Rating Out at Over the Hill Before Ever Putting on the Skis

I skied an advanced run last week while on vacation in Mammoth.

Now that may not seem like a big accomplishment to most skiers. And I’m certainly not trying to draw attention to my meager skills on the slopes. I mention it only to give hope to those who have secretly harbored a desire to ski but have let their fears get the best of them. Or to those who tried and failed.

Try again. It can be done. I offer living proof.

You see, I am probably the only person to take a beginning ski lesson and have the instructor offer them their money back to get the hell out of the class.

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t stand up on those darn skis. That was bad enough. But every time the instructor asked us all to line up in front of him, I would arrive out of control, skis, poles and body flying at odd angles. The students unfortunate enough to be in my class were lined up, but they became mere bowling pins I would knock in all directions as I cut a path of destruction.

It was after one such wild run that I got my money-back offer. And took it.

You know the skier who self-destructs at the start of every edition of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” the man who symbolizes the “agony of defeat?” ABC would drop that guy in a minute if they had footage of me.

But after a couple of years off to get my game, not to mention my psyche, in shape, I returned and actually became a skier. Not Jean-Claude Killy, mind you. No, the Frenchman I might more closely approximate, if he had skied, would be Inspector Clouseau.

But I learned after skiing a week a winter for three years that yes, you can stand up when you fall, even though the first time you try it with skis on, you look like a turtle trying to get off its back. And yes, you can stop yourself simply by forming a “V” with the tips of your skis, a movement known as wedging. And yes, you can take most hills, no matter how frighteningly steep their slopes, by moving laterally rather than downhill. When you ski across instead of down, none are steep. It may take you a lot longer, and you may draw a few chuckles from those watching you from the safety of an overhead chair lift, but you’ll get down in one piece.

Once you master that, you are ready for the moguls. These are large bumps on the side of a mountain that appear to be cruel tricks played on skiers by Mother Nature. Then you learn they are deliberately left on some advanced slopes because skiers like them and want them to be there just to make things a little more difficult. At my level, you don’t even want the hill to be there.

Now let’s discuss equipment. I was the stubborn type. None of this going out and spending $500 for a sport I wasn’t even sure I could survive.

So when they told me I needed after-ski boots, I didn’t listen. I already had a pair of boots to ski in. I wasn’t going to waste money on a second pair. But when the day was over, and all of my companions took off their ski boots, put on their warm after-ski pair, and spent the rest of the night walking through the snow in town in comfort, I froze in a pair of deeply chilled, heavily soaked tennis shoes.

All right, so you need after-ski boots.

But goggles were another story. Hey, I wasn’t out there to pose for some ski magazine. I’d leave the goggles to Kareem. So down the slopes I went in a mild snowstorm and found that, without goggles, you have about as much visibility as you’d have driving the San Diego Freeway in a rainstorm without a windshield.

All right, so you need goggles.

But gloves were another story. This was skiing, not operating heavy machinery. Let those fashion plates waste their money on another ski-shop ripoff. I was doing fine. Until I skied over a sheet of ice, fell, cut both my hands and had them freeze up instantly to the point where I couldn’t even grip my poles.

All right, so you need gloves.

And you need overalls or ski pants, unless you want to run around all day in soaked pants. And you need a scarf to protect yourself from the bitter winds that whip ice pellets across your skin. What you basically need to do is spend about $500 on equipment.

But you know something? Despite all that money and all those indignities, if you stick around long enough to make it up 7,000 feet, to jump off the lift and take a look at a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains normally seen only on postcards; to streak down a hill with the wind in your face and the world at your feet, you’ll come to the conclusion that it’s all worth it.