Downhill skiing for the first time in Wisconsin

By Phil Marty, Chicago Tribune staff reporter
05:59 PM PDT, April 03, 2007

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MERRIMAC, Wis.

Three things you could do without when you're 61 and about to try downhill skiing for the first time:

- Walking across the ski resort parking lot, in normal boots, you slip on ice and almost fall.

- Standing at the bottom of an intermediate run, you watch the Ski Patrol bring an injured high-school girl off the slope on a litter.

- You ask your ski instructor why she doesn't use poles, and she says, "Because I've fallen and broken my thumbs so many times, I can't hold poles."

Hmmmm. Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea.

But wait . . . I'm sitting here writing this story, which means I didn't die. I'm typing with both hands, which means I didn't break an arm or tear a rotator cuff. I still walk fine.

And, I was just thinking what a blast it was to soar down that intermediate, not beginner, run--the same run the high school girl was injured on--just before I headed home after my second day at Devil's Head Resort.

Look at me. I'm a skier.

My secret? The same as most things in life: practice, practice, practice.

A colleague who skis black-diamond trails in the U.S. and abroad says he thinks people who learn to ski in the Midwest are better technical skiers than those who earned their chops on the big mountains out West. That's because a lot of Midwest resorts, like Devil's Head, may have only 10 or 15 runs total for beginner, intermediate and expert skiers. A Colorado or Utah resort may have double or triple that many just for beginners.

So, yeah, it can get boring doing the same run over and over at a Midwest resort with a limited number of runs, but the repetition is a great, free teacher.

I saw that my first day at Devil's Head, the last weekend in January. Early winter was mild, but 6 to 8 inches of Mother Nature snow covered the ground, and the runs had snow-making equipment to help out if needed.

At the gathering point for the first group lessons of the day, about 20 wannabe skiers and snowboarders, ranging from teens to a codger or two like me, stood around awkwardly, not quite sure what to do with their rented equipment.

Instructors were plentiful, so groups were small. Don't know if they took one look at me and decided, "he's hopeless," but I got put into a chick group--Micke, 27; Lanie, 32; and Emma, a high schooler.

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