Carson Pass Skiing

[lizolas]

Carson Pass

December 28, 2019

Late this past spring, Henrique - who I’m convinced is some outdoor fairy who appears when I need to learn a new skill - gave me a pair of skis he’d bought secondhand and never used, plus a pair of ski boots that had been passed between him and at least one other person but didn’t fit anyone quite right. It took me most of the year to finally use them, but it did happen within the year.

Brad asked if I wanted to join a beginner ski trip near Round Top. Coincidentally, Round Top was the first place I ever used crampons and an ice axe about 3 years ago, and it had been where I planned to go if I ended up just learning to ski by myself. Fortunately there was Brad and his friend Rachael to help me, because I’m not sure I would actually have figured everything out by myself.

We started out with 3 on skis and 1 on snowshoes, although after about 5 feet on the trail, Rachael suggested that I actually take my skis back off and walk with them until we got to the spot where the trail flattens out and doesn’t drop off on the downhill side. This seemed like a good idea. Once we got there, standing and moving forward on flat ground was actually a lot easier than I expected. Very small hills were also fine. Eventually we came to the hill before the lake and discussed our options. Jacob (on snowshoes) and Brad considered Elephant Back. Rachael said they were welcome to go, but pointed out that was avalanche terrain on an affected aspect with a “moderate” risk of wind slab avalanches in the latest forecast. Jacob tried to convince me that it would be easy. Rachael confirmed my feelings that that was in no way anything I had any business being on my first day skiing. Maybe everyone else learns to ski huge mountains within a week, but I’ve accepted my lot as a painfully slow, mostly inept learner whose only redeeming characteristic is persistence.

We decided that the guys were going to go a bit farther up a hill and try to get to a local high point for a “summit” of the day, while Rachael and I would just work on going down slightly more steep downhills. It turns out that the boots that don’t fit anyone else well might also not fit me well, and my right foot was dying the whole time I was in ski mode. I’m not sure if it was because I’m not used to that position, because the boot wasn’t buckled well enough, or because it actually doesn’t fit. They felt less comfy the flip-flops but fine in walk mode. More testing will be needed. The downhill part we did was fine in terms of not falling, though. Going uphill to where the guys were waiting for us, I had some trouble. Jacob had spent a lot of the day giving frustrating feedback like “I can’t do this!” “Not with that attitude!” No, actually, not with my current skill level and knowledge. I think he was trying to be encouraging, but there was never anything helpful to follow “Not with that attitude!” and “Just pizza!” It felt like he was willfully ignoring that I was actually brand new at this, and believed that either I already knew how to ski, or that normally people truly mastered backcountry skiing within an hour. Brad came down and rescued me, reminding me of something that I knew in theory but obviously had never practiced: you can just traverse the side of a hill on skis even where it wouldn’t work on snowshoes or with boots.

From there, Rachael and I went back to our lunch spot to wait for Brad and Jacob. After some discussion I felt better about how “badly” I was skiing compared to everyone else, and was convinced that Jacob’s unhelpful remarks weren’t meant to rub in my face how bad I was at skiing, but maybe just to make sure everyone knew that if he had skis, he’d be killing it today.

Brad had brought his parents' dog who was labrador helping the entire time.

On the way back, I tried skiing some of the trail that I’d walked before, but after falling 3 times trying to go around a single corner downhill, I gave up and walked the rest of the way out. Just before we got back to the parking lot, Brad admitted he was feeling pretty sick, so we hurried to pack up our stuff and drive to a lower elevation.