I blew it! For 40 years!

This is not about bicycling.  But it is about having adventures.

In High School if you played basketball, then you were not allowed to ski.  So when others were learning downhill skiing in grade 9,10 I was preparing myself during those years to sit on the bench by grade 12.

I went off to a liberal arts college and it was cool to cross country ski, so I picked that up and I started doing it frequently, like week long trips and a couple that were a month.

I became a ski snob, a cross country ski snob.  Down hill was for bourgeois fools.

Sometimes I found myself on long downhills and if they were steep i would ski across the slope, slow down, a kick turn when stopped and then ski back.

Once I was with David morris and he locked his foot down and shalomed down off Glacier Peak.  leaving me kilometres behind.

I always wondered what it would be like to down hill ski.  I almost tried 6 years ago while visiting USA in the spring, but ended up cross country skiing.

This year I arranged to meet high school friend at a ski place in March .

Rented skis, arranged to be in beginner group lesson, and paid for the beginner slope.  The lesson would start at 1 and it was 1130 so we headed up the ski lift.  I have always had a phobia of ski lifts.  Lori told the operator I was new to this and it went smoothly.

After a few runs I was catching on fast, and before the lesson it was taking more time to go up the lift than to ski down.  I was starting to do the turns pretty good.

The lesson was some people who could hardly stand up on skis and 3 of us who had some experience.  It was worthwhile as the instructor kept insisting of fundamentals.  She eventually got the 3 of us up on the slope and drilled us and kept me concentrating on doing it right .

End of lesson so then i could fly down the slope and it was too easy.  I had to keep on the steepest part.

Then we decided i needed to try the intermediate one.  We talked and talked but in the end we had to wait a bit and buy a night time starting at 4pm.  So i ended up spending over a $100 in total. 

Intermediate was challenging but I could almost do the whole thing without falling.  By now i was getting so tired it was hard to get up.  We did that run 3 times and called it quits.

I was exhilarated to say the least.

This is what I dream about doing now.  Watch the video.

 Why did I wait all those years?