Learning to Ski After Age 60 By Janice Bennett
Skiers on the Outback Chairlift, Keystone Ski Area, Colorado. Photo by John Kieffer
f you think you can do it, you can.” This popular maxim from John Burroughs, a 19th-century naturalist in the U.S. conservation movement, forms the basis of the American dream. I began hiking with the Colorado Mountain Club at age 59, hoping that the exercise would relieve stress. I hiked many easier trails, went snowshoeing, and even finished Wilderness Trekking School. Nevertheless, I grew up being told that I was not athletic. So when Lynn, a friend who is a Swiss-trained expert skier, urged me to take up downhill skiing two years later, I really didn’t believe I could, especially at my age. In WTS I learned about avalanches, which bury many skiers in the Rockies every year. Wilderness First Aid taught me that hypothermia is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body temperature drops below normal. I knew how to dress for cold weather and survived WTS Snow Day at St. Mary’s Glacier, in spite of eight hours spent outdoors in more than two feet of fresh snow, accompanied by 40-60 mph winds. Mastering the terms of “skiology,” however, was a daunting 24
Trail & Timberline
proposition. Angulation, for example, involves arcing the body at the hip, knee, and ankle joints to achieve a high degree of ski edge. Flex adjustment involves changing the amount of resistance to the forward movement of the ankle. The thought of traversing on crud or struggling with problems like prerelease, which occurs when the skis come off earlier than expected, terrified me. I was certain I would hit a tree, fly through the air, and break all my bones. Lynn related stories of 90-year-olds he had encountered on ski slopes, one wearing an oxygen mask. His acquaintances included 80-year-old twins who took up skiing for the first time at age 65. Although they weren’t the fastest skiers, as he described their graceful, dancing form and taut bodies, I began to think skiing at my age might actually be possible. An Internet ski blog reassured me that learning to ski is great at any age. “We’re never too mature to increase our level of physi-
