planning, and provides much less of a rythym to the turns than just following the depressions. Understanding that, and then being able to execute it are the two keys to success in moguls.
Next, we dropped down into the steepest part of the run. No question, these bumps are tougher to handle, and I’m no longer an expert in them. Cody got down just fine.
Exhausted, he leaned over his poles, as I floundered up to him. The bottom section of Reidar’s becomes a runout of sorts, much less steep, but with a very testing mogul patch nonetheless. Also, it feeds right into the High Alpine restaurant, so you want to look you best, even though the thighs are wobbly and your head just wants to stop the ceaseless work of picking out the line for the next few turns, and forcing the body to respond quickly enough to avoid the ultimate disgraceful fall.
All in all, Cody nailed that run. Next up, over to the edge and down into Hanging Valley Glades (Cookies, actually), before we took Turkey Trot down to Elk Camp, so we could cruise a few before quitting.
The Glades are a steep, tight arena created by the huge forest fire which jumped across this mountain 140 years ago. The underbrush was burned off, and the trees have not yet fully filled in the space created by the ones which burned off. Those trees are fairly tight, but allow space for turns. I was plenty tired by this time, and just let myself get worked down the hill, turning when I had to, not when I wanted to, flailing around a bit and skidding uphill to avoid obstacles. Cody attacked the slope, and bent it to his will. He took the bumps and trees in stride, even the variable patches of powder and cut up crud. No question he beat me on that one, and proved my point that we were at least equal that day. The pupil could at last be the master.
Next year, with some weight lifting and core work, and me one year older, he can become the Patriarch of our skiing family. I think we’re both going to have to learn how to ease into our new roles.