Short Version:
Freeski? Non! Free ski!
Freeski? Non! Free ski!
Long Version:
Last time we were in Whistler, Nene won her first Canadian
National Championship*. Hooray!
The loot from her victory was cheese, and a pair of Whistler-Blackcomb
Winter Season Passes. We’d originally thought they were dishing us Summer
Passes, and that we had several months of gravity-fed mountain-biking to look
forward to. We were disappointed at first to find that we were being invited to
participate in winter sports instead, but warmed to the idea over the next year
and a half, and arrived in Whistler geared up, revved up, and ready to go.
Except that there’d been no Puppet-skiing for over twenty
years, and Nene had only ever done half a day, as a university student**, on NZ’s
North Island icefields.
The obvious best course of action under those circumstances
was, of course, for Tim and I to wind Nene up mercilessly about how difficult
learning to ski was, and how much pain and unfun she should be expecting, to
the point where, by the time it was time to actually hit the slopes, she was…
less-than-enthusiastic. And had no idea what she was supposed to actually DO,
as we’d steadfastly refused to actually impart any information of actual
value***
Luckily, a friendly Sunshine Coaster took pity on her and
gave her some instruction on how to put skis on, and to execute a pizza wedge.
Which she did. With irritating ease.
We were slow, we were clumsy, but we were skiing, and we
kept doing it pretty much every day for three months. We had visitors from
Canadialand and Orstralia and Nuzzilind, we played disc golf in the snow
equipped with snowshoes and cinnamon whisky, we barbecued bacon in the snow, visited a trainwreck become graffitoed bikepark, . We drank good beer and read good
books.
And then we left, and went to work.
** = ie probably drunk
*** = To be fair, it’s entirely possible that only one of us
actually HAD any information to withhold.
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