Dan Skate Skiing at Eldora

On Saturday morning Katie and I went to the Nordic Center at Eldora Mountain Resort to try skate skiing.  Seeing as we had no idea how to skate, we signed up for a beginner lesson (it did not hurt that the cost of a lesson was only $9).  A lesson is apparently a great place to pick up girls, or at lease the odds appear to be in your favor; our class was eight girls to two guys.  Seeing as I had no need to pick up a girl, I proceed on with the falling (I had assumed that all my hockey and speed skating would have set me up for this sport but all the falling would indicate otherwise).

We had two great instructors, Anna and Jack.  Anna had skiing competitively in college at Colby and Jack had been skiing for 35 years; theoretically there should be enough skill and knowledge to get us skiing.  Being a little late to the lesson, Katie and I must have missed the short introduction where the instructors said do not lean back.  Or maybe I just didn’t hear it.  In any case, on our ski over to “the stadium” for the actual learning, I discovered that leaning backwards is a very bad idea.  In fact, I must have learned this at least six times.

When we got to the stadium, Jack and Anna took us over balance, edges, and body position before setting us loose to try for a few laps.  I was undoubtedly the fastest person in the class, though my advantage would almost always be tempered by my failed attempts to go faster.  I believe Jack thought this was mildly amusing; he told me that I was really close to getting the form down and that I just needed to learn forward a bit more.  While leaning forward did have a positive effect on my speed, inversely it near destroyed my already pathetic balance.

After a while I became fairly comfortable with the V2 skate on the right foot, somewhat less so on the left foot.  I was able to unintentionally switch without thinking about it on our way back to the Nordic Center; when Anna commented on it I immediately fell.  As for the V1 stride, I understood the concept but was disastrously off balance.  Alas, something to strive for.

After the lesson Katie and I decided to try some of the trails.  Anna recommended that we take 17th Avenue to the Meadows Loop, though she warned us that there is a “little bit of hills” on 17th Avenue.  I had assumed this definition was similar to the hills we had seen during the lesson; I was wrong.  17th Avenue was essentially one long hill all the way up.  By the time we got to the top, neither of us had any energy to attempt Meadows Loop.  Apparently really skiing is a lot more tiring than taking a few laps before pausing to learn the next drill.  Seeing as we were all but dead, we took Cheater Corner back down.  Which was great, except when I caught my ski in a classic track and went down by the top of the Little Hawk lift to the great amusement of all the snowboarders.  Again, alas.

While I fell a lot and felt painfully out of shape, I really enjoyed the day.  I will definitely try it again and maybe, just maybe, will find the water bottle I lost on one of my many falls.