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Why do you ski?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Firstly, the reason behind the question: I was mulling over ideas for topics for my next Blog post and this question came up. I was thinking about why I ski and then thought that maybe (in fact, definitely!) the post would be more interesting if I gathered the answer to that question from lots of other people.

So, I hope you don’t mind me asking: Why do YOU ski?
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Because I relished the challenges it offers in beautiful surroundings. Started quite young, left it (due to financial constraints, i.e my Dad could not/would not pay for more) then picked it up again in my 20s. There is always something you can improve on or new place to visit; you never run out of opportunities. Even better now I live here instead of close to the lowest point in the UK! Toofy Grin Toofy Grin snowHead I still get excited when I see the snow appear on the hills for the first time such as it did today! snowHead
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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?
It's a heck of a lot easier than walking back down.
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meh, Laughing Laughing
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Quote:

There is always something you can improve on or new place to visit; you never run out of opportunities

........., you can never ski the same peice(piste) of snow twice.
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Firstly, it's a metric poo-poo-tonne of fun - deep snow is probably one of the closest sensations you can get to flying (without having to get too high above the ground Laughing Embarassed ). Secondly, it's about the best way to actually interact with the most impressive structures on the planet, rather than just look at them.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Love mountains, but loathe beaches. Tried it once, and was hooked. Died of boredom on a beach holiday though.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
It's the easiest way I know of getting rid of surplus money.
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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.
It makes for a fun, action packed holiday. I like being outside. I like being in the mountains. I like the feeling [of snowboarding].
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
clarky999,
Quote:

Secondly, it's about the best way to actually interact with the most impressive structures on the planet, rather than just look at them.


+1
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Not a good skier, but love Gentle blues, Love all things Austrian so it is only a 2.5 hour flight and would die of boredom on a beach holiday.

As a family my teenagers love to ski and now as the guy with the white beard and red suit doesn't visit our house anymore we are off skiing for Christmas. Some good quality family time without lots of work for Mom.
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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.
Because my kids had the chance to learn very young - a chance I wasn't going to deprive them of, but I realised that they wouldn't be able to take advantage of it unless they had someone that could provide supervision around most of the mountain. So despite a lot of fear I learned to ski.
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 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
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
Quote:
Why do YOU ski?
Because it's an obsession and an addiction that can never be satisfied. It's a way of life that I love and I just can't get enough. Never really pinpointed the reasons....possibly a bit inexplicable - but here's my attempt:

- The feelings of freedom and exhilaration and the adrenaline buzz. It's just an amazing way to travel across the winter landscape. I agree with clarky999 - probably one of the closest sensations you can get to flying (without having to get too high above the ground). And powder skiing, once mastered, takes it to another level of enjoyment Very Happy.
- Just being in the mountains, whatever the weather, whatever the snow conditions. Skiing's a great excuse to be in the planet's most marvellous and most beautiful environments - which are even more stunning under a blue sky and blanket of fresh snow.
- Being almost at one with the environment - eg being off-piste in the middle of nowhere with barely another person in sight and knowing that it's just you and the mountain. The silence and solitude are fantastic and it's all so far from the everyday rat race. It's skiing that gets you to places like that - which are unthinkable (and unreachable) to the average non-skier.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Cos the other white powder is bad for your septum.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
As an excuse to eat Tartiflette
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Love the mountains and find the never ending challenge of getting better (the better I get the less accomplished I feel) ideal for an obsessive personality.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
The feelings.

Especially steep skiing in powder which sometimes gives a moment of weightlessness \ freefall that's sublime.
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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?
It's a holiday. I'm not someone who could happily sit on a beach inviting skin cancer, I'd rather be doing something enjoyable. The fact that skiing also includes a thrill, a challenge, amazing scenery, the chance to spend time with fabulous friends, yummy food, a few drinks and people are positively encouraged to be well clothed are all huge bonuses to me.

If I didn't ski I'd have to find some other form of activity holidays but I can't imagine any others giving me the same buzz.
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I live an over-safe and mediated life, mostly based in the past and future and in metaphor, thought and theory. Skiing holidays are the one bit of the year when I live in the moment, in a second to second precise balance with my environment: and that environment is the most inspiring on the planet - unmediated by man (I am a mostly off-piste skier). As someone else said, it is the closest I'll probably get to my dreams of flying - a feeling, at best, of complete freedom, but also of balance - where I am at the edge of what my skill and body will allow and my physical safety is on the line if I cross the line. In particular I love to make the first track on a slope, away from all the lifts - I might even (occasionally) be the first person ever to be on a particular spot - and certainly so recently.


Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Tue 17-09-13 16:49; edited 1 time in total
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
It's the Stroh 80 and hot tubs that do it for me. Toofy Grin
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Freedom, speed, scenery, nature. You have to try it to understand it though. I feel like it is the closest I will ever come to flying... Smile
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Boris wrote:
As an excuse to eat Tartiflette
very sensible answer.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
It ticks so many boxes. It's a total escape from a job that can preoccupy my mind. Navigating ones way down the mountain doesn't allow any options but to live in the moment. The mountains are just so beautiful-think I need to live in the Alps. Love the sense of achievement and physical exertion and the gentle thrum of my tired legs at the end of a good day. I can eat cake, tartiflette and other such mountain grub, plus endless hot chocolates without feeling (too) guilty. Pretty mountain villages and cute chalets tug a the heart strings. I think I'm getting better a it and enjoy new challenges, visiting new places and proving myself with a bunch of blokes wink . It's a great thing to do with friends and family in a way that no other activity can match, but it's also great on ones own, lapping up the miles, drinking in the landscape- getting away from the masses.

Oh yes, and don't we all love an activity which involves planning, kit perusing, retail therapy, fantasy ski chalet purchasing and forum posting, especially a this time of year when ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO SKIING. NOW. Confused
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
I almost didn't open this thread, because I knew the gnarly off-pisters would enthuse about stuff I can only dream of and feel sad that I will never attain. But that aside, like others, I do it because I love the mountains, would get bored on a beach, enjoy the challenge of trying to ski half-way decently and the thrill of the few moments in most days when it feels 'right', the food and not getting fat as quickly as I would if I ate the same sort of thing at home, the bonhomie. Again, as others have said, you live absolutely in the moment when you're doing it, there's no room for other, negative thoughts. And I love skiing with other people because it combines being absolutely alone when you're on the move, which is a wonderful feeling, and yet being part of a friendly group when you all pause for breath (or for a meal or a drink.)
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"That" moment - first lifts, chair to yourself, nobody on the piste below you and no sounds except the odd whirring of the chair mechanism...

...the feeling that you're light as air and almost floating...

...the cloud filled valley below you that still fills me with awe...

...the chance to feel like a child again, playing in the snow!
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Because it's more fun than nearly anything else I can think of!
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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.
We are all here because, we're not all there.
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 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
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
All of the above and off course selling shiny new things to fatbob,
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I guess why I ski now is that I still have a child-like fascination with the snow and how attractive it makes things when it lands on them. It has given me a social life of sorts. It gets me outdoors in the fresh air, it's like horse riding - it takes total concentration and def. causes me to switch off from the real world for a while which is good for me. I also feel a total sensation of 'privilage' to be doing something that, as a child, I thought I would never do when I was watching Ski Sunday. When I start to enjoy the actual process of skiing I will let everyone know wink As it is I could still quite happily live without it, but I do like the chance to be in the mountains and I still aspire to be a semi-decent skier.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
I don't know, it scares me. Puzzled
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Just being at High Altitude with fantastic scenery, and of course the snow. Skiing is obviously the only way to get down Smile
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
https://snowheads.com/the_zone/showphoto.php/data/500/medium/Go_Skiing.bmp
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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?
1) something to do in the dark winter that gets me outside without feeling cold.

2) sliding about effortlessly is an absolute blast

3) when I feel like it, I can try a few new moves here and there, if successful, I have "accomplished" some sort of improvement
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I started skiing for a number of reasons. It was fun, it was something we all did as a family, albeit I started it via a daytrip with the Scouts, but also it was a sport I could do, and be good at that was not hindered by my asthma.


These days, when I look at the sports about which I'm most passionate, I find a common theme and that is focus. Whether it's skiing or motorcycling, they require my total attention and total focus. It's almost a form of escapism, perhaps even meditation, which allows me to wipe all other thoughts, worries, stresses from my mind.

I don't consciously choose these sports because of that, but it does seem to be something that is underlying in my enjoyment.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Jeremy Clarkson wrote (probably C Sunday Times or whatever a while ago

Quote:
For your next holiday, why don’t you take all your money and put it on the fire? Then stand in a fridge for a week, beating your children with a baseball bat until their arms and legs break. And then, after you’ve eaten some melted cheese, dislocate your shoulder. If all of this appeals then you are probably one of the 1.3m British people who go on a skiing holiday at this time of year.

Skiing, for those of you who’ve never tried it, is an extremely expensive way of combining acute discomfort, butt-clenching embarrassment, mind-numbing fear and a light dusting of hypothermia. Plus there’s a better than evens chance that at least one member of your family will come home in a wheelchair.
The first thing you must understand is the ski boot. It is specifically designed to be as heavy as possible and to ensure that if you fall over – and you will, all the time – your leg will break at its most painful point: just above the ankle. The only way to prevent this happening is to cushion the fall with your face.


These holidays are called winter “breaks” because at some point you will end up in a doctor’s surgery that looks like a Baghdad market after a nail-bomb attack. Once, after I’d broken my thumb for the second year in succession, I sat in the waiting room with a chap who had a ski pole sticking out of his eye. And opposite was a pretty young girl whose left foot was on back to front.

