I grew up just north of Salt Lake City in a city called Bountiful and winter always brought to our city quite a bit of snow, especially to the ‘benches’ where we lived. We called this extra fluffy white stuff, ‘lake-effect snow‘ which came to us thanks to the Great Salt Lake! Growing up, I remember coming home from school and spending the afternoon into the evening being outside playing in the snow and doing everything from building forts along the street from the piled up snow from the snow plows; snow ball fights with my big brother and neighbor friends; sledding the big steep hills of Mueller Park Junior High; and even throwing snow during the night at cars slowly driving up our steep road. Such fun and fond memories!

One of the best winter kid memories I have was when my brother and I convinced our parents to take us ‘night-skiing’ at one of the local ski resorts. We grew up in a neighborhood of wealthy kids who skied quite often, yet we didn’t have the means to spend the money that it cost to ski back in the ’80’s (yes, skiing has always been an expensive sport!). From what I remember, Brighton was one of the first of a few Utah ski resorts to offer skiing at night and the cost was usually half of what it cost for a day lift ticket.

Off my brother and I went to ski Utah! How excited we were as we drove up Big Cottonwood canyon, thinking to ourselves that we would be just like the skiers from the most recent winter games in Lake Placid, New York! We figured that since we ruled the winter hills of Bountiful, we would be able to rule the hills of Brighton. I don’t remember much other than watching how cool the skiers below us lit up by the lights of the hill looked while we rode the chairlift up. I believe we made it down the hill one time (no ski lessons for us as we felt we could learn everything on our own back then) and we full on loved it! I don’t believe we ever went back skiing as kids as again, too expensive for us, yet as I and my brother got older and into High School/College/Military, we would go at least once a year (almost always night skiing) with our friends to make the ‘wedge turns’ and then every now and then we would ‘straight ski’ and we felt we had mastered the sport!

Fast forward to the 2011/2012 season, about 30 years since my first ski experience, and I find myself talking to a friend that moved from New Jersey to Park City who just like many migrants to Utah moved her for the love of the skiing sport. He invited me, ok maybe I invited myself, to go ski with him one day and he asked ‘you do know how to ski, right?’ My response… ‘of course I do, I grew up in Utah!’. Little did he know that I had never taken a ski lesson; skied maybe only a couple dozen times in my life; and worst of all, I was a Beginner Wedge Skier! We maybe skied one run together as he immediately took off from the top of the hill down a blue run and when we met up at the bottom of the hill he asks ‘what was that?!’ and I responded, ‘I’m skiing! Isn’t this so much fun and amazing!?’. His response, after watching me slowly wedge turn my way down the hill in my old ‘lady skis’ and ‘rear-entry boots’, was ‘That’s not skiing, I’ll meet up with you at the end of the day, have ‘fun’!’ and he took off. I can’t blame him as it likely was a powder day and friends don’t wait for friends on a pow day!

Over the last decade, I have fallen more and more in love with the sport of skiing and, thanks to many ski lessons and clinics, I have learned to turn my wedge turns into parallel turns. I continue to ‘let the mountain lead’ and teach me as I’ve learned and continue to learn about this wonderful winter sport! I love this quote that I found earlier on this season:

“Feel the mountain and let it show you how you’re going to ski it. Relax and cruise. This isn’t a fight, it’s a dance, and the mountain always leads.” – Jim Bowden

Just like a dance, it takes time and practice to get better and better and by ‘letting the mountain lead’, you will enjoy the dance on the slopes!’