Ever thought of picking up a new hobby as an adult? What about strapping a plank to each foot and going down a mountainside? Skiing is so popular I honestly wasn’t too nervous about it until I was doe-eyed at the top of a what looked like a cliff in my eyes.

What to expect

I have been snowboarding before and all I remember