shouldn’t be so surprised that their athletic endeavors take priority over culinary feats or courtly cleverness. Besides, their athletic talent is often their most appealing asset. “Mountain men are attractive because they have so much passion for their sports,” says Tammy, a tutor who lived in Telluride for more than a decade and who has dated all manner of fine-looking, several-years-younger-than-their-age guys, such as the one who decided to live (literally) in his bike shop and another who cheated with a climbing partner. “They’re typically very good at them, but they don’t want anything or anyone to get in the way of what they do. Things start to go south as soon as you want more time, attention, and understanding of why there doesn’t seem to be an equal giveand-take.” Or, for some, just sleeping in on Sunday morning. Shanti, 37, a writer in Sun Valley, Idaho, said that one mountain-town male she dated was so dedicated to skiing he insisted on skiing alone. “On Sundays he would leap out of bed and be like, ‘Well, I gotta go now’!” she says. “He’d go ski by himself. I’d see him on the mountain a few hours later and be like, ‘Um, hi.’” But let’s be honest: we women can be just as passionate about our sports—and just as competitive. Isn’t that why we love these towns after all? While we might not want to be ditched on the hill by our men, we also don’t want to be able to smoke them—at least not too humiliatingly. “I’ve tried dating guys who don’t ski, and although it wasn’t the main reason the relationship didn’t work out, it was always lingering there, like a bad smell I couldn’t get over,” says Megan, 27, an editor in Boulder who has skied and raced since the days when boys had cooties. “I know I could never get that serious with someone who
didn’t at least share my passion for the mountains.” While Megan couldn’t “give a rat’s ass” what her wedding will look like, her hon-
During my year of steadfast singlehood, I discovered that the oft-repeated mountain-town adage The odds are good, but the goods are odd has more than a grain of truth to it. eymoon is in the bag: Chamonix with long, hard days of skiing and long, hard wine-and-fromage-soaked nights. “I told someone that once, and they said, ‘What if you marry a guy who doesn’t ski?’ and I answered, ‘I won’t.’” For example, Megan took a prospect, outfitted head-to-toe in shiny straight-from-thestore Gore-Tex, out on the ski hill one morning only to discover that he could barely snowplow. It ended up not working out for the unsuspecting schlub.
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