Saturday, April 08, 2006

Adam the skier with Mom the old fogey ;-P

Better late than never for this skiing post...

I took Adam skiing for the first time this season, and he of course is a complete natural at it. I would drop him off for his lesson and then go skiing by myself while he would slide down the bunny slope with his class. The Polar Kids program is pretty good, but really, it is just glorified babysitting. I didn't realize this until the last time I took him, but if I took him myself, it would only cost $5 for him (5 and under only!! can't do it next year, but I will with Dova), plus $17 rentals, and $24 for me to use the lower lifts for a 1/2 day ($46 total). Instead, I forked over $59 for a 1/2 day lesson (in all this is only 2.5 hours), plus $20 rentals, plus $43 for my 1/2 day ticket ($122 total). So the luxury of skiing by myself to the top of the mountain without the hassle of teaching a 5 year old on the bunny slope was $76 (well worth it by the way). By the last time he went, he was just about ready to take a real chair lift and I was all ready to spend a thrifty half day with him, but unfortunately the opportunity didn't come in March, and skiing in April is just too slushy. But then I realized that with these new shaped skis, I would probably be teaching him all wrong!!

While I was jetting down the mountain in the Singles Line, I noticed that my long 193cm straight skis was a total anachronism. Everyone had the new short shaped skis, and maybe about 10% of the people had straight skis like me (the pair I have is only 11 years old). When did I become an OLD FOGEY? So I afterwards, I looked online to see what the big deal with these new shaped skis were. I found this interesting article among many on shaped skis. Now I NEED SOME NEW SKIS!!! This sport is way too money consuming, but it is just so much fun. Adam has finally stopped asking to go skiing as the final snow mounds have disappeared (I say these mounds are made out of styrofoam because they seem to defy physics stick around so long). So on to biking and summer sports!

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

See...this shows you how long it has been since I went skiing. I've never even heard of "shaped skis".

But then, I was always the skater, and my wife was more of the skier. But she hasn't been skiing in about 8 years either!

My oldest daughter has begun skiing about 3 years ago...and goes a few times a year. She has been trying snowboarding lately, but I don't think she enjoys that quite as much yet.

I'm the old fuddy-duddy (fogey....whatever :-)