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Where and When Did You Learn to Ski?

SShore

Resident Curmudgeon
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
556
For me it was Monarch Mountain, Christmas break 1972 (yes, I am old:ogcool:). Leather lace up boots, 150cm straight skis and scotch guarded blue jeans. Those were the days.
 

ADKmel

Skiing the powder
Skier
Joined
Jan 6, 2016
Posts
2,344
Location
Southern Adirondacks NY
1961-62 (crap I'm old too) Royal Mt. NY. .. ditto leather boots, wood skis no edges. rope tow and t-bar
 

crgildart

Gravity Slave
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
16,325
Location
The Bull City
Back yards and farm hills of central Minnesota on way too BIG garage sale gear mid 1970s. First lift served skiing at Buck Hill around 1976.
 

Ken_R

Living the Dream
Skier
Joined
Feb 10, 2016
Posts
5,775
Location
Denver, CO
December 1984, Killington, Vt. I was 11. My family took us there for a few Xmas holidays. I remember there were some days with good snow but some absolutely brutally cold days and patches of pure ice were quite common. Havent seen ice like that on a ski slope since then. Bear Mountain looked so so tough to me then I could never imagine skiing it. The moguls looked the size of VW bugs to me. After a few years of going on holiday there we went to Beaver Creek and it was heaven.
 

Cheizz

AKA Gigiski
Skier
Joined
Aug 15, 2016
Posts
1,958
Location
The Netherlands
My first ski experience (six full days of instruction) was Am Feldberg (Germany), as a kid, somewhere in the late 80's. Then, 3 or so years later, another week of skiing (full day lessons) in Switzerland, near Scuol. I wasn't very good at teaching my body new movements - still bump into chairs and tables often. Had a private war with the drag lift too. It was a tragedy.

But then - some 16 years later - I fell in love with a girl who skied, and her family did too. So she, some friends and I went to Val Thorens and I got hooked. This was Christmas 2010. Ever since, I've been addicted to skiing, traveling to the Alps a few times each season, taking lots of lessons and training on an indoor snow slope when I'm not able to make trips to the mountains. I get some 30-40 days in each season (indoor sessions not included). Not too bad.
 

avantskier

Booting up
Skier
Joined
Feb 28, 2017
Posts
33
Location
MA
ski: 1985, Nashoba Valley; been hooked ever since; my son started this winter at the same place, 1 year younger than when i started...circle of life or something :)
snowboard: 1997, mt sunapee (~30 days of this and i was back to two sticks for good)
 

Lorenzzo

Be The Snow
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
2,984
Location
UT
I really think I learned to ski on the ponds and in the rinks of Massachusetts when I was really young so say 1965. Hey, it was the 60-s man, don't tell me I couldn't learn to ski on a pond. An unfortunate truth is while I did play ice hockey, the first couple of seasons were spent on figure skates, wearing a dopey long coat. I didn't actually put on real skis until I was 21 but by then I'd already learned to ski.
 

skibob

Skiing the powder
Skier
Joined
Jan 5, 2016
Posts
4,268
Location
Santa Rosa Fire Belt
First started at "Nashville Alps" which is (was) in Indiana, not Tennessee and far from "alpine" :huh:.

Early 1990's.

Still learning:daffy::crash::daffy::crash::daffy:
 
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skiprob

Putting on skis
Skier
Joined
Dec 30, 2016
Posts
31
Winter 1972-73

I was nine.

The local congressman had a J-bar installed on this ridiculously tiny little hill next to the state run golf course between Morristown and Ogdensburg NY. The lodge and the upper lift house are still there. The site is now used for cross country skiing.

My mom was struggling with being a single mother of four. Some of her friends talked her into trying out skiing as a family activity.

So she pieced together these setups of borrowed and used equipment for me and my three sisters. I think we did buy some ski equipment from the local marina as well. For some reason, Americana bindings come to mind.

Anyway, my first time was at this place. I stood there and cried and refused to go down. On of my mother's friends came up to me and said, "Look over there. I bet you can go down that part of the hill."

I did.

I never thanked that woman. I often thank my mom.

After that my mom would ship us off on the CYO bus trips to Big Tupper and maybe, if we were lucky, Whiteface.
 

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