The subtitle of this piece should be “A Cultural Education While Driving to an From a Ski Area in the South Getting There and Back.” Why? It was not about the roads or the reliability of my car. Understand that, as an Air Force Brat, yes, that is the proper term, yours truly spent much […]
While this little episode doesn’t involve skiing per se, it does involve skis in the deep south in June 1968 right after I graduated from college and was commissioned into the U.S. Navy. My orders directed me to report for flight training in Pensacola, FL on June 10th, 1968. From Sudbury, MA, back then it […]
Whistler is really a combination of two large areas – Blackcomb, Whistler, and a small village called Creekside. Each has a gondola that will take skiers up the mountain. Getting off any of the gondolas, it is an easy ski down to Blackcomb has a vertical drop of 5,280 feet, and Whistler Mountain has only […]
The 2025-2026 ski season will be remembered for its lack of snow all throughout the Rockies and Sierras. At the end of January, SnoCountry’s ski reports showed many ski areas with bases of around 20 inches. When I was in college back in the 60s, we called these conditions “fast grass.” So, it was with […]
Let’s start with this is a piss poor snow year for Western ski areas. Yet, despite the lack of snow, Palisades was reporting a base of between 22 and 53 inches on the days we were there at the end of January, yet the ski conditions were actually quite good. SnoCountry was reporting that the […]
Thanksgiving 2025 is in the rearview mirror. For many of us who don’t live in a ski town or close to one, it is time to start serious planning for this season’s skiing. If you’re like me, ski trips start with either a really long, as in 11 – 12-hour drive, or a flight. What […]
Let’s face it, if you are reading SeniorsSkiing.com, you don’t have the stamina, strength, balance, or flexibility you had when you were younger. Over the past 10 years, I have had to change the way I ski and as I approach my 80th birthday, the evolution continues. So, let’s talk about what’s changed. One, I […]
I first started playing around with this teaching tool when teaching kids to transition from “Mr. (or Ms.) V” which was a stable wedge to “Mr. (or Ms.) H” with the skis parallel. Let’s start with your body position on the skis. First, your shins should be pressed hard against the tongues of your boots, […]
For decades, as in almost seven, the only time I wore a helmet while skiing was running a downhill race. During my 18 years of flying helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes in the Navy, I wouldn’t think of climbing into the cockpit without a helmet. When riding my bike, I wore a helmet. In a race […]
Age is an insidious thing. No matter how hard we try, once we pass 50 or so, with each passing year, we are physically weaker, our bodies more fragile, and it takes longer to recover from illness and injury. Those are simple facts of life. This degradation takes time and creeps up on us and […]
Several years ago, SeniorsSkiing surveyed its readers about their biggest fear on the slopes. The overwhelming answer was being hit by an out-of-control skier. It is my greatest fear as well. Whether he/she may be drunk, stoned or skiing too fast for the conditions, or on a run well above his/her ability, or whatever the […]
Let’s face it. The older we get, the more fragile our bodies become. Yet, if you are like me, the older I get – I’m 79 at the time this this piece is published – the more I cherish my days on the snow. Gone are my days as someone who would ski non-stop from […]
The aging process does weird things to the mind. We remember days of yesteryear winding down through moguls on a steep run all day, thinking it was fun. Or floating through knee-deep powder all day from when the lifts open until they close. Today, in my dotage, when confronted with a steep pitch full of […]
As a young ski racer, I learned the importance of properly tune skis. Now as an old a recreational skier, I can assure you skiing “tuned” skis makes the sport more enjoyable. Tuning a pair of skis answers three questions. One, do the bindings work as advertised? Two, are the bottoms flat, not convex or […]
When one thinks of the first ski areas in the U.S., one thinks of Sun Valley or Stowe. Few know that in 1936, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Santa Fe, NM, Robert Nordhaus installed a rope two to haul people up the slopes of what is now Ski Santa Fe. It was […]
Way back when in the last century, after I started skiing, ski bottoms were wood. Then, Kofix, the first polymer bottom, came out in 1956 followed by P-Tex 2000 in 1966. Since then, every ski has a polyethylene bottoms. The lure, besides better gliding over the snow, was that with P-Tex, one didn’t have to […]
Different Way to Buy a Pair of Skis – Part 1 Before I left Dallas, knowing I now had a new pair of Dynastar skis, I needed a new ski bag. The ones I had were designed to protect the skis on a car roof rack but weren’t suitable for riding in the baggage compartment […]
It was after Thanksgiving, 2022 and ski trip planning was well underway. With ski passes in hand. I decided to buy a new pair of skis. Being a cheap sort, I decided to wait until after the first of the year before going ski shopping. The Ski Gods didn’t cooperate. In early December 2022, I […]
This is the time of year when one starts planning ski trips. Maybe not the details such as booking hotels and flights, but at least beginning to let the “where” rattle around in your brain. And, as you think about this, unless you live near a ski area and are a season pass holder, the […]
The pandemic caused ski area management teams to change how they run their resorts. Covid affected every business function from technology to marketing and communications to day-to-day operations. As a group, ski areas were forced to learn how to react quickly to an ever-changing set of guidelines emanating from the Federal government as well as […]
The last turn of the last run on any ski day is a bittersweet moment. If it’s the last day of the trip, it is sad, if not melancholic. As I come down the mountain on what will be my last run of the day, I go through the same routine. Partly because I am […]
Source: Travel Crested Butte The first thing one notices about the terrain at Crested Butte is the jagged, arrowhead shaped mountain peak thrusting into the sky. The base of the mountain is 9,820’, and lifts take you to a notch, several hundred feet below its 12,162’ summit. There’s lots to like about skiing Crested Butte: […]
Reflection On The Past Before Starting This Year’s Biking Season. With gyms closed to Covid, way back in August 2020, I started riding my bicycle five days a week as a way to get ready for the ski season. I live in North Texas where the terrain is relatively flat. We don’t have hills or […]
One Fun, The Other Not So Much. We’re nearing that time of year in New England and the upper Midwest where the snow melts a little during the day and freezes at night. The repetitive process creates tiny balls of ice. In the morning, they’re rock hard but as the sun comes up, they melt […]
Guidelines For An Objective Assessment. One of the great things about ski rental shops today is their willingness to rent top of the line skis. This is a great deal because for $35 – $50/day, you can try skis that will set you back $1,000. For the CPAs, math and economic majors, the break-even at […]