 Poster: A snowHead
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Reading about people who don't like crud, or don't like powder, I thought - are they completely missing the point?
Then I thought, what is the point? Why am I compelled to endure airports, discomfort, cold extremities, crowds, as well as massive bills?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well speaking personally, I ski to relax, no worries about work or home, beautiful scenery, nice hotel with great food and good people, no hurtling down the mountain at break neck speed for me.... normally anyway, Other people go to beaches to get away I go to the mountains, I don't worry if the weather is bad as (and I know this is almost unheard of) I can always do somthing other than ski  Whilst I can and do ski all conditions I tend to sink in powder, but I only really worry about flat light, I don't race but will happily help the race organisers with time keeping or whatever, I often take the time to stop and help less experienced skiers if I here them talking in English and can see they're having dificulties and I will always go to the aid of someone who's fallen, I'm not really a goody goody / boyscout or whatever I do these things because people in the past have done them for me and in doing so have nurtured my love of skiing, I like to pass that along, my biggest satisfaction this year was not the thanks I got for helping out at a couple of races but the thanks I got from a young couple who I'd offered some advice to a few days earlier, they'd spotted me at a restaurant and came to say "that thanks to what I'd said about their stance and how to change it their skiing had gone from timidly going down easy blue runs to confidant parallel turns on reds in just 2 days"
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Because even though it costs a lot, you can't put a price on sh!tfaced fun. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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DB, nice one!!!!
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I think everyone's said it all - its just a perfect holiday - away from it all, in the freshair, beautiful scenery - you can ski as hard or as gently as you want and not worry about having a beer or two at the end of the day.
Its the winter version of sailing!
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Utter, complete, exhilarating freedom.
It's the closest I can ever come to flying.
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For me its the sensations you get. There's nothing like it.
I think its why I really enjoy flat light conditions. Every sense feels enhanced somehow.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Just to be 'on top of the world'. That feeling of grandeur, exhilaration, insignficance, oneness, sheer joy, all rolled into one.
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I've remembered one other reason, because everyone else arround you is generally having as much fun as you are and enjoyment is infectious, if you don't believe me try staying in a resort where everyone can't go skiing due to avalanche risk and see how rapidly they get upset
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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No-one is miserable in a ski resort-unless they can't ski.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
I've remembered one other reason, because everyone else arround you is generally having as much fun as you are and enjoyment is infectious, if you don't believe me try staying in a resort where everyone can't go skiing due to avalanche risk and see how rapidly they get upset
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Boy do I remember that one DGO.
As for why I ski - because I love it. Pure and Simple both doing it and where I do it!!
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I think skiing allows us all to be kids again. As kids we just loved mucking about outside. Dressing up was a bonus. Adult sporty activites tend to be competitive and/or require lots of ghastly effort (running or the gym). Skiing allows us to muck about outside again, and dress up and be silly. No competition, no drudgery (climbing up hills), just fun.
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You know it makes sense.
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This is a bit like asking an acoholic why he likes drink! We're all addicted.
"My names Michael and I am a ski-aholic. I've not had a ski for 6 weeks now and I'm desperate. I may last to next year (if I have to) but I'm afraid my reformation may be short lived come next December"
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Because I can.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
I think skiing allows us all to be kids again.
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This is certainly true, snow and mountains too. Ski=ing gives you a good excuse to go out and enjoy these things!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I ski simply for the fun of it, its a great excuse to get away from the daily grind of life.
My parents and my sister and brother-in-law go off somewhere hot and sunny every year but I go off to the mountains, I like being different!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Simply because it's superb fun... the mountains, the sport, the adrenalin, the people..... all of it. The best... 
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At the risk of killing this thread, I offer the following musings.....
Why do I ski?
Well, I’ve got to admit that being prone to analysis and introspection, I have wondered this too. Maybe I just like pointless activities. My other sporting loves are sailing –the art of going slowly nowhere at great expense and cricket -a game that can last five days and end in a draw.
So then, let’s define skiing –sliding down a hill so you can go up it again or, more accurately, the other way round. Why do it?
Now looking at it that way just reminds you, perhaps of the legend of Sisyphus. He was condemned by the gods to roll a stone up a hill all day only to have it roll down again at night. As a metaphor for life, the story was taken up by Albert Camus who gave it an Existentialist slant. According to Camus, Sisyphus accepted his fate and was happy. Taking it further, there is the Existentialist idea that all moral reference must come from within oneself. Putting it simply, one can only be one’s own hero. Sisyphus was happy, maybe, if he pushed his stone well.
That’s where we come back to skiing. It’s (mostly) a non-competitive activity. It does take some nerve. If you aren’t at least a little bit scared then I’m surprised. I certainly am. You test yourself against the slope, the snow, the mountain. Maybe the overcoming of that fear allows us to be our own existential hero to ourselves.
We strive to improve to satisfy ourselves. Most of the time, we ski within a bubble of our own concentration, without reference to any other standards than our own. Our performance needs no external approval. As often as not, it is our harmony with the slope or with the snow we approve. A turn well carved, a mogul cleanly negotiated gives the reward.
All sports are metaphors. Another Camus idea was that wisdom could be found through football. He was himself a goalkeeper and a goalkeeper’s success can only be measured in the absence of the inevitable defeat. Like life itself, the goalkeeper’s final defeat is certain in the same way that death itself is the certain end of life. When you ski you fly. You have powers of speed and grace beyond the mortal. All the while you can do it you are alive.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I can't think of anything to add - everyone has eloquently given all the reasons I would have. Catriona is right though and now I'm beginning to have neoprene withdrawral!
