Learning to ski past age 50

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hokiehead
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by hokiehead »

Day 2 last Friday, open day at Eldora. Thanks HikesInGeologicTime for your patience hanging with me.

Rookie mistake not checking which slopes were open. No greens. Sucked it up and spent the day on blue's.

Thanks again to Climbniwowrklater for the help two weeks ago. Huge!

I'm confident I'll be competent on blue's here shortly.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by cottonmountaineering »

nice work! as mentioned before skis make mountaineering in winter/spring a lot more tolerable, one of my favorite hobbies
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by lordhelmut »

I skied every run at Mary Jane for the entire 07-08 season almost every time I went up . I found that area to have the highest concentration of difficult terrain of all the I-70 mountains. I ran into trees, thrashed my knees, fell over 100x , probably got concussed a few times, but I stubbornly stuck with it. Went by myself mostly and really studied up on good skiers form. What helped me the most in the end, was focusing on my tails of my skis as a tiller of sorts . I would constantly lean back and lose control , but as I focused almost entirely on the tails - everything else fell in to place and has so ever since. I’m not a ski instructor but that’s what worked for me . And tons of moguls .
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by BillMiddlebrook »

lordhelmut wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:02 pmAnd tons of moguls .
:!:

Moguls are not for everyone but when you get good at skiing them, you are definitely building skills that will help in the backcountry.
"When I go out, I become more alive. I just love skiing. The gravitational pull. When you ski steep terrain... you can almost get a feeling of flying." -Doug Coombs
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by blazintoes »

I too took a lesson from climbnowworklater over the weekend and he is an excellent teacher. He was able to immediately pick up on my weaknesses and offer suggestions. After one day skiing on greens in my new AT set up I’m confident I can get down blues now.

You’re never too old or too experienced to take lessons.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by uwe »

Skiing better at 67 than any other time of my life. Reading through the thread, the advice of ski, and ski some more and again is about the best advice to give. Resort area skiing is great for laps and dialing in on skills and techniques. BC skiing for me has been about the variability of the snow and dealing with it without biffing. A bitch, but getting better. :) No age limit of giving it a go if you can still walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. Don't forget about avalanche education and CAIC. Encouraging and motivating to read these other stories.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by DArcyS »

lordhelmut wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:02 pm What helped me the most in the end, was focusing on my tails of my skis as a tiller of sorts . I would constantly lean back and lose control , but as I focused almost entirely on the tails - everything else fell in to place and has so ever since. I’m not a ski instructor but that’s what worked for me . And tons of moguls .
That reminds me of my first day on the slopes when my friends were trying to teach me how to snow plow to get things rolling. One of my friends told me to point my toes inward, and I couldn't do it. Another then suggested I try to point my heels out, and voila! That worked. Pointing my toes in had me trying to pivot off of my heels, while pointing my heels out had me pivoting off the balls of my feet, the latter being much easier while skiing.

Perhaps your thought process triggered the right combination of body parts to move just right to ski moguls.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by Altitude High »

blazintoes wrote: Mon Dec 13, 2021 5:50 am I too took a lesson from climbnowworklater over the weekend and he is an excellent teacher. He was able to immediately pick up on my weaknesses and offer suggestions. After one day skiing on greens in my new AT set up I’m confident I can get down blues now.

You’re never too old or too experienced to take lessons.
I'll second taking a lesson from Jon (climbnowworklater). He helped me control my speed, or rather, to take control. Which is everything. My skiing has improved about 100 percent as a result.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by aholle88 »

lordhelmut wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:02 pm What helped me the most in the end, was focusing on my tails of my skis as a tiller of sorts . I would constantly lean back and lose control , but as I focused almost entirely on the tails - everything else fell in to place and has so ever since. I’m not a ski instructor but that’s what worked for me .
This. I have been learning to ski this year finally coming from snowboarding and I tried the focus on the tails thing this morning for the first time after reading this and it all clicked. Felt better on the 2 sticks today than I have all year.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by hokiehead »

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions here. Thought I'd give an update for anyone curious if an old dog really could learn new tricks.

Tl;dr: Went from putting on skis for the first time on 11/19/21 to skinning up Quandary and sending the descent on 4/29/23. Three forum members skied with me and played a big role in my development as a skier.

