As long as the snow is white, it’s on the side of a hill, your edges are sharp, your skis are best for the kind of snow you have, then the only thing that matters is who you are skiing with.

When you go skiing with friends, in reality you go chair-lift riding with them because on the way down the hill, you are either in front of, or behind, them. There is not a lot of time set aside for chatter when you are making turns! Besides, who needs the conversation?

I remember one time at the summit of Boyne Mountain when the people I was skiing with said, “Let’s meet half way down and then figure out what other trail we should take.” Half way down was 225 vertical feet below us. But vertical feet, snow conditions, and equipment are a relative thing. How far was “half way” down?

At the recent Chicago Ski Dazzle, I watched someone walk out of the ski swap with a pair of thirty-year- old, K2 Hamburger skis with Marker toe irons and long thongs. He had had bought it all for $28.00. That person doesn’t know that there are easier pairs of skis to turn. But he will soon be out on the hill, making turns with a smile, and most likely doing it at Wilmot, Wisconsin, which has at least a dozen chairlifts and only 300 vertical feet.

Let’s hear it for the hundreds of small ski areas across America that afford the opportunity for people to make their first turns and thus, experience their first taste of freedom. Those resorts are where you can still get a hamburger for under $15.00, and what grooming there is might be is done by a thirty-year-old, Tucker Snow-cat—or the ski patrol sidestepping. These are the kinds of places where everyone walks from the muddy parking lot to the base lodge in their fur- covered, after-ski boots, carrying their brown bag lunch in one hand, their ski boots in the other, and their skis and poles over their shoulders. These are the places where lift tickets are sometimes less than half of what they are at “destination” resorts. But isn’t a small resort also a destination?

When the sun goes down at a small, local resort, after riding in a double chairlift that moves slow enough you can have a private conversation with someone you care about, you are just as tired and have had as many of your wishes fulfilled as someone who has been cruising the groomed stuff at a major resort.

It doesn’t matter which resort you are at when you start down a snow-covered hill. The only thing holding you back is your limited supply of adrenaline. There is nothing in the world that can compare to the feeling of being an extreme skier because in your mind, at any moment you are on skis, you are one.


Editor’s Note: This is one in a Tahoetopia series written by Warren Miller, legendary ski cinematographer. For other columns by Warren, click on Warren Miller.