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Chris : "The only freedom I know is freedom of thought and action"... (from the same work...) and the concluding line "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
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Phew! I was a bit fearful of getting a response along the lines of "What a load of dangly bits!"
Let's not forget the beer!
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Is Boll0cks rude then? I use it all the time as a literary criticism term!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Chris is getting there!
What I like about all of the sports that I do is that you can get youself into a frame of mind where you are concentrating totally on that activity. All other thoughts have left your mind. It is zen-like in its focus. Nothing matters more than just making that next perfect turn.
This is total concentration on an activity that essentially has no reference to "real life". If I could achieve that kind of focus on my regular work, maybe I'd be better at it, but really, I neither want nor need to put that level of concentration into material activities.
By applying the focus to an essentially meaningless activity I am cleansing my mind - purgeing it of the ghastly mundane details and worries that I've left behind. Add to this that I'm doing it all in some of the most awesome terrain (using that adjective in it's correct, rather than popular sense) on the planet and you have an unbeatable combination.
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Looks like I'd better brush up my existentialists if we are going to ski togetherPG, . I think I'm working from some pretty old memory, but my students come up with this stuff from time to time.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Chris Bish, I was in the 'Café de Flore' in Paris not so long ago, taking notes for an article (that I haven't got around to writing yet). Encouraged me to dig out a few dusty tomes....
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Acacia, It occurred to me that I was getting pretty close to a Zen approach in my musings/ramblings.
I agree with you about the total concentration part, but I think it's a bit deeper than taking your mind off the mundane. It's much more like a positive engagement with the self and with the natural world.
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Skiing - Les Testicules du Chien.
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much  on Sun 14-03-04 23:45; edited 4 times in total
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You know it makes sense.
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If I didn't ski I wouldn't know what to do with all the money I'd have.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Freedom! When you're really skiing in the sweet spot, everything else fades away....totally. And therein lies a sort of freedom - know what I mean?
Then there's the awe and majesty of the moutains in all their snow capped glory. Is there any better panarama?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Spot on, Mark Hunter. Skiing is the perfect brain enema.
And there are plenty of us who need that from time to time...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I ski because its the only thing in the world that combines my three perfect holiday elements!
- snow
- men
-alcohol
Now im all up for the getting up for the first lift thing etc however not at the expense of my apres ski pub crawls! Nothing even comes close to the feeling when you arrive in resort!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Hear, hear, Acacia, nothing to flush the gray matter like the white stuff ... . Yes the scenery is delightful but personally I prefer my communing with Mother Nature in the privacy of an isolated alpine meadow, ravine, outcropping etc. and not in the company of a hundred flak-jacketed snowboarders. Not to mention the fluorescent jump-suits.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I remember how moved I was the first time I went 'upstairs' properly and looked around at the view.
Another nice memory for me is the fist time I saw the Matterhorn/Cervinia. God thats beautiful.
Flying into insbruck on a clear day.
Never had a hangover in the Alps yet, obviously not trying hard enough or is it the mountain air?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Cee Bee, No problem with snowboarders if you're on the slopes before midday 
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| Chris Bish wrote: |
Acacia, It occurred to me that I was getting pretty close to a Zen approach in my musings/ramblings.
I agree with you about the total concentration part, but I think it's a bit deeper than taking your mind off the mundane. It's much more like a positive engagement with the self and with the natural world. |
Chris, I agree totally. The old powers of description let one down, sometimes. In relation to the positive engagement with the self, my experience is that this is very much an expression of the relationship betwen the mental and the physical. When everything's really working, then the mind is exercising motor control without conscious input. I'm not telling myself to "do this now" it's just happening.
It's what athletes and sports psychologists describe as being "in the zone", and for me the good thing about this (sometimes pretty elusive) state is that it frees the conscious mind to appreciate the experience - the surroundings, the solitude (if you're lucky enough to have avoided the "flak-jacketed snowboarders"), the quality of the air, the amazing sound-deadening effect of falling snow.
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I ski for the views, the being like a kid again (you can play and it's OK), the wind in my face, the beautiful sensation of speed, the satisfaction of carving a few nice linked carved turns, the Vin Chaud at the end of a hard day, the leg-burn after a fast run, the adrenaline rush of doing something a bit scary etc etc etc.
I enjoy the simplicity of knowing what you're going to do and the only decision is which lift and which run. When I go on any other holiday you've got to decide what you're going to do (and lying by the pool/beach for me is never an option). I'm actually not convinced that it is as expensive as everyone always says it is. Yes you do have to pay in one hit for a lot (lift pass, ski hire etc) but then you're holiday is sorted and other than lunch/beer/food you don't have to spend out cash to kill time. Also you might think that the skiing airports are bad but they're nothing like the busy Majorca Palma airport!
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Chris Reed,and[ Acacia, superb reasoning.
And well done for making the point about how horrid alternative holidays can be.
Don't forget the sense of companionship and shared adventure (which strongly influences this superb forum.)
I once experienced "survivor euphoria" after a challenging day's sailing. You get that high most days when skiing.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Why do i ski? Silly question really, because otherwise it takes ages to walk down to the bottom of the mountain
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Where else can one drink and eat to excess and come back fitter
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FAQ
. Beacuse I love Mr HB and he loves it too ! 
