I prefer cross-country skiing to downhill because I can listen to nature and feel part of us, rather than using it as a backdrop for my activities. Good post!
Thank you for mentioning Kristin Lavransdatter! I'd forgotten I read that many years ago.
I didn't grow up with skiing--learned as an adult when I dated someone who was on the ski patrol at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho. I remember standing at the top of a run on an absolutely sparkling blue-sky day and saying, "Thank you for giving me this gift." I didn't keep up with it as an activity but I remember that moment and that feeling.
Although I would have told you I'd been environmentally concerned for most of my life, at that moment I absolutely wasn't calculating all the costs inherent in me being there on top of a mountain and my choice not to continue wasn't environmentally motivated. I reflect on some of my choices and decisions and realize it takes conscious thought to center values I claim to have and then to pause and recognize in a specific moment that I'll have to make sacrifices if I really mean them. There's also the 360-degree calculation--am I selfish or thoughtless with 100% of my actions or do I do just this one thing that's not fully aligned but have my own personal "offset" based on how I live the rest of my life, and is all of this the result of conscious reflection? Your pieces remind me to reflect on a much bigger view and context.
If I were going to ski now it would be cross-country skiing, getting myself through the woods or across a clearing under my own power. At one point I investigated snowshoes and it felt incredibly complicated, involving having to determine what type of snow I was most likely to encounter (and it's only going to be a few days a year where I currently live anyway), with information that seemed calculated to make me think I needed to buy a lot of gear and own 6 different types of snowshoes or I would be doing it wrong. Capitalism has resulted in this mushrooming of too many options and variables across so many things that could be simple, enjoyable, and not as damaging to the earth as they are now.
Another element to outdoor gear in general: military research and development in disciplines like materials science later showing up in civilian gear, not that any of us can stop that directly and at least we get some peaceful applications of the knowledge.
Jan 19, 2022·edited Jan 19, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik
I've really enjoyed your posts since subscribing several months ago and am impressed by how much information you manage to cram in between your more reflective passages; as someone who has never lived in a rural area and knows very little about the ins and outs of land use, it feels like I learn something every time I read.
This one struck a chord. Growing up there were very few activities that I looked forward to so much, yet felt so much ambivalence about. Our family went skiing once or twice a year, and it was truly the highlight of my winter. I loved the ritual drive up to Vermont, a magical North Country that I idealized beyond belief. I loved being in nature in that particular way: the open vistas and gentle hills and bracing air, the family bonding on the chairlift ride, the novelty and intensity of the experience. And of course, I loved the movement of skiing, and the excitement of mastering a new skill.
But something about it was also bizarre and a little off. I always found the confluence of physical ordeal and asceticism (which my father intensified as part of the ritual and I tried to emulate) with the luxury and expense suffusing everything (including luxurious slopeside condominums and fancy gear) strange and unsettling. Who was I kidding feeling like an outdoorsman connected to the land, if we were spending god knows how much to slide down a hill for fun on high-tech equipment and letting a machine carry us back up? On a mountain that was meticulously fashioned as a playground for wealthy people from New York and points south? It all felt so real - and yet when I really thought about it, so fake. I noticed all the construction and development going on in the town nearby, and the incremental gentrification. We were part of it too.
But did that mean people *shouldn't* ski? Who might otherwise be on a cruise or exploiting something else, in ways even less connected with nature? All I knew is I loved skiing and I hoped that made it more OK. For me the ideal non-exploitative skiing fantasy has always been those "Nick" vignettes from Hemingway's novels: just a man engrossed in his meditative telemarking, looking forward to that German dessert he was always alluding to.
I haven't gone since my college years, but your essay brings back some memories.
This is where I'm jealous! Arkansas has the Ozarks (and other really nice things like trees and rivers and whatnot), but our proximity to powder (and childhood poverty) kept me from having access to the slopes until my knees were abject dogshit.
I think I had an ARC headed my way when I left the bookstore and never got it. I've never been a skier (though I do love to cross-country ski) but I love Heather and do hope to read it.
