sarge121's Blog

It all started innocently enough; in fact I did not even start to ski until middle age. I always wanted to try, on summer family vacations in Colorado I would see the idle ski areas and dream of being able to hit the slopes in the winter. Perhaps it was a primal urge from my Swedish roots. Perhaps my parents knew that once I clicked in and began to make turns I would be obsessed forever.

All addictions start small. When my children were young our small Nebraska town designated a section of a city park as a sledding area. I began to take my young children to sled in the winter. The sledding was my “gateway drug� to something much worse. I began to long for bigger thrills than sledding alone could provide.

It is weird how I started skiing. Several things came together at once. One of my daughters attended a skiing church youth rally and the winter Olympics were on at the same time. I mentioned to my wife that I had always wanted to ski. My wife said that he wanted to leave town for the weekend. My wife told me to make the arrangements and go.

I picked the Hogadon Ski Are in Casper, Wyoming for my first attempt at skiing. I picked this area because it is small, uncrowded, inexpensive, and easy to get to from western Nebraska. Taking advice from my friends and internet reading I signed up for ski school.

I arrived in mid March. The ski instructor was not what I pictured. I was expecting a young athletic person. What I got was a gray haired old man who was instructing as a retirement job. I am not complaining about this just noting that this is not what I was expecting.

I was obviously a rookie that day. I had no ski clothes and I looked silly in my blue jeans trying to put ski boots on for the first time. We went to the Hogadon bunny hill known as Morning Dew. We began by learning how to click into the bindings. I started to slid instantly and I put my poles out to stop me. The instructor took the poles away from me.

I started a series of snowplows and falling down. The instructor then got a pole and has us ski together holding onto the pole. I fell down, and worse I knocked the instructor down too. So there we are twisted together me thinking that I had killed the old man. Several young children skied up to us and said “are you guys okay�. “Yes we are okay!� I yelled in reply muttering under breath “get out of here you little brats�. We got up, put our skis back on, and finished the run.

The lesson was over and I was wiped out for the day. My legs felt terrible. I could barely walk, there was no way I could have continued right then if I had wanted to. But just as they say with meth or crack, I was addicted from the very first try of skiing.

I went home and began a physical fitness program. I was going to build my strength so I could feed my addiction. I read books, watch videos, and I even subscribed to Ski Magazine. I came back to Hogadon 10 months later with the church youth group. I took a group lesson. This time the teacher was on the local high school team (which won the Wyoming state championship the previous year.) I excelled through the lesson and even left the group to ski on my own.

I was so obsessed by skiing I decided to try and addict my children! What kind of a parent am I! Two months later I took the family to Deer Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I had three of my five children decided to go try it once. I had them fitted for skies and I took them out and showed them how to go down the mountain. One of my daughters kept saying she was going to take a break after the next run, she never took the break, she kept going up for “one more runâ€�. Finally she looked at me said “thanks a lot dad, Iâ€m hookedâ€�. What have I done to my children!

My hooked daughter and I went to Hogadon again in January and skied together. The whole family will go to Terry Peak in South Dakota later this year. My youngest daughter wants to try to ski to. I am afraid that she will be inflicted by the addiction at the age of 4! My oldest daughter, who had thus far resisted my invitations to ski, has announced that she wants to try SNOWBOARDING!!! Where did I go wrong!

Even though my addiction has spread to my children my wife has not participated. She is a not a skier; however, she is an enabler. She drives to the slopes, helps me get the kids ready, and encourages them as they try. She even takes pictures of us as we try and sometimes fail. Then she drives us to our hotel as I am too wiped out after a day of skiing to be able to drive.

I feel so guilty for what I have done to my family. We spend to time together in the great outdoors. We laugh, we play, we carry on, they grow up and we grow closer. Their skills and confidence improve with each run. There are no cell phones, no computers, and no cable TV. It is just us, snow, fresh air, and fun. Hey, maybe skiing is not such a bad addiction after all.