Although I grew up racing at Vail and Beaver Creek every
weekend with the Buddy Werner Ski League, I never considered myself a real skier until I became a snowboarder.
These days you’ll usually find me on telemark skis, but emotionally,
as far as connecting with the slopes and becoming a true mountain girl, it was
one memorable day at Vail when it all came together.
I was a tentative ski racer who’d hit the brakes rather than
accelerate around the gates. They looked so icy compared to the rest of the
mountain (I know … I’m a spoiled Colorado kid who doesn’t know what real ice
looks like). I didn’t feel confident about laying down a high-speed carve.
Let’s face it. My “carve” still looked like a pizza slice. A soggy pizza slice.
Needless to say I never won any trophies. When I initially
tried snowboarding at around age 11, in spite of my skateboarding background, I
didn’t exactly tear it up. First of all, snowboards were more like ceiling
beams back then. I was renting something that by today’s size guidelines would
be suited to a six-and-a-half-foot-tall man. It was like having a bus strapped
to my feet.
I was in slow motion. I inched along silky terrain under the
Sourdough lift trying to keep my board flat, clenching every muscle in my feet
in anticipation of shifting to my heel-side edge and inevitably, instantaneously,
onto my butt. It was a project to steer down smooth, low-angle groomers. Tackling
steeps was out of the question.
But the next season, I remember gingerly making my way down
Northwoods, falling leaf-style (gliding back and forth on the same edge of the
snowboard, only on this particular board I was more like a swinging lodge pole).
I reached the bottom without mishap, exuberantly thinking, “I’m getting it!”
But then came the big day; the linking turns day.
I was at a point where I could cruise along at a decent
speed on either the heel or toe edge. But there was a lot of stopping and
restarting involved.
On the day it came together, I was coming down Avanti. I
knew the pitch where the run turns from blue to black. I would, as was my
habit, cue up the falling leaf technique. Instead, as I meandered along the
less steep part of the run on my toe edge, I dared point the board directly
downhill. Shaking a little bit, I faced the open air and slid my back foot into
position for a heel-side turn. It was happening.
I was making turns.
The falling leaf probably came into play a few more times,
but it was different after that. The puzzle was settled. I could link turns.
After a few more days on my board, I could link turns on even the steepest groomers.
Then, what seemed like hours later, I could manage the bumps
on Look Ma, the run I’d always regarded as the most difficult slope at Vail. I
got down it on my board – hop-turning like a boss over the moguls the whole way
down – without a single fall. I was a real skier. I was not only someone who
skied every weekend because I was in the Buddy Werner League and it was what my
family did. All of a sudden, I was
someone who wanted to be on the slopes. I craved it. I wanted to miss class for
it. I wanted it every day of the winter. I needed the feeling of pointing my
board downhill. I became a person who required vertical. All of a sudden, it
was in my blood.
