Ski Your Age

Do you count your ski days each season? Do you have a ski bucket list or goal of skiing a number of days? Sounds fun when you’re a kid, right? My goal: to ski my age in days, which will become exponentially challenging. Turning 50, I was stoked about skiing over 50 days a season. The old expression “it’s all downhill from here” can be viewed as a positive!

Klaus Obermeyer, of Sport Obermeyer, had a different ski goal and tradition of skiing as fast as his age. Count me out on that ski count, 60mph at 60 sounds risky, and so on! Klaus retired from skiing at 103! He was still hitting the terrain park with the “youth” in his 90s! Inspiration for sure!

Many ski friends say counting their ski days is trivial, or braggadocios. Sure, I understand the “quality over quantity” rationale. On the flip side, some ski fanatics are glued to their iPhone ski app, frequently checking their altimeter watch for vertical tracking. How about a balance of quality and quantity?!

Why do I count my ski days? It’s fun. I also track the number of different resorts I ski each season, currently Greg and I have skied 371 ski areas in The US, Canada and Europe… and still so many more to go, skiing all over the World!

Growing up skiing, I had the advantage of starting at age 3 at Gunstock in New Hampshire, my mom taught me and also taught skiing as an instructor professionally. Later, I followed her tracks and became a ski instructor at Smugglers Notch while in college at University of Vermont. That’ when I got the taste of approaching 100 days in my ski tally – I was hooked.

Marriage and children slowed by ski day count. I remember the few days, like a pathetic 5 ski days in an entire season, putting our youngsters in ski area daycare. The meter was running big time for those very limited but precious ski days.

We taught our kids to ski, they learned to count their days pretty quickly. As children of a ski journalist, they’d also track the number of new ski areas we visited. Aspen (yes, our daughter Aspen) even counted the number of travel hotel and condo pillows and plane rides. Our son Ian went on to ski Big Sky in college where he taught skiing, and skied 100 days one season (and still earned excellent grades – work hard/play hard!

Counting your ski days is a fun goal, especial when you achieve your alpine number. That raises another question of how many runs does it take to qualify as a ski day. I say any day you’re out on the ski slopes = ski day! And a good day at that, regardless of the weather. A bad day skiing beats a good day working? Or is it there’s no bad ski weather, just bad ski clothing.

Ski as many ski areas as your AGE? Great goal! Check out some of our European ski safaris to help you get there… skiing over 350 ski areas…

Ski as many days as you are old? I’m in! I enjoy the goal of skiing my age in days. Just remember that even more important than counting your ski days – is making your ski days count!!

Besides, you can’t après ski until you ski, Favorite Apres Ski Bars in the World!