Think Sonny Bono and Newton’s first law
(note this was written last week and never posted, hence the March 8th date)
I definitely skewed the average age for my ski instruction class Saturday morning. I was quickly bored with the step by step “this is how you put on your skis” routine and moved to the itty biddy slope which I hurled myself down into a blazing crash. This would be, for at least the better part of Saturday, my method of stopping. The tow rope on the slope went out, so in a move of great stupidity or lack of anything else to do, I moved to the big boy hills.
The ski lift scooped me up and I took off. The ride up the mountain, I have to admit, is very peaceful and a far cry from the car alarms and loud car radios of the Bronx. Jen Solz, a volunteer in Harlem, and I took to the slopes together. I made the first several runs without any major problems; however, I quickly found out that objects in motion, do indeed, stay in motion. Stopping 200 pounds of moving mass at the bottom of a mountain isn’t easy. Therefore, I spent a good bit of the morning by crashing to a halt at the bottom in order to prevent myself from slamming into a crowd of unsuspecting people putting on their skis. For some reason they thought that at the bottom of the mountain, rather than a nice flat finish like you see in the Olympics, that they’d put another hill that is right in front of the lodge. Not only that, but to get to the ski lift, you also have to ski down a hill into a crowd of people waiting to dangle themselves overhead. This is a problem, for someone like myself, who cannot stop. Other than my inability to stop, the day went pretty well.
I did get to experiment with Newton’s third law, that to every action (falling) there is a reaction (feeling pain). Just ask my calves. I didn’t even know I used them, but they hurt today, so I must have.
Sunday was interesting because Jen and I decided to look at the map to try some new routes and it was like eating the apple in the garden… a whole new world (namely the upper two thirds of the mountain) was revealed to us. We had no idea there was so much above us, much less three more ski lifts. So Sunday we left with Paul, Clare, and Jimmy to head to the top. We found a nice blue square (harder than the green circles we’d been doing) that was fun and very beautiful. Unfortunately, it started to snow pretty hard, so we could only go down it a few times. The visibility and the cold were a bit much. I went in for a short break and then skied a few more times. The proverbial “I’ll go one last time” kinda scared me because I’d made it through the weekend unscathed. Fortunately I had a clean track record for the weekend. Although I never tried any thing overly daring, I had fun and enjoyed myself. It’ll take time before it hail it as my favorite pastime, but it was fun (probably in large part because it was free!)
I definitely skewed the average age for my ski instruction class Saturday morning. I was quickly bored with the step by step “this is how you put on your skis” routine and moved to the itty biddy slope which I hurled myself down into a blazing crash. This would be, for at least the better part of Saturday, my method of stopping. The tow rope on the slope went out, so in a move of great stupidity or lack of anything else to do, I moved to the big boy hills.
The ski lift scooped me up and I took off. The ride up the mountain, I have to admit, is very peaceful and a far cry from the car alarms and loud car radios of the Bronx. Jen Solz, a volunteer in Harlem, and I took to the slopes together. I made the first several runs without any major problems; however, I quickly found out that objects in motion, do indeed, stay in motion. Stopping 200 pounds of moving mass at the bottom of a mountain isn’t easy. Therefore, I spent a good bit of the morning by crashing to a halt at the bottom in order to prevent myself from slamming into a crowd of unsuspecting people putting on their skis. For some reason they thought that at the bottom of the mountain, rather than a nice flat finish like you see in the Olympics, that they’d put another hill that is right in front of the lodge. Not only that, but to get to the ski lift, you also have to ski down a hill into a crowd of people waiting to dangle themselves overhead. This is a problem, for someone like myself, who cannot stop. Other than my inability to stop, the day went pretty well.
I did get to experiment with Newton’s third law, that to every action (falling) there is a reaction (feeling pain). Just ask my calves. I didn’t even know I used them, but they hurt today, so I must have.
Sunday was interesting because Jen and I decided to look at the map to try some new routes and it was like eating the apple in the garden… a whole new world (namely the upper two thirds of the mountain) was revealed to us. We had no idea there was so much above us, much less three more ski lifts. So Sunday we left with Paul, Clare, and Jimmy to head to the top. We found a nice blue square (harder than the green circles we’d been doing) that was fun and very beautiful. Unfortunately, it started to snow pretty hard, so we could only go down it a few times. The visibility and the cold were a bit much. I went in for a short break and then skied a few more times. The proverbial “I’ll go one last time” kinda scared me because I’d made it through the weekend unscathed. Fortunately I had a clean track record for the weekend. Although I never tried any thing overly daring, I had fun and enjoyed myself. It’ll take time before it hail it as my favorite pastime, but it was fun (probably in large part because it was free!)