Details with some drama and attempts at humor thrown in below for anyone interested in a story.

After starting this thread, I talked to ClimbNowWorkLater -- who is a professional ski instructor -- and made plans to meet at Keystone in a few weeks. I went all-in on a season rental for a resort setup, started reading Elling's book and watched some YouTube vidoes.

I should say at this point, my goal was to be able to ski some of the easier 14ers and other CO high peaks. I didn't know if I'd be successful and knew there was good chance it turn out to be a one season effort ending with "well, I gave it a shot". I've never been that athletically gifted and my balance in particular was never good. I wasn't a skateboarder or surfer.

I engaged the professional services of ClimbNowWorkLater at Keystone the week before Thanksgiving 2021. We literally began with "this is how to put on your boots... this is how the bindings work... these are the seven principles of responsible skiing that the state of Colorado has adopted…". By the end of the day, I made it (most of the way) down School Marm (the bottom part didn't have coverage on the part to skiers right, only a thin strip on the left. CNWL was talking to ski patrol at the bottom and watching me make my way down, and the ski patrol person said "that's a lot tougher without full coverage… tell your student he was on a black". OK, I don' think that was true, but it made me feel better about booting down the last steepest stretch.

ClimbNowWorkLater was an amazing instructor. I still often recall some of his tips and points from that day. I would 100% recommend.

I felt good enough after day 1 to buy a season pass at Eldora. It's 35 minutes from my house and a no-brainer choice for learning.

Sking day two came two weeks later on Eldora's opening day 2021. I met HikesInGeologicTime at the Ned park and ride and we went to Eldora. Up until this moment, my biggest concern for the day was getting on and off the ski lift (recalling CNWL telling me "you'll never use the magic carpet again" and me thinking "not sure, that was pretty easy... this lift thing is not").

But when Geo and I got to the resort, I realized I made a rookie mistake. Eldora had no green runs open . We discuss and she even offers we can go to Winter Park where they do (she was probably reading my body language and seeing 'terror' at the thought of facing a blue run).

Side bar: my wife will never be a skier / mountaineer. She's current recovering from her second knee replacement, and while she's very supportive of me pursuing my mountaineering goals (amazingly supportive, TBH -- I hope everyone finds a partner as tolerant of your excesses as mine is). That being said, spending a bunch of money to have fun without her is never an easy discussion and between the season rental, the Eldora annual pass, a day pass at Keystone and the lesson with CNWL, I was already in quite a bit. I didn't want to pay for another day pass if I could avoid it.

"I'll do my best. Let's find the easiest blue" whew

I made on and off the lift without a yardsale and felt amazing about that. Then I remembered I had to face a blue.

I made it down Windmill, clean. We skied maybe a dozen runs that day, and I fell plenty, but got a couple more clean runs in. By the end of the day as I fatigued and conditions worsened, I was falling a lot.

I worked Eldora all season. Skiing with Geo and zgilbert and a few other friends who I don't think have memberships here. Read Elling's book, read the backcountry book, watched lots of YouTube instructional videos.

I also trained regularly on the balance board, and I think that did provide some benefit. I recall early on at least once starting to fall, and recalling "muscle memory" exactly from balance board work.

By April 2022, I was skiing all the black runs at Eldora. Moguls still gave me all kinds of fits, but I could get down. Geo told me "you're close to being ready for a 14er… if we get really good conditions, I think you could probably get down Quandary or Sherman". I got into the BC (Moffet tunnel) with zgilbert on a really bad rental setup that made it a miserable experience.

One note: zgilbert made the comment that he thought my approach of treating a day at the resort as 'training' was key to my progress. I agree. My approach was to push myself each time. Actually still is. I typically still fall 2-3 times a day at the resort (Body Armor shorts FTW). I think bruised tailbone was the highest probability injury for me and got that twice really slowing my training! I still wear the Body Armor shorts when I'm having a 'training day' at the resorts.

