Skiing: A Review

There are many reviews of skis and boots and coats. And questions are asked like, how skinny should my rope be? And, are my sunglasses large enough? But, before you begin asking, does my ice ax dangle just right? A review of the entire endeavor is in order.

Skiing is a thing you can choose to do. It requires stuff. But less than you would think. If you have skis, boots and poles, you can do it. Poles aren’t even absolutely mandatory. I forgot them at home on one occasion and had a fine, if more challenging, ski tour. I will say that I haven’t forgotten them since. Fancy clothes are not mandatory. New skis, unnecessary. The online sphere is filled with reviews. Nits are picked over micro differences in how this ski can slarve but not slash, carve but not climb. And I, having failed to slash on one ski and successfully slarved on another, I think, gladly contribute with the utmost sincerity to this blither-blather. It’s true, we have a little money and we want to know what to buy and it makes sense to seek advice. It is also true that most of this stuff is pretty damn excellent and it can slash if you can slash it, it can climb if you can climb it. Skiing and all it has to offer depends not on these things.

Breathing hard, legs burning, sweat dripping, head pounding, partners way ahead of you… this is not suffering. You are not suffering. You are ski touring, or ski mountaineering or at worst skimo’ing. And in all cases it is a pleasure and a choice. If you are working hard, it hurts. Thank all the gods you are so privileged as to hurt this good. The person rolling around in a battered K-Mart tent in the freezing pre-dawn park you drove past on the way to your ski tour could likely claim a level of suffering, but you and I cannot. At least not while we’re skiing. And that’s one of its gifts.

The other day I was having a bad day skiing. The snow was hard and my arthritic knee hurt to a degree that made skiing a bit too painful to enjoy. And then I realized. I was skiing. Out of all the hands the deck could deal, I still got one that was skiing.

The gift of effort and a focus on the task of skiing can result in the easing up of the attention we put on ourselves. That is at least a possible benefit. But it isn’t a given. Photo: Pete Vordendberg

A different perspective of success. Photo: Pete Vordendberg

Though being filled with gratitude is a smart way to approach life, this is not a finger-wagging on how lucky we should feel. We have all suffered. And your suffering is real. Even if its causes are not. If anything, ski touring is a great temporary escape from suffering, and the pain of pushing yourself fast and hard is an even more thorough escape. Sweat in the eyes and iron in the throat feeds the soul. The discomfort of effort offers a respite from the insane ways we seek comfort. The gift of effort and a focus on the task of skiing can result in the easing up of the attention we put on ourselves. That is at least a possible benefit. But it isn’t a given.

Skiing is really fun. I can attest. But it can also be really unfun. It can own you. Skiing can be a competition that you can never win, even when you are winning. The causes of our suffering are not the steepness of the up-track or whatever dangerous and uncomfortable situation we put ourselves in. It is the shadow of our motives, the state of our own psyche that drives us to that place, or to the pace we’re ascending, the extremes we endure, the danger and fear we choke down, the sacrifices made to accomplish a goal of our own design. The illusion is that if we keep at it hard enough we will catch some ghost just up ahead who will grant us, finally and forever, the peace, satisfaction and love we have earned once and for all.

I’ve been reading lately about the backgrounds of many of our most successful and admired humans. Not one and all, but a few too many seem to have endured some torment, most horribly by their own parents, that drove them to a place of self-loathing, which they felt only an incredibly high degree of success could alleviate. 

I am not going to say that the 8th habit of highly successful people is to have a core-deep drive from feeling unworthy of love. That over simplifies a complex situation. The successful can be happy and the miserable can fail to succeed. The point is that culturally we are demonically oriented toward measurable success. The things we can measure, even if they aren’t really that important, gain importance because we can judge, see and be seen succeeding at them. They offer a missguided method of comparison. Our personal worth then gets wrapped up in this concept of success. We get pressured to succeed in these measurable ways and adopt both the pressure and the measuring stick as our own. Even if in the most crystal clear moments we know that skiing at whatever level (or climbing or whatever it is) is just a really enjoyable way to spend a day and a life, the fun can be tarnished by the wrong focus, a skewed view of what matters. Our worth is not in fact measured in vertical skied, nor the steepness of the pitch. Yet it is hard to measure fun, or satisfaction. It is hard to measure kindness. It is hard to measure compassion. Joy cannot be weighed, timed, nor its length taken.

So how do we know its value? It’s easy to measure wealth, accolades, awards, followers, likes, medals, conquests, none of which are important or reliably contribute to happiness especially next to compassion, doing kind acts, speaking kind words. Simply enjoying a ski tour, or the challenge of a difficult task. It’s easy to measure and compare vert skied, how fast you did it, or compare the lines you ski to someone else. A fun ski day can look pretty lame compared to someone else’s. 

