Do you remember your first time?

Not sure it was the first time, but I have vague memories of skiing between my mom's skis on Montreal's Mont Royal.

Picture evidence found after my mom passed away....it would have been Spring 1968 when I was 2 1/2.

Story from the blog here...
Beaver Lake – circa 1968

<avatar< is a pic of my first day out. Boyne Mountain, 1977. That's me in the powder blue suit, sitting on dad's lap.

Take note of classic late 70s patroller attire on my old man: rust colored NSP jacket, blue jeans, Hanson boots.

sudsnbumps wrote

Hey Jeff, do you remember Curry's?  Best damn ski shop ever...

Yup.  On Route 17 in Ramsey.  My family lived in Allendale at the time, next town over.

Backyard age 7 x/c skis, brutal St Lawrence county winter. Later that yr after thinking I had become an expert, herring-boned up Val Bialas in Utica and straight lined down on my 2inch wide x/c free heeled splinters -rocketed off a jump and busted my flat edged waxless wonders.  It's a miracle I escaped childhood with all my ligaments attached as I regularly poached the tiny 70's era (now long closed) downhill areas of the North country with my x/c's.  Finally when I got my first adult job, I decided it was time to use some steel edges.  Skiing Tuckerman on all-mountain is a piece of cake compared to barreling down the couple hundred vert of St. Lawrence Snow Bowl on free heeled skinny x/c's.

Started skiing @ 3...can't remember much from the early days of that (1989), but know I first learned at Sterling Forest in NY (where Jon951, my dad, learned to ski).  

Can start to picture more of the years following that, say age 6/7/8/9..etc when my family would be heading up to Lake Placid/Gore on a regular basis

Fast forward 20-something years...Went to look at a truck in Warwick, NY, my dad came for a ride, and we happened to pass through Tuxedo, NY (Sterling Forest) on the way back into NJ to go home...passed right by Sterling Forest, which had been shut down, so we stopped and looked around.  Was cool to actually see the place as an adult, since I had no recollection of it from age 3.

Adk Jeff wrote

sudsnbumps wrote

Hey Jeff, do you remember Curry's?  Best damn ski shop ever...

Yup.  On Route 17 in Ramsey.  My family lived in Allendale at the time, next town over.

Curry's closed around 5 years ago.

Not my first time, but my first time skiing at a real mountain was at Hunter, early in the 04-05 season (I think around Christmas).  My first run, I got slammed by a snowboarder on the Hellgate switchbacks near the top.  My dad saw it happen and was horrified, thinking I was injured (I was 6 at the time).  I wasn't hurt, and got right back up and skied that run and the rest of the day.  Some other guy yelled at the snowboarder who hit me.

Another unusual memory was one day at Gore, I think in 2006.  I loved skiing the Dark Side so much that I didn't tell my parents I had to go to the bathroom until it was too late.  I peed in my pants while skiing.

don't remember first time but I do remember my second season at age 6. Wooden skis painted blue on top w bare wood on the bottoms, no metal edge at all, just bare wood. Leather boot that was basically a sneaker, lace up, no ankle support at all. The only thing I really remember about the second season was skiing between my dads' legs and he fell on me, I ended up going down in a sled, slight sprain of ankle. Next season got skis w metal edges, woo-hoo.

I do think learning at a young age on that type of gear really taught you how to balance over the skis, you had no choice if you wanted to stay upright.

snoloco wrote

I peed in my pants while skiing.

You win the dedication award

First time was with the middle school ski club 1973'ish at the now defunct Ski Mountain Pine Hill NJ - I believe it is a Trump golf course now. Tuesday night lift tickets were $7 with another 5 for rentals. Don't remember much about the setup other than the spademan bindings. The hill had a T bar and a rope tow at that time, they later added a double chair to get up the 200' or so vert. First outing didn't go so well I fell of the rope tow down an embankment and couldn't get out of my tangled skis. My cousin convinced me to give it another shot and that 's all she wrote. Next season Santa brought me some Rossis mounted up with a set of looks!

At age 5 my Dad took me to Prospect Park in Troy, N. Y. and side stepped up the hill.Later that year we went to Jiminy Peak and how wonderful a T-Bar was after side stepping for a couple of hours.

when I was 10 my mom would drop us off at maple ski ridge. would bomb that hill all day trying to ride the same
chair nbr over and over.  wore out my mittens on the tow rope.

Craigmuir New Jersey. January 1986.

Parents dropped me off for my first night of a 5 night program that ran for two months and included lessons, rentals, and a ticket. The lesson was just the basics like how to fall, snowplow, and get up off the ground. A lot of my school friends had been skiing for years and after my lesson I was convinced to just go for it. I'll never forget how huge that tiny little 250 vertical foot rope tow hill looked. I was terrified and stoked all at the same time. I pointed it to explosion and repeated this for the rest of the night. I was completely hooked right from the start.