Ski Stories

I bought a new pair of skis last weekend and as I was waiting for them to get mounted a friend of mine asked me what I'd bought. I started to explain, but found that I was explaining about other skis first- as this new pair of skis was a quiver ski. By the time my story was done my friend looked at me and asked, "so how many pairs of skis do you have?"

I thought about it and while I didn't (and still don't) know the actual count I know it's over 20 pairs of skis. As I write that I can feel myself getting defensive since I feel very justified in each pair of skis, and in fact still feel there are several holes in the quiver. Please keep in mind this quiver includes: alpine, Nordic, back country, and telemark skis.  Within each of these categories I have several sub categories- in other words all the skis have a purpose.

But that isn't the point of this post. Instead, I got to thinking about all of these skis, and of skis I no longer have- I realized there are some fun stories tied to those various boards. I want to try and recall and share some of those stories. So here we go.

The first pair of skis I'm going to talk about were literally my first pair of skis.

I don't know who made them, but I know that they were the first skis I stood on and slid on snow.  I don't have any memories of skiing on them, but I did find a photo of my Mom and I skiing at Pleasant Mountain, I'm guessing it's '75 or '76.

I still have these skis. They've stayed with me for 40 years. I don't reflect about them often, but from time to time they catch my eye and I think back to other childhood skiing memories. Some of which will come out in this series! But it was the other day that these skis caused me to think about something I'm not sure I ever thought about. See, I've been a skier for most of my life, and most of the time when people ask me about my skiing when I was a kid they assume that it was my Dad that taught me how to ski, after all he's the one in the Maine Skiing Hall of Fame, but it was my Mom that taught me to ski.

In fact, I don't have any real early memories of skiing with my Dad, but I have a lot memories of skiing with my Mom. I can remember skiing up at Sugarloaf and doing a race but going the wrong way around each gate. I can remember my Mom making me learn how to sidestep and herringbone up the hill in our back yard after I skied straight down the hill. I wanted her to just carry me up. I remember her helping me onto the Pine lift at Pleasant Mountain. It was my Mom that taught me how to ski.

So while many say I ski like my Dad (which is a huge compliment), it is my Mom that I owe for helping me first find my love of gliding on snow. Thank you Mom.