It’s that time of year again when I start to yearn for the feeling of snow under my skis and I start think about the feasibility of taking a quick trip down to Chile to catch their winter.
Skiing has been an important part of my identity since I can remember and has been the constant thread through my personal growth. I haven’t always embraced it as core to myself, but now that I have, it has made me a better, more complete person.
Playing Hooky
Early in high school I worked as a ski instructor for a local ski resort. But, in my Junior and Senior years of high school, I dove deep into academics, leaving everything else behind. I spent years getting perfect grades and then several more years applying myself to the rigorous curriculum of my undergraduate program. The denial of my basic need to experience the wide expanse of the mountains, the pull of gravity, and the delicate balance between falling and downward momentum, backfired three years into my undergraduate studies. I started playing hooky.
I would leave for the mountains in the middle of the semester, spending 2–3 weeks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I would stay in a hostel, do a few hours of work in the morning (I was a Pew Research Fellow at the time and doing research on reverse engineering of wind power technologies in China) and then ski in the afternoon. No one knew where I was — not my professors, not my parents and not my roommates. It was absolute freedom from my tightly prescribed life as a college student. On my own, I was able to balance my need for intellectual and physical stimulation.
I started to build a community in the mountains. Apparently, it was strange for a 20-something year old woman to be skiing by herself in the middle of the week during off-peak times. So, people noticed and started to take interest. I ended up skiing with some of the best of the Jackson Hole Air Force, a Jackson Hole subculture that sprang from a rebellion against out-of-bounds skiing in the 80s (Watch this short trailer for a taste of the JHAF). These were the people who pioneered the Jackson backcountry. I skied parts of the mountain that I didn’t even know existed and I got comfortable with steeps, powder and speed. I pushed myself to take risks and challenge my body. It was invigorating.
Go West
By the end of my senior year, I earned more than a B.S from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. I had also earned a patch from the Jackson Hole Air Force signifying my part in that community. And, while my friends were taking jobs at Bear Sterns and JP Morgan betting on lucrative careers in finance, I was packing my car and driving out west to Jackson Hole to be a ski bum.
My intention was to put down roots in Jackson. I wanted to get a dog, maybe even a boyfriend and spend my days skiing. But it turns out that I make a terrible ski bum and no more than 9 months after having moved out, I was applying for one of the most selective programs in the country for recently graduated students: Teach for America.
I moved back to DC after the ski season ended determined not to let the part of me that loves the mountains slip away. I had no idea how mentally and physically exhausting teaching in south-east DC would be. There was no time for anything but lesson planning, managing the various needs of 30+ students, many of whom had experienced serious trauma, and navigating the hostile DC Public School system. I never had enough time to venture outside of the city to get my much needed fill of the outdoors. Instead, I dug in and did my best to create an environment of creativity for my students in a world of chaos. The experience was perhaps more impactful for me than it was for them, and from it, I decided to go for a degree in education, studying the impact of environmental stress on cognition. For one more year I gave up my love of the mountains and instead applied myself to a degree in Neuroscience and Education at Harvard. My intellectual stimulation was at an all time high but I couldn’t help but think that I had left the West too soon, and was missing out on developing another crucial part of myself.
Go even farther West
By the end of my time at Harvard, a question was playing on repeat in my mind: What if I went even farther West to try to find a way to challenge my body as much as my mind?
In 2012, after completing my graduate degree, I packed up my car once again and this time kept driving past Wyoming, through Utah, Nevada and into California. I moved to Sam Francisco with the hope that I’d be able to develop a career that was satisfying and also spend enough time camping, skiing, biking etc. that I’d be able to fulfill that basic need for myself.
Something else happened though that I hadn’t planned for and that was the key ingredient to making those dreams a reality — I met someone who had the same ambitions. He also counted down the months to the ski season, knew all of the scenes of TGR movies and wanted to have both a successful career and to ski as much as possible. The mountains fed his soul as much as it did mine. And so, finally, finding the time to ski became less about fulfilling a basic need for me, and more about cultivating a lifestyle for us both.
Being a skier
Finding someone that shared this duality of identity helped me to finally find a calm that comes when all parts of yourself are fulfilled. We now ski 25+ days a year splitting our time between Jackson Hole (my mountain), Vail (his mountain) and finding our own joint mountains, most recently in Niseko, Japan.
Every time we ski together I am reminded that there is nothing more beautiful than seeing the person you love in their element; except being there with them, also in your element, and sharing that moment together.
We fell in love in the mountains, were engaged in the mountains, and now return to the mountains any chance we get.
Recently, I was reflecting on this journey of becoming and being a skier. I believe that what may seem superficial or even selfish on the surface has enabled me to become a better person. Here are a few examples:
Find your own tracks, most of the time. I am always looking for un-tracked, interesting paths to ski. Going where no one else has is empowering, and it can also take a bit of creativity, or at least perseverance (aka hiking). Sometimes though, we end up in the flats and need to hike out, through deep snow. This is when I buck the need to make my own mark. I’d rather just go where there is already a track so that I get get out without expending too much energy. The same applies to life and work: I am always looking for new paths to success that are just challenging enough, and also worth the effort. But, sometimes it is worth it to follow the tracks that someone else has made. There is no need to expend energy on things that are going to yield little reward and just need to get done.Don’t worry about looking good for the camera; Focus on feeling good for yourself. A few years ago we got a GoPro and have used it every once in a while to record ourselves while skiing. I quickly realized that worrying about how I looked while skiing detracted from my actual experience of it. In a world of social media where pictures play the biggest part, I am reminded that the moment should be about the experience of it, and not the look of it.Things will not go as planned, but that is what good stories are made of. On our very last day in Niseko, we were rushing to catch a late chairlift so that we could hike up to the top and access our favorite run of the trip before the mountain closed. Midway up, the chairlift stopped and after about 10 minutes, staff started arriving via snowmobiles with bamboo polls and a make-shift harness. It was clear that the lift was broken and our only way off of the lift was to wait for the rescue team who were coming around to help everyone rappel down. (Clear to everyone except for my fiancé, who decided to jump from the lift rather than rappel.) There was no way that we were going to make it to the top in time to ski our favorite run on our last day, but instead, we have a great story about an international chairlift rescue!
I don’t know who I would be or where I would be without skiing. And for that, I am forever grateful. So for now, in these intervening months before the snow starts to fall, I’ll wait for the next adventure and the next unexpected opportunity. Until then, summer in the mountains isn’t half bad.