Sports & Recreation

Wooden skis
Wooden skis

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Posted by Duff at 5:43 pm (PDT) on Sat May 9, 2009   
My first experience skiing, in 1972, I think, was a complete disaster.

I went to Hunter Mountain with co-workers from NYU, renting equipment along the way. The skis were wooden, with "safety straps", and the boots were leather lace-ups.

One of the other guys and I started out on the bunny slope with the rope tow, teaching ourselves how to snow-plow and turn. After maybe an hour of that, we said, "Let's try the first lift." We didn't know that the general-admission tickets we'd purchased didn't allow us on the lifts, and nobody checked. Anyhow, we took that lift a couple of times, flopping our way down okay. Then we said, "That was fun...let's try the next one."

Wrong!

The next one went very high, and I found myself on a steep, icy slope. Each time I fell, I'd have trouble getting back into the bindings, because the toe of one of my boots had separated and snow was getting in, and because one of the safety straps was too short and if I lifted my heel high enough to step in, the binding would close on me. Add to this the fact that I was wearing jeans, which were now soaking wet.

Anyhow, I was perched against one of the chair lift supports, trying to get my skis back on, when a Ski Patrol guy spotted my ticket and said, "You shouldn't be up here." "Damn right!" I replied. He took the skis, and I walked down.

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