Downhill Skiing

Yesterday I went downhill skiing for my first time at the Maple Ski Ridge in Rotterdam. I felt reassured when I found out that most of my friends were beginners as well. "Great!" I thought. "We can learn together!" When we arrived, I was intimidated by the skill of some of the skiers. Although the Maple Ski Ridge is probably the easiest ski place in New York, I was still impressed by how effortlessly some people could slide down. I even observed one man who was skiing backwards and then gracefully slowing to a stop. To my surprise, I was actually fairly decent at skiing downhill at breakneck speed. Most beginners fall several times while going down the hills, but I faced completely different issues. While taking the ski lift up the bunny hill, I had great trouble grabbing onto one of the moving handles. The first time I grabbed on, my skis intersected each other, causing me to squirm violently and fall to the ground. As a result, the supervisors had to press the emergency stop button to give me time to re-stabilize myself, but even as I continued up the lift, I still felt rather wobbly and clumsy. I would have never anticipated that the actual downhill skiing wasn't the only difficult thing.

Another problem I faced was steering. My friend advised me to swivel from side to side to minimize the speed. I found this to be very nerve-racking, since while I was swiveling  I almost crashed into several people. I screamed "watch out!" several times to warn them. At one time, I actually tapped into some lady, and she nonchalantly batted me away to avoid a serious collision. But one of my biggest accidents occurred while skiing down one of the more difficult slopes. It may have seemed daring for me to advance so quickly on my first downhill skiing trip, but I felt ready to embrace the challenge. At the top of the hill, I decided to ignore my friend's advice, and proceeded to ski straight down, causing me to zoom down at an break-neck speed. As I continued down the slope, I was terrified yet thrilled at the same time by how fast I was going. These are the same ambivalent feelings one may experience while going down a an amusement park ride, such as a roller coaster. As I approached the end of the course, I began to decelerate by implementing the swiveling motion my friend taught me. At the last second, I noticed a huge ditch in front of me, and I made a sharp turn......into a ribbon fence. During the crash, all of the supporting stakes came out and the ribbons looped around my skis. I lied on the ground, tangled up in a most uncomfortable contortion. When I finally untied myself and stood up, a skier approached me and plainly asked "Are you okay?". Fortunately, I felt completely fine, even though the fence was in shambles. "You looked pretty good up there. Until the end of course. Haw haw haw!" the skier joked. As I regained my breath, we shared a good laugh at my spectacular wipe-out. This skier looked very similar to someone I knew from Niskayuna, which will be discussed in my next blog entry.

  A professional skier skids off a mountain. I wish I could do that! Hoy hoy.

.http://ctsportslawblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/downhill-skiing-1.jpg

A female skier makes a hilarious wipe-out.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.4860.1313647172!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_350250/videos-spectacular-crashes-ski-racing-history.jpg