EARLY SEASON LESSONS: Laura Ogden on teaching and learning

There is never a dull moment in skiing. Never. My inaugural ski trip for the winter taught me just that—providing two very different experiences. One helped me to feel my own power, the other showed me the power in others. I wouldn’t trade either one for anything.

Part 1 I find myself making the first turns of the year at Copper Mountain in Colorado, enjoying modern technology manifested in fake snow. As I etch curves down the firm groomed runs, the other schussers around me are anything but dull. In what other situation can you get a glimpse of such history being made as an average Joe touching on the fringes of grace? At least for a moment, people feel the elation of fluid movement on skis that has hooked the rest of us and turned us into proverbial “ski bums.” It takes varying lengths of time for different people, but you can observe something clicking in someone when they have a breakthrough, and finally finish that turn. Or feel their ankles, initiate with their hips. In the early season, skiers of all ability are thrown in the melting pot together, as the dry Colorado winter has limited the options to a number of groomers at Copper. Although most of the time this sends me yawning back to the couch, I feel privileged to witness such evolution in human beings: coordination. Strangely, watching these strangers tickles my yearning for power and grace, which I greedily scratch by blowing past them as if they were standing still. I feel numerous eyes following my cold smoke, admiringly. I giggle. It’s fun, and it’s making me cocky.

Part 2 Fast forward two days, and I am now at Chatter Creek Cat-Skiing, outside Golden in British Columbia, the yang of the adventure. Skiing with my personal hero Eric Pehota and revolutionary Chad Sayers (he has put down some serious records for the longest “fart-smell retention in the ski pants”), has suddenly taken me out of the driver’s seat, and into the trunk. I can’t assert my prowess because Chad and Eric are much better skiers, and they aren’t wearing one pieces. Herein lies the juxtaposition (a study of opposites): I am having just as much fun, even more fun, in this different role. Now I am witness to the constant example of grace, and while it also tickles my yearning for power, I am humbled. We ski three days of thigh deep powder, dancing around snow-laden trees all to ourselves. On the morning of the fourth day the sky is clear and it beckons us like an annoying brother-in-law, encouraging us to do something stupid. So we go for it, taking the cats up into ungroomed territory above treeline. After getting the cat stuck twice and almost rolling it (we were all huddled into the front of the cab), we get to the top as the clouds roll in. Watching Eric and Chad etch their curves into the deep powder, I am grateful. How lucky am I to see such beauty in movement? Of course I don’t linger too long on the subject, there is shredding to be done. Of course we celebrated back at the bar with multiple shooters, cocktails, and bottles of wine. More entertainment (especially when Pehota is concerned).