My Skiing Autobiography Part One

After having made the other SurfaceHorde bloggers write their own autobiographies, I decided it was time that I tell my own story.  Looking back it is has been quite the journey from being this little guy

Skiing at age 5 at Big Mountain

To this guy:

40+' to Flat is no problem at age 20

I do not remember the first time I went skiing, but having asked my parents I have found out that it was sometime during the Winter of 1994 when I was three years old.  My parents wanted to go skiing and thought that their children (my twin sister and my oldest sister who was 6) were old enough to come along and give it a go.  Hence, we were off to Mt. Spokane where they stuck us in ski lessons half the day and skied with us the other half.  It was fortuitous to have sisters because we had semi-private lessons because we were able to have lessons with each other.  The next year when my twin and I were four years old my parents signed us up for the weekend youth ski development group at 49 Degree's North where the lessons started to get more serious.  However, our parents, my sister, and myself decided that we liked Mt. Spokane better, perhaps because of its close proximity to town (20 miles).  So for the next two winters at ages five and six my twin sister and I were part of Mt. Spokane's 'Mogul Munchers' group.  Many soon to be ski racers were in this group.  I remember being exceedingly frustrated that the first thing the instructors did was make those who had poles put them aside.

My Dad and I riding the Tow at Big Sky

Spokane was kind of a ski city.  There were five ski areas within a two hour drive and Mt. Spokane was only 20 miles away.  A lot of people did not ski but the people who did tended know each other.  During elementary school parents of children who had caught the powder bug tried to connect us with one another.  This was where I met Tom.  Tom had never had a single ski lesson, but he skied more than any of us, he had been on skis since he was one, and he waterski'd more than anyone during the Summer.  Simply put, everyone knew that Tom was the most core skier in town from grade school on.  We were friends on and off the mountain, but it was on the snow that Tom pushed me, him racing ahead and taking bigger airs than most of the older kids.  Additionally, my family was able to take ski trips to other mountains British Columbia such as Big White, Fernie, and Kimberly that were bigger, steeper, and had more powder.  The Warren Miller film premiere was a big deal each year and was combined with a large ski expo.  Every year all the kids at school who went would wear the t-shirts that we had gotten at the expo.  Watching those films I remember being most impressed by the guys who could ski the steep European couloirs.  We formed a group of four that lasted in High School, Tom and Myself and my twin Katie and her friend Samantha.

The siblings skiing at Big Sky in 2000 on our second trip there

At age seven during the Winter of 1998, something happened, we took a road trip all the way to Big Sky, Montana.  I remember watching the tram racing up to the face and telling my parents that I wanted to do that.  They asked if I was sure, and I said of course I was.  So the whole family got in the tram line and rode it to the top.  I remember seeing skiers descend technical routes on the front of Lone Peak and I knew that someday I wanted to be a steep skier.  My family descended the much more gradual backside of Lone Peak and I actually got stuck in my first tree-well trying to catch powder that had mostly been blown of or ski'd off.  I managed to get myself out of trouble, but the only real lesson I learned was that someday I wanted to ski steep routes.  Additionally, after seeing the tracks off Big Sky cliffs and the bomb-holes at the bottom, I decided I wanted to one day jump off some cliffs.  These would both be things I would do and more.