The Ten Commandments of Downhill Skiing

Thou shalt not sit down on T- Bars

For you first time users, T-Bars like rope tows are a means of pulling you to the top of the hill. You must first stand in an interminable line of skiers watching the skiers at the head of the line move into position where the attendant slaps them on the rear end with a T-bar as it comes around. To the first-timer watching the process, it all seems very straight forward. The cable with the T-bar comes around the bullwheel, the attendant slaps you in the hips with the bar and up the hill you go. What you may not know is that the T-bar cable is on a retractable reel and must feed all the way out before it catches and starts pulling you up the slope. It came as a bit of a surprise to me, a first-timer, when I skied into position. I felt the attendant slap my hips with the bar, which I assumed I could sit on.  The result was a rather unglamorous flop onto my back in the snow as the cable continued to feed out of the retractable reel. Then, when the full length of cable had retracted, the T-bar shot up the hill, raking down the back of my legs, slapping the skis off my boots and causing raucous laughter from the interminable line of skiers behind me.

Thou shalt not be the first to ride a chair lift after a heavy snow

I thought it suspicious as I skied up to a chairlift the first thing in the morning after a full week of heavy snow. The attendant was shoveling a trench in front of the lift station so the chairs wouldn’t plow through a drift which had formed in front of the station.

“Ok, I think I dug it low enough. Just keep your ski tips up,” he assured me with confidence.

I skied into position and sat in the chair as it came around. The extra weight of me sitting on the chair dropped it at least four inches lower. Up the slope we went…approximately six feet until the chair buried itself and my skis solidly in the drift. The chair continued up the hill after it had first pulled me off the front, raked up my back and hit me in the head.

“Yikes!” the attendant yelled. “I’m going to have to dig that a little deeper.”

My impression in the snow did not look like a snow angel. More like a police body outline.

Thou shalt not wear pouches or cameras around your neck

It is not uncommon to see skiers with water or wine pouches hanging around their necks to hydrate themselves while on the slopes. I hung an 8mm camera to make home movies. This is not an unsafe practice unless the case lanyard or strap is too long. Sitting down on the chair for a ride to the top, I laid my camera with its strap around my neck in the center of the bench by my hips. Somewhere on the ride up, it slipped off the back of the chair and was dangling between the bench and the chair back. Upon reaching the disembarking station, I stood up on my skis and slid down the ramp away from the chair. The camera, now jammed between the seat back and the bench immediately tightened the strap like a harness around my shoulder and neck, lifting me into the air like Peter Pan and carrying me through the bullwheel and back in the opposite direction. Quick thinking by the attendant, who spilled his cocoa when he saw me pass his window, prevented me from further damage to my neck and ego.

Thou shalt not teach beginners the basics

Lessons should only be taught by ski instructors. I tried to give lessons only twice. My friend Dave was with me night skiing. He had never been on skis before. I assured him that it would be easy to learn due to his extreme athleticism. I took the night slowly, teaching him the basics. Later we skied to a large bowl to practice. The bowl, somewhere in the area of five acres, was empty except for one man who was standing out in the center. I gave Dave a refresher of the basics and watched as he slid off. It was, I remind you, a five-acre bowl. Just like a heat-seeking missile, Dave shot full speed into the center of the bowl and ran over the one man in it. I had to compliment him on his aim.

Years later, I took my daughter night skiing for her one and only ski experience.  We worked for quite some time on Snowplow and Stem Christy basics. Then I took her to the top of a bunny hill. We discussed the basics once again on how to stay in control. Side by side we practiced as we skied slowly to the bottom. Halfway down, she started sliding too fast coming out of a turn and panicked. Instead of sitting down, she brought her skis parallel and started straight down the hill like a toboggan…directly toward a line of skiers waiting for the rope tow. I skied up next to her shouting directions to help her turn or stop but she was frozen in a panic. I did the only thing a loving father could do — I body-blocked her. Lying in a pile of skis and legs, I remember her asking, “Dad, did you mean to do that?”

Thou shalt not high-speed pass on a bridge

This could one have been fatal. Skiing down a groomed trail through the woods, I saw a bridge ahead that crossed a stream bed. Almost on the bridge, a mother and her young son were skiing in the center of the trail. Not sensing a need to slow down, I decided to pass on their left when I got to the bridge. Just as I reached the bridge, the mother and son skied from the center to the left side of the bridge leaving me with the choice of: a) hitting them at a high rate of speed or, b) skiing off the bridge — which I did in an elegant swan dive, sticking head-first in the snow below. Luckily, I did not break my neck or jam snow so far down my throat that I suffocated. The mother and son never stopped to check on me, but she did yell something about skiing too fast.

Thou shalt pee before ski

This is self-explanatory. First, when you really must go, remember you must first get past ski gloves, ski jacket, ski pants and long underwear. Second, there is no good place to hide. Third, once you have done it, it is there until spring.

Thou shalt not show off to your classmates of the opposite sex

Showing off often ends in humiliation.  Skiing down a groomed hillside during a heavy snowstorm, I noticed at the bottom several young ladies my age from high school. They were standing next to a drift putting their skis on. This, I schemed would be an opportunity for me to show them my jumping ability off the packed drift. Though my goggles were fogged from the wet falling snow, I brought my skis together and pointed them straight down the hill toward the girls and the drift. Apparently, the drift was not packed snow. When I hit it, I did not ski over it but instead stuck full speed into it. The resulting sudden stoppage caused my goggles to fly forward from my face around three feet before the elastic band slapped them back in place. All I can really remember after I regained consciousness, and was able to breathe again, was the girls retrieving my gloves and stocking hat for me. It is nice to be noticed.

Thou shalt not ski on an ice slope

It was the first run of the day. The temperature overnight had dropped into the teens with a howling northeaster. There was low visibility on the hill as I got off the chair and skied to the edge of the first hill which dropped into a bowl. The wind was blowing hard up the slope as I skied over the top and slid parallel to the slope to stop. The ski edges caught nothing to stop me. The slope was a large sheet of ice. It was quite a spectacular slide to the bottom pin-balling off the moguls like that.

Thou shalt not drop your ski from the chairlift

The problem with having packed snow on the bottom of your ski boots is that the bindings don’t always lock. This can prove awkward when you leave the boarding area on the chair lift only to have one or both of your skis drop to the snow below. The only sensible thing to do is to ride the chair to the top, around the bullwheel and all the way back to the bottom again. This gives you the opportunity to wave at 200 skiers riding in the opposite direction.

Thou shalt not let your frozen gloves get stuck to the tow rope

Under adverse conditions wet mittens will freeze to a tow rope much the same way a tongue sticks to a frozen flagpole. The consequence is, when you reach the top of the hill and release the rope with your hand, the glove stays with the rope.  The glove then gets pulled from your hand, goes through the two sheaves at the top of the hill and usually falls to the snow looking unrecognizable as a glove. The experienced skier will know to remove a sock from one of his feet to use as an emergency glove.

Thus, these are the Ten Commandments of Downhill Skiing. They shall not be altered one jot or tittle from generation to generation. Great calamities shall befall those who disobey.

With special apologies to a man named Moses.

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