The fine print: success doesn’t work. It’s a never ending pursuit. Photo: Alex Lee

And here’s the fine print, the words spoken inaudibly and too fast at the end of the advertisement: Success doesn’t work. It’s a never ending pursuit, a thirst that even drinking of it mightily can never quench. We buy too much shit, we put ourselves in unsafe situations, we drive ourselves to outrun something we carry with us. It doesn’t matter how fast or far we go. The motive remains. We pretend pain is suffering. We pretend success is happiness. We pretend our next pair of skis will have us skiing spines without fear and spinning tricks like teens. You might. But new skis won’t be why.

No wonder I never won an Olympic medal, my parents were really nice to me. That said, in spite of having been to the Olympics four times, I have always viewed my sporting career as a failure, because, by comparison, it was. This model of comparison is what drives our economy. If we know we’re good enough right now, as we are, we’ll stop buying so much stuff, we’ll stop working so hard to make things, to sell things, and be something we hope is finally enough. 

It is an exaggeration to say we’ll stop buying all together or working, or trying to do stuff. Doing stuff is fun. We should do stuff. And with a bit of attention maybe we’ll be able to catch our breath, take a step back and choose what we do a bit more wisely.

Wasatch angles. Photo: Pete Vordendberg

As an impressionable youth I watched the Olympics on TV but instead of buying the box of Wheaties, I bought the idea of the Games themselves. I was shot full of adrenaline by images of success, the momentary explosion of joy you see on the face of the winner crossing the finish line. The tears of joy rolling down the cheek of the athlete on the podium as the Star Spangled Banner plays. Eventually it was the process of training and the lifestyle of ski racing that I fell in love with, but there was always the illusion that up ahead I would receive my medal and with it unfaltering life satisfaction. I’m not wagging my finger here at anyone but myself. My suffering might be real, but its causes are a fiction I write with my own pen. I’m not to the level of The Joker but I push hard on the up track, buddy, because I need to.

I am about to write a review of a pair of skis that will absolutely give you multiple orgasms every outing. This is totally proven. It’s proven in just the same way we can see how happy, satisfied and well adjusted extraordinarily successful people always, always are. Orgasms and Self-Actualization abound. Sign right here.

If you are asking yourself what skis these are?! What ski ARE these?! I have not done a good job writing this.

I believe we do a good job telling people about the equipment we review and who it will work for under what conditions. This is a valuable service. You should have the gear that will help you enjoy this sport and be as safe as possible doing it. And probably the stuff you already have is pretty great too, at least good enough to enjoy everything skiing has to offer.

Does this jacket breathe better or repel the weather better? Yes, it’s fine. Does this ski handle breakable crust. No, it’s fine. Are my pole grips long enough? Definitely, they’re as long as the entire shaft! I mean, how big are your hands?

Skiing is a direct connection to the flow experience. That place where focus is a laser and attention is as wide as the sky. It’s a place of bliss. It is a place where your sphincter may occasionally get tight, but your egoic grasping can relax. Hell yeah you should ski. Even when the skiing isn’t very good. And hell yeah, you should go for that goal. That its accomplishment is meaningless beyond your own temporary satisfaction be damned, go for it! But know that. The only gold is the rainbow itself, there is nothing at the end of it. The whole thing is an illusion. Steep skiing is so fun. Do it because it is fun, because it is challenging. Because you share an amazing experience with your friends. Those are its rewards. Full stop. Sure, investigate a new coat if yours is too cold. But investigate your motives first. You could at least save a few bucks. And at best it could save you and your partner’s life. That line you’re about to ski (perhaps to calm the gaping, howling hole in your self esteem?), doesn’t look safe today. Come back another day. With motives considered you can perhaps save yourself some suffering by savoring the pain of the effort, or just by going at your own pace, save yourself carrying the heavy weight of the empty expectations our larger culture is focused on. These are things that steal from the joy of skiing. From joy in all forms. It’s hard to flow if you’re focused on insta-strava-book-how-good-do-I-look, or about anything beyond the task at hand.

A review of skiing. Be in the moment. Photo: Pete Vordendberg

The fine print reads: satisfaction will always lie beyond reach when you reach out for what is within. Yes, Ski! It’s a revolutionary act to judge your days by your own measure, put the emphasis on laughter rather than lighter, funner rather than faster, kind acts rather than stats. Friends not Fortunes. The choice you have is where you put your attention. The perspective you take is yours. And that is everything.

An additional secret here is that this task-focus and resulting freedom and flow will also lead to more measurably successful outings as well as more enjoyable and safe ones. The right focus is not only more fun, but also puts you in the right space to rip.

Skiing is really fun. And I sometimes forget this. And when I do I wonder if my Gatorade is too weak or my side cut too long or my under-layers too damp. But no. It’s because I’m distracted by some bullshit measure I don’t feel I’m measuring up to, and failing to appreciate the flow of skis on snow. The fun is directly in it, the satisfaction is included, no purchase necessary, no accomplishment required. The joy available is beyond measure, priceless, yours for the taking, ours for the sharing. When our view is clear and sharp and when we come home safe, we see that going skiing gets a full 10 out of 10 stars.