I prefer cross-country skiing to downhill because I can listen to nature and feel part of us, rather than using it as a backdrop for my activities. Good post!
Thank you for mentioning Kristin Lavransdatter! I'd forgotten I read that many years ago.
I didn't grow up with skiing--learned as an adult when I dated someone who was on the ski patrol at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho. I remember standing at the top of a run on an absolutely sparkling blue-sky day and saying, "Thank you for giving me this gift." I didn't keep up with it as an activity but I remember that moment and that feeling.
Although I would have told you I'd been environmentally concerned for most of my life, at that moment I absolutely wasn't calculating all the costs inherent in me being there on top of a mountain and my choice not to continue wasn't environmentally motivated. I reflect on some of my choices and decisions and realize it takes conscious thought to center values I claim to have and then to pause and recognize in a specific moment that I'll have to make sacrifices if I really mean them. There's also the 360-degree calculation--am I selfish or thoughtless with 100% of my actions or do I do just this one thing that's not fully aligned but have my own personal "offset" based on how I live the rest of my life, and is all of this the result of conscious reflection? Your pieces remind me to reflect on a much bigger view and context.
If I were going to ski now it would be cross-country skiing, getting myself through the woods or across a clearing under my own power. At one point I investigated snowshoes and it felt incredibly complicated, involving having to determine what type of snow I was most likely to encounter (and it's only going to be a few days a year where I currently live anyway), with information that seemed calculated to make me think I needed to buy a lot of gear and own 6 different types of snowshoes or I would be doing it wrong. Capitalism has resulted in this mushrooming of too many options and variables across so many things that could be simple, enjoyable, and not as damaging to the earth as they are now.
Another element to outdoor gear in general: military research and development in disciplines like materials science later showing up in civilian gear, not that any of us can stop that directly and at least we get some peaceful applications of the knowledge.
I've really enjoyed your posts since subscribing several months ago and am impressed by how much information you manage to cram in between your more reflective passages; as someone who has never lived in a rural area and knows very little about the ins and outs of land use, it feels like I learn something every time I read.
This one struck a chord. Growing up there were very few activities that I looked forward to so much, yet felt so much ambivalence about. Our family went skiing once or twice a year, and it was truly the highlight of my winter. I loved the ritual drive up to Vermont, a magical North Country that I idealized beyond belief. I loved being in nature in that particular way: the open vistas and gentle hills and bracing air, the family bonding on the chairlift ride, the novelty and intensity of the experience. And of course, I loved the movement of skiing, and the excitement of mastering a new skill.
But something about it was also bizarre and a little off. I always found the confluence of physical ordeal and asceticism (which my father intensified as part of the ritual and I tried to emulate) with the luxury and expense suffusing everything (including luxurious slopeside condominums and fancy gear) strange and unsettling. Who was I kidding feeling like an outdoorsman connected to the land, if we were spending god knows how much to slide down a hill for fun on high-tech equipment and letting a machine carry us back up? On a mountain that was meticulously fashioned as a playground for wealthy people from New York and points south? It all felt so real - and yet when I really thought about it, so fake. I noticed all the construction and development going on in the town nearby, and the incremental gentrification. We were part of it too.
But did that mean people *shouldn't* ski? Who might otherwise be on a cruise or exploiting something else, in ways even less connected with nature? All I knew is I loved skiing and I hoped that made it more OK. For me the ideal non-exploitative skiing fantasy has always been those "Nick" vignettes from Hemingway's novels: just a man engrossed in his meditative telemarking, looking forward to that German dessert he was always alluding to.
I haven't gone since my college years, but your essay brings back some memories.
This is where I'm jealous! Arkansas has the Ozarks (and other really nice things like trees and rivers and whatnot), but our proximity to powder (and childhood poverty) kept me from having access to the slopes until my knees were abject dogshit.
Have you read Heather Hansman's POWDER DAYS?
https://bookshop.org/books/powder-days-ski-bums-ski-towns-and-the-future-of-chasing-snow/9781335081117
I think I had an ARC headed my way when I left the bookstore and never got it. I've never been a skier (though I do love to cross-country ski) but I love Heather and do hope to read it.