Of course you might think it is possible to avoid such injuries by going very slowly. Unfortunately this is not possible because to counter the surprisingly powerful effects of gravity you need to dig the edges of your skis into the slope with such force that after a very short time your thigh muscles actually catch fire.
When the smell of burning flesh becomes too overpowering you let go, and suddenly you are travelling at 700mph. Then, equally suddenly, you will be breathing gas and air while the doctor sharpens his hacksaw.
This year, on my skiing holiday, the air ambulance was lifting five newly formed paraplegics off the mountain every day.

Falling over, however, is not the greatest danger. Far worse is being hit by a teenager with baggy trousers on a snowboard. Snowboarding is like skiing, except you have absolutely no control over your direction of travel, mostly because you will have had a lot of marijuana at lunch time.

It’s certainly better than eating the food. The food at ski resorts is cooked by people whose only qualification for the job is that they are called Arabella. Once, I was served salt soup. Mostly, though, it’s bread, which you dip in melted cheese.

And because you are expected to melt the cheese yourself, the Arabella has more time to have sexual intercourse with her surly French ski-instructor boyfriend.
I am a very good skier . . . in my mind. However, video evidence suggests that I’m rubbish. I look like a bus driver in a primary-coloured anorak, sitting on an imaginary lavatory. Also I can only turn right. So to mask my embarrassment, and the pain in my thighs, I ski only when very drunk. I can recommend this wholeheartedly.

However, what you must never do is ski while under the influence of Billy Idol. No, really. I can absolutely guarantee that within five seconds of putting an iPod in your ears one of your bones will shoot out of your skin.

Of course you might imagine that there are other things to do on a winter holiday apart from skiing. ‘Fraid not. On a normal summer break you can sunbathe, swim, snorkel, jet ski and, if you like The Guardian, go to look at museums.

But on a skiing holiday what you do is get up at dawn, eat some salt soup and queue for hours to get on something that makes a Tube train look deserted. Then queue for some more hours because your place keeps being taken by burly Russians who have daggers tattooed on their foreheads. Then you ski until it goes dark.

You have probably heard about après-ski activities. In your mind, you see nightclubs and pretty girls and drinking fiery cocktails till dawn. Well, I’m sorry, but what actually happens is that you get back to your hotel or chalet, climb into a relaxing bath to try to jump-start your burnt-out muscles and fall fast asleep.
This is a good thing because in addition to the cost of the holiday and the flights and the ski rental and the lessons and the ski pass that lets you use the mountain, you will have been utterly bankrupted by your wardrobe. This year the cheapest pair of padded trousers we could find for my 13-year-old daughter were £250. And it’s not as if she can wear them anywhere else.

Finally there’s the weather. If it’s poor you will freeze and crash into things because you can’t see where you’re going. If it’s good – and over half-term it was very, very good – you will need sunglasses. And that means you will come home after a week with a face like a barn owl.

The thing is, though, that when the sun shines and you are whizzing along, drunk out of your mind, under a perfect blue dome with your happy, giggling children on a deserted, freshly pisted slope, and you’re about to have lunch in a restaurant with a view that is unparalleled anywhere on earth, none of the misery matters. Because there is no feeling quite like it. It’s called perfect happiness.
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Quote:

This year, on my skiing holiday, the air ambulance was lifting five newly formed paraplegics off the mountain every day.


Shocked Where does Clarkson ski Puzzled (& remind me never to go there)
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
fatbob, love it Laughing
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
When I met my now wife she was already a ski addict. When our two sons were not quite old enough she took them off skiing and they became addicts. I was faced with being left at home on my own. What choice did I have? I can't ski anywhere near as well as the rest of the family but I truly love being out there on the snow.
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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.
I agree feef - because you cannot do/concentrate on anything else when you are skiing and worries, the office etc all melt into the background and it is genuinely relaxing whilst absorbing a huge amount of effort and concentration (that sounds completely contradictory but it is almost like being in a different universe from normal humdrum stressed life)
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
Why do I ski? Maybe it's the trite banter of gaudily clad warriors trying to mask the fear they feel standing at the top of the perfect powder field, tree lined shoot or invisible black run nervously discussing the route down as if they really intend or indeed can follow. The silent rush of wind as the speed picks up and the confidence as the first couple of turns are nailed. Legs burn , style and corners cut. Manley cheers and backslapping as the seemingly unconquerable is dismissed and edited onto some youtube glory vid.

Back up to do it all again until the deep bass pulse of the Austrian eurotrash pop from the umbrella bar becomes unbearable to resist. Cold beers and throat burning peach snapps the order of the day as the sun goes home, as you must do. One last round before the dash back to the chalet. Dinner in your ski kit. A couple of beers at the bar and the must have shower and bed.

Why do I ski? Because when I wake up I'll be able to do it all again!
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