Christmas 2015. I sat on top of the Swiss Alps, a beer in one hand, a fondue fork in the other. My brother and I were in the middle of a two-week Eurail trip that had taken us to Verbier, Switzerland for a few days.
The only skiable snow (it was early season) was on the groomers way up on top. It took about 4 gondolas and at least an hour of travel up the mountain just to get there. We had gotten a late start, and by the time we arrived to the top of the world, the views, beers, and fondue made us stop so many times that we only took 4 runs the whole day. I was not sad, THAT was my kind of skiing.
It was Christmas, no one was in a hurry, and everyone was happy. The beer was cold, the day was warm and sunny, and the fondue was hot and melty. It resembled nothing of the cold winters I never quite got used to in Montana. And dude, fondue! Yes please. Can it always be Switzerland outside?
July 4th, 2017. I dressed in my best running tutu, lathered up the sunscreen, and hit the slopes for a day of “skiing” at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe with the fam. Tahoe took the cake for most snow that year, and Squaw stayed open for weekends through the summer holiday, so we joined the party.
I’m not entirely sure that the beer drinking, snowball throwing, and chasing each other down the mountain on skis, qualifies as actual “skiing,” (we thought the coverage in Switzerland was bad…) but I would participate in that snowball fight on skis every 4th of July if we had enough snow for it.
Despite having grown up a skier, these were the only two days in the past three years that I spent on skis. Last ski season, for the first time in my entire life, I didn’t ski once.
My permanent move to Montana from Lake Tahoe in 2011 played a roll in my decline of interest in skiing (and winter in general). Winter is harsh in Montana. Picture being North of the Wall for 10 months. Long, dark, and f-f-f-freezing. Also, I’ve never had to pay for ski passes before, since I (or my dad) always worked at the mountain, so the steep expense of willingly subjecting myself to bone-chilling weather just did not help.
I needed a break from everything winter, so I became a snowbird for the past few years, flying south before the change of seasons had a chance to get the best of me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back around to it, though I always truly hoped I would. My life would be so much easier (not to mention that Montana would be such an easier place to home base) if I just liked winter.
I spent Christmas 2016 under the sun in Loreto, Baja California Sur, and Christmas 2017 in El Chaltén, Argentina. There wasn’t any skiing in sight, and that was perfectly fine with me. Over the past few years, my favorite part of winter has been hearing about it on social media from far away, and then going outside to hike or run in the sunshine.
Then, something began to change.
From the depths of Patagonia this year (where it’s summer in December and January), I found myself spending more time watching my friend’s winter stories on Instagram and having tiny flashes of FOMO and nostalgia. Wait, what? Me? Am I feeling okay? I could barely share that observation without my friends asking who I was and what I had done with Jackie. I wondered, too. Had it finally been long enough?
I saw that as the first sign that I was perhaps, just maybe, regaining an interest in winter. Deep breath.
I left Patagonia and continued to Ecuador, then all over Europe, and finally to Jordan. After the most epic and nonstop travel year of my life, I made the rather large decision not to go for another round of long-term nomadism this year. I need a break from that now, too.
But, what to do instead? Well, now it’s November, and after a whirlwind month in Europe and then leading a group trip to Patagonia, I’m back in Montana. And winter is here.
My plan is to stick it out and create a real home base. Yes, if you’ve been following my journey you know that I’ve tried this already in the past year and it didn’t work, but this time, I have a feeling that it will. I am home, and this is where I need to be right now. I do plan to spend most of the winter here in Montana, including the holidays. I can’t even tell you how excited I am about that, and how strange that sounds coming out of my mouth.
So, I bought myself a ski pass.
I am a skier. I come from a ski family and a ski town. If I’m going to sign up for winter, embracing it and doing it properly should only enrich my experience. Time to dust off and tune up my skis.
They say there is no bad weather, just bad gear. I intend to embellish my winter wardrobe, hopefully with electric heat hoodies and ski boot inserts and all the warm things that exist on Amazon.
So please, don’t send me your beach photos this winter. Instead, how about some hot chocolate, or an electric fireplace, or microwavable teddy bears, or possibly vitamin D supplements, maybe some Scotch? I think I’m going to need all the support and warmth I can get.
But, it’s also true that … I’m looking forward to it. Whew, there, I’ve said it. And I’m pretty sure it’s still me in here.
Here’s to coming home, and back to skiing (even if it isn’t cheesy Switzerland outside), and to the winter adventures that await me in my own beautiful backyard.
