How Snowboarding Made Me A Real Skier

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.