A tale of two snowboarders...

Let me start by saying I know how to get off a ski lift. Whether I believe in any other ability that I have when skiing, I know I can get off the list. My sister taught me to ski and the one thing she was adamant about was that I wouldn’t be afraid of the chairlift. Well she was also adamant about always skiing in control so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. So chairlifts, despite things like a fear heights, a complete lack of confidence, and sometimes ability, have rarely been a problem for me. Because Beth told me I absolutely would not be afraid of chairlifts. She simply wouldn’t have it.

And I’m fairly decent about getting out of the way of beginner, and have been known to take sharp turns off to avoid crowds and fallen folk. And even that horrific couple of newbie snowboarders who strapped in both feet to their snowboards before exiting the lift, the guy talked about jumping from the lift while we were way up high… they weren’t too much of a problem for me. I was convinced we were all going to die but in fact as they took each other out I skied away unharmed. It was the beginner lift and anything goes on that one, I once just stood and watched as chair after chair emptied the content onto the snow in heaps. I mean they stopped the lift between the pile ups but still it was like a circus.

But somehow I knew the snowboarder next to me was going to be trouble. He couldn’t keep his board off of my skis while riding up. It was annoying and his lack of trying to move it off was pissing me off. But I thought he’ll move it when we get off he has to. And he did… sort of… he moved it under my skis. So I sat back on the chairlift and lifted my skis so he could move his board which he did for a second, because when I stood up the board was back under me. He whipped the board out from under me, which send me back on the chair which at this point was starting to turn. I let out a yelp and realized quickly that I had to jump onto the ramp… where he was standing, not moving about 5 feet ahead of me. And he was staring at me. Like this was my bad. I narrowly missed him and skied off to the side and looked back at him. There was no apology, no my bad… just him looking at me like I had almost hit him. Because it was somehow my fault that his board was under my skis?

That’s not really how exiting a lift works. We all have our own allotted space and clearly he was in my space. Because my feet on skis are set straight ahead and that is my space, I can’t move them anyplace else.

He was a newbie. He didn’t know what he was doing, and that shouldn’t have pissed me off as much as he did. But he was an arrogant newbie. His friend had mentioned that they should have started on the bunny slopes, which we weren’t on. He was very confident that he should be on these slopes. He was arrogant. And back in the day, when I was a newbie, I let people know just in case I screwed up getting off a lift. Just to give them the heads up. I wouldn’t have been nearly as pissed off as I was if he had attempted an apology. Or if he had warned me or showed something akin to humility. But he was just a jerk. It’s guys like that who give snowboarders a bad name.

Other snowboarders are awesome folk… weeks ago I had one of those moments. You know those moments when you recognize something wonderful in a stranger. I was on the chairlift, the slow one, the one that takes 15 minutes to get up and I was sitting next to the most darling snowboarder. He was a doll, so young and fresh and sweet… after about two minutes of talking to him I was confused as to whether I wanted to adopt him or marry him.

It was early in the morning and about 15 degrees out. No one was there. I just wanted someone else on the lift with me so I rushed to load on with him.

We must have looked like quite the pair on the lift, each of us had about an inch of skin showing. He was wearing a ski mask and goggles like me, all I could see was his beard and his mouth, and yeah he was young enough that I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have been looking at his mouth. At least not the way I was looking at it.

We talked about skiing, and snowboarding, my friends who were learning to snowboard, my own ski lessons, where he had snowboarded so far, where I was going to go next. We talked about conditions on the mountain, and his dad who was demoing skis. We talked about how it can be traumatic to wipe out and how fear is the biggest obstacle and building confidence is the key. He told me about his dad wiping on Ralphs run, and that’s why he was back on the bunny slopes. He talked about Hitchcock being a wonderful trail, I hadn’t been on it yet, it might be too steep I told him (weeks later this would become my favorite trail). It was all very ordinary stuff. Stuff I’ve said to many other people on the lift. There was nothing special about it at all. It’s just I could have talked to him for hours based on that 15 minute conversation. And it was with great reluctance that I told him to have a good run and skied off the lift.

I couldn’t tell you what was so darling about him (and believe me darling he was) or what I found so attractive; remember I could barely see him through the layers or why these 15 minutes stuck with me. It’s always wonderful to make a connection like that, and on a cold and quiet morning it warmed a part of me that wanted warmth.

So my darling snowboarder whoever you are, thank you for that warm moment.