MORPHEME: Counting the Days

On a bright sunny day between a parade of big Sierra dumps, a few friends and I loaded onto the lower gondola in Mammoth. We found ourselves heading up the mountain with what appeared to be a father and son pair. As my friends and I were looking upwards scoping our next lines, I heard an unfamiliar deep voice.

“Kevin, what day is it?”

This immediately caught my attention, bringing my upward gaze back inside the gondola. I spied the young kid and potential hellion on skis looking downward, transfixed by the terrain park, half pipes, and rippers that were gliding below. With eyes and attention glued on the evolving scene underneath, the kid of no more than ten years began to furrow his brow in concentration, searching for an answer to his father’s question. I sensed that Kevin wasn’t looking to answer with a particular date, day of the week, or holiday. After all, such thoughts are of concern to mainly adults. Kids are more prone to care only about special events like Christmas, Halloween, or birthdays.

After a prolonged pause, Kevin arrived at his answer. He looked up toward his father with a faint smile. With a voice that started timidly and ended confidently, Kevin responded, “Ah…seven....Seven? No, eight!” The father enthusiastically responded in a beaming, proud voice, “That’s right! Eight.” You’ve skied eight days this season and it’s only January. After tomorrow, you’ll have skied more days than you did all of last season.”

In that moment, I realized how truly peculiar skiers and snowboarders are in counting the number of days out on the hill in a season. At the drop of a hat, most of my friends can tell you exactly many times they made turns on the hill. When was the last time that you heard someone raving, “Man, this is awesome! I’ve played basketball 37 times this season.” In all my days playing golf, a sport known for its fanatic dedication, I have never heard a golfer say, “Wow. I’ve played 734 holes this year!!” Yet each of us knows zealous skiers armed with altitude sensing watches and spreadsheets who record, log, tally, chart, and graph, and often boast of their vertical feet. Surfers may count the amount of waves or barrels they get in a session but (with the exception of my friend Mike who ostensibly transferred the counting tendency from his days as a hard-core skier) none have a running count available at the drop of a hat for the amount of times that they paddle out in the line up for a given winter, summer, year, etc.

I grinned as I watched the father pass onto his son a peculiarity founded in and unique to skiing, counting the days (on the hill). The tradition may seem odd to an outsider. Once someone experiences a truly fun day on skis, they may begin to understand. Your ‘average’ day on skis has as many surprises as Halloween. Special ski days are better than Halloween, birthdays, New Year’s Eve, and Christmas rolled into one. All such days on the hill are very special and worth holding closely for as long as possible. Perhaps, that’s why we count.