Then I tore my calf muscle in a ski accident. I was on a moderately moguled black at Eldora, skiing solo with intent of improving my mogul skills (recalling Middlebrook posting above "skiing moguls will help prepare for back country"). I got turned around with my skis pointing uphill, started doing the splits and couldn't stop. I remember watching my right ski slide up and thinking "oh, that's as far as my muscle stretches…. AHHHHHH!!!!!!!" I could have avoided the injury by just laying down, but that bright idea didn't occur to me in the moment. This put an end to my resort season for 2021-22, and I was concerned about whether I'd be able to transition into BC.

I had another problem. I knew skiing was going to continue past this season. I wanted to get into the BC as soon as my calf healed, and I didn't have a BC setup. The Ikon passes for 2022-23 were also on sale for the cheapest price they'd be.

Back to the spousal negotiation topic. I want to buy a back country setup, a resort setup and an Ikon Base Pass. We're not rich, and this is thousands of dollars, again, so I can have more fun without the wife.

A good friend whose an experienced ski mountaineer and all around avid skier advised me: "just get a back country setup. You don't need a resort setup. For at least a year or two, you won't even notice the difference. Lindsey Vonn would notice the difference, but hokiehead won't".
Me: really?
Friend: yeah, you'll be fine
Me: that helps. But, how many ski setups do you own?
F: that is irrelevant and has nothing to do with this
Me: ?
F: eight… but I'm spoiled (he was single at the time and no kids)

Those in similar situations may appreciate this next story:

I'm driving my wife, Mags, to the airport, for a trip to Hawaii with her mother, sister and Little H.(hokiehead not invited on this girls trip). Figure this was the time to open negotiations.

I explain that the Ikon pass will never be cheaper and prices will increase every month or so. Explain that I have to take my season rental setup back in a few weeks, but want to continue skiing BC as well as the resorts that will still be open. Explain I've done some research, and I will only invest in an AT setup now, getting by with that at resorts for a year or two (for those who have had formal negotiation training, this is a mistake called "negotiation with yourself").

Mags: "how much are we talking?"
Me: "a little over 2k"
Mags: (no pause) "we can cover that. you should probably go ahead and get those now"

Well, that was too easy. WTF?

She goes on to explain that we probably have cash in the checking account now to cover, but she'll move some from savings if needed.... "and mom's going to give me a check tomorrow to cover her's, and half of my SISTER's trip". Wait. I knew Mags had been making all the reservations for everyone and putting reservations and whatever on our cc to be reimbursed later. I knew we were paying for Little H's trip.

Me: "half of SISTER's trip?"
Mags: "I'm pretty sure I told you, that SISTER can't afford this so mom and I are splitting her costs"
Me: "i don't remember that". Now, Mags doesn't lie, but I do think this would've stuck in my head about paying for her sister. OTOH, I sometimes tune out when Mags is talking about her sister and whatnot.
Also I recognize, a bit too late, this is what my negotiation training would've called wasting a "moment of power". Trip to Hawaii, without me. Paying for the kid, and half of her sister. I totally could've got her to go for an AT and a resort setup. I negotiated against myself before testing her tolerance for me spending even more. Rookie mistake.

Anyway, I buy the Ikon base pass and make a capex at Bentgate for a BC setup. I got one last day at Eldora in on their closing day, but wasn't fully recovered from the calf injury and didn't get into the BC any more last year.

Fall of 2022, we started approaching ski season and I'm stoked. I had a fantastic summer wrt my 14er list accomplishing my biggest mountaineering adventures to date and I can't wait for the Ikon resorts to open. My mind is already looking forward to the fall and getting Sherman or Quandary.

Then I found out on Fall Equinox 2022 that I had colo-rectal cancer. Well, fck.

After the first wave of thoughts and emotions wore off, I recall thinking "I’m so glad I learned to ski. I enjoyed it so much and had so much fun…" I also remember thinking "I wonder if I'll ever advance to where I can ski a 14er?"

I won't make this overly dramatic. Quick plug for screenings and early detection. I never got really sick. I never needed chemo or radiation and I still have all my body parts. My journey through cancer could've been far, far worse. Last week of Nov 2022, I learned I was cancer free. If I hadn't gotten the scope and hadn't caught this in time, my results would've almost certainly been a lot worse.

Side note: even though the doctors all told me I didn't have to change my activities, I found cancer to be a damn convenient excuse to not stick with my training and I fell out of shape. I mean, nobody will judge you for taking it easy in that situation and I bet some of your reading this are right now thinking "dude, give yourself a break!" -- I did, the problem is it was too much of a break, but that's a different story. I'm still working to get back into a routine.

