My First Ski Trip!! :D

I can’t believe I lived more than 23 years without trying skiing. I went with a group of coworkers to Yongpyong Ski Resort, near the eastern coast of S Korea, this past weekend and had an absolute blast!! The first day we did the beginner and intermediate hills and, schockingly, I didn’t fall once – while skiing, that is. I actually fell about four minutes after first strapping my skis on, even though I was only standing still. We were in line for the bunny hill so I could learn how to ski and I had drawn a smiley face in the snow with my ski pole. I was trying to get my friend’s attention to show her and somehow I fell over. All the Koreans around us were staring at me and three different people actually tried to help me up but they couldn’t because I was laughing too hard. That was the first of many times this weekend that I thought I was going to pee my snow pants from laughter. (My two girl friends and I also fell getting off of the ski lift almost every time and considered it a major success whenever we didn’t – but those were my only falls on day one!)

Since we had decided against paying for a ski class, my friends gave me a five-second lesson at the top of the bunny hill. They told me “make an ‘A’ with your skis when you want to stop.” The end. Then we started down the hill. It was surprisingly easy. I didn’t realize that you were supposed to zigzag down so I just aimed for the bottom and went. I picked up speed quickly and I felt like I made it to the bottom almost as soon as I left the top (it was only the bunny hill, of course). I thought it was really fun and I turned around to tell my friends that I liked it but they weren’t there yet. A few minutes later, Jacqui came down and yelled, “What the hell was that?!” She then proceeded to tell me that I was a crazy idiot and that if I did that on a real slope, I would die. Oops.

On day two, I got to learn what falling on skis is like. The hilarious part was that my friends were involved in every one of my crashes. I was still barreling down the hills because, even though I’d gotten the hang of steering and slowing down by then, I found it much more fun to go fast. The first fall was because a little girl made a turn when I was right behind her and I had to swerve to miss her. I successfully didn’t hit her, but I wiped out in the process, leaving one of my ski poles about 10 feet above me on the mountain. As I slid down the mountain on my stomach, I yelled Jacqui’s name, causing her to look back at me and then wipe out herself. My bad. A very kind skier brought my pole down to me and we continued on. With the first fall out of the way, I was ready to move on.

Later we decided to go to the highest peak of the resort and try making the run. It was 4,780 feet high and took 20 minutes to get to in the lift. The view at the top was absolutely AMAZING. We could see mountains all around and could even see the ocean just beyond them. I’d never seen anything like it and the view stayed just as beautiful the whole way down.

As soon as we began, though, our problems did too. One of my friends fell right at the top. I was the only one behind her and, therefore, the only one that could potentially help her so I made my uncoordinated way over to her. I am really not in any way capable of helping someone else while I’m wearing skis but I didn’t necessarily realize that at the time. I sat down and helped her take her ski off so she could stand up but then we had some serious issues. Since I was using a steep mountain as leverage to unhook her boot from the ski, I started to slide a little and our skis started to cross each other’s…our ski poles started to drift off in different directions. We got her ski back on but we couldn’t stand up or straighten ourselves out. We slowly, slowly crumbled into a little ball together and started to slide down the hill. All of our equipment came with us but the more we slid, the tighter our legs and skis got tangled up. We stopped and slid again multiple times and in total slid at least 15 feet down the mountain (according to Jacqui who was safely watching from a distance). We were stuck for a good ten minutes laughing hysterically and completely unable to move, with our friends as well as other people stopped to watch. Even though my legs were under her, I was somehow sitting on top of her and I warned her apologetically that I was seriously concerned that I was going to pee on her. Luckily for her, that didn’t happen. Finally someone came and helped us. It took him a few solid minutes to untangle us and pull both of us to our feet.

A few minutes later, four other friends and I were further down the hill. We were sort of sticking together and our friend who was boarding was in front of me. I started making my way over to him but was going much faster than intended and I clipped the side of his board (it was totally unnecessary because he wasn’t going fast, he was all the way to the side and anyone in my position should’ve been able to easily avoid him). He fell and I wiped out (complete with flips, he told me). Again, one of my poles ended up a good 10 feet above me because I slid down the damn mountain on my side. Justin, good sport that he is, brought me my pole. After I caught my breath from laughing I was like “Okay, let’s get moving. We’re taking forever.” He said fine but only if I went first. Understandably, he no longer trusted me and I will never be allowed to ski behind him again.

After that, there were no more falls. We made it to the bottom and I went back up to do the run again on my own. My friend had told me before that most people probably go down in about 15-20 minutes but had joked that I could probably make it in 10...even though no challenge was technically offered, I took it as one and accepted it. With no distractions, I went down at my top speed and actually covered the 3 and ½ mile run in about ten minutes!!! I was so excited!! It was so much fun and it was absolutely beautiful!

Obviously I’ve already made tentative plans to go back the weekend after next…and two weekends after that as well. I can’t wait to learn more and do even more difficult hills. Skiing is AMAZING!!