OPINION: Back to the slopes

Growing up in the northern half of the Midwest, my idea of normal weather is very different than what we have here in Southwest Iowa.

While we still are going back and forth between chilly and almost summer weather, we’re certainly not in winter anymore. We had a brief stint of snow for a day or two in February, but nothing more than that in a long time.

My spring and summer clothes are coming out of boxes and back into my closet. Just this weekend, a guest pastor at my church was saying he finally brought his kayaks out for the season.

At the same time as all of this, I’m going home this weekend to do some downhill skiing - what a juxtaposition. The ski hill my family has always frequented, Granite Peak in Rib Mountain, Wisconsin, actually has a season from November through April.

While Wisconsin has certainly had its own bouts of nice weather, the day I plan to ski is actually the only day this week it’s not scheduled to snow. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Enjoying the 70-degree weather earlier this week, I loved the idea of doing some spring skiing.

Growing up, when it got to the end of the season, we could ski all day without a coat or the five million layers we normally need to stay warm. I still would wear snow pants so I didn’t get my regular pants full of slush, but plenty of others would be coming down the hill in a t-shirt and shorts. The actual skiing itself wasn’t the greatest - sliding through slush slows you down and doesn’t sound as nice as fluff or hard-packed snow - but after spending half the year freezing down to your bones, it’s nice to feel warm while practicing the sport.

In my case this week, I won’t have the issue of having spent the months before this frozen, so it will be a little bit easier to bear. Plus, the high is above freezing. Trust me, I’ll still complain, but it will be far from the coldest I’ve skied in.

I do find my sudden excitement to go skiing interesting. Having season passes for a handful of my teenage years burnt me out on the activity, but I think the nostalgia is bringing me back. For the past few months, I’ve felt a craving for the sport.

Much to my chagrin, when I first brought the idea to my family, not only did my parents already have plans, but my dad claimed it’s too cold and he’s too old now. Mind you, he’s the one who got our family into the sport in the first place because he can’t stand being inactive ever.

The real problem is he refuses to do anything leisurely. Sure, he probably shouldn’t do the trick jumps he used to show us when we first started skiing as a family, but just enjoying a couple trips down the hill would be fine. However, in his words, “that’s not fun to me.” Fine, I’ll just ski without you then.

Luckily, my little sister is usually up for an adventure, so she’s headed to the slopes with me this weekend. Plus, afterward, I get to meet her new puppy!

It will be weird to ski without my dad, though. During our skiing years, he was usually my partner, while my sister stuck to my mom. We explored the entire ski hill, getting to all 68 runs, including double black diamonds with vertical drops and gliding through untouched woods.

I have great memories of us spending an hour racing each other down the hill - we’d bound off the chair lift and try to lose the other before skidding to a stop in line at the bottom half of the chair lift. Considering it took us about three minutes to get to the top and about 30 seconds to get to the bottom, I think we did more sitting than skiing.

I’m not sure I could do that anymore. It’s been a close to a decade since I last went skiing and I certainly don’t have the balance, muscles or stamina that I had then. I have a feeling my sister will be happy to just be out on the slopes with me this time, no racing required. At least hopefully, or I’m going to be “enjoying” the snow in a completely different manner.