I attacked the resorts this season with fervor of a person who just got a second life.

To date on the year, I'm >300k' vertical with 18 resort days. I got decent value out of my Ikon Base pass, skiing Eldora bunch, but also A Basin, WP, Copper, Steamboat, Mammoth and Palisades Tahoe. I made it into the BC four times before this last weekend, the biggest day being Berthoud Pass with zgilbert and got three runs totaling ~2000' of vertical.

One of my goals was that by the end of the season, I wanted to be able to say "I'm skiing everything at Eldora". I did not achieve that. The dense glades on steep slopes -- I have no business being back there. Yet (I don't see those as unattainable, just a ways away). I tried Salto Glades on closing weekend and I'm lucky I didn't get hurt. I was skiing most of the double blacks at Eldora: the easier glades, the West Ridge and Ambush without too much issue. I understand Eldora has a reputation for grading easier than most resorts and I haven't tried a double back anywhere else. Yet.

When I started skiing, my goals were all about the BC, and thought I'd give up the resort skiing once I learned the basics of the sport. Nope, resort skiing is fun af, and will be part of my life for the foreseeable future (need to get that second setup….). I bought the full Ikon Pass for next year and I'm looking forward to Jackson Hole, Aspen, and others.

Benopp and I had never skied together before, but we had climbed together a few times and trusted each other in the BC. We put Quandary on the calendar almost two weeks ago, decided we'd monitor CAIC and weather forecasts and attempt it if everything looked good.

Saturday looked great. My lapse in aerobic training was starkly contrasted with his (he's been training for an ultra and is in beast mode), but fortunately Benopp is a patient dude and I eventually made it to the top.

Quick note for those worrying: We both had avy kits and knew how to use them. We did a beacon check at the TH. I don't have AIARE training, but have read two books on the subject and had some additional YouTube education (acknowledging that's not a substitute). Benopp was certified from formal AIARE training. And the CAIC forecast was encouraging. And it was Quandary's east ridge.

Now, on the way up, I was checking out the slope I'd be skiing down and watching others ski and ride down. I felt good about the slope angle. I was prepared for the variable snow conditions. But around 13,600', I realized i was going to be starting the ski descent totally fatigued. I never started a ski run feeling anywhere near as beat as I was at that moment (and still had to get to the summit). I had no gas in the tank, looking for enough fumes to get the rest way up. My legs were jello. That made me a bit nervous. Another climber I was chatting with told me "yeah, that makes it tough". Thanks.

But I made it down, without falling. It wasn't super-fast and it certainly wasn't pretty, but that didn't matter. I skinned up and sent the descent on a 14er about 17 months after I started skiing… from zero.

In my life, I've accomplished a few things, met my goals and exceeded my own expectations in many facets, but never before with an athletic goal. This was a first and I'm still feeling it.

Also, I got major "cool dad" points from both my adult children for learning to ski at age 51. My daughter is here in CO -- she rode for a few years but doesn't any more (I'm hoping to pull her back in). My son in NV is an avid rider and was my most frequent resort partner this season. My wife is open to doing things like "three day weekend in Steamboat where hokiehead gets one day at the resort". Next year it's going to be "family winter trip to Yellowstone where hokiehead and son get a day or two at Jackson Hole". It's still a challenge to find the balance with family who don't "mountain", but I could start an entire thread on that.

Thanks again, see some of you in the mountains!

Edit: as I get ready to hit 'submit', I realize I wrote a book and probably came across as full of hubris. sorry, not sorry.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by climbingcue »

Thanks for posting the update on your progress and congrats on your ski descent of Quandary. Looks like all the hard work paid off and you have a new hobby you love to do. A win win in my book.
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Re: Learning to ski past age 50

Post by Monte Meals »

Good on you !

I broke my leg at Eldora (ski racing)
fractured two ribs and dislocated one shoulder elsewhere
and STILL love the sport.

I skied Sherman, Quandary, and several others on my old 3pin back country skis.

I'm 75 and still hammering down the double black bump runs.

As Jack Lalanne said "Use it ot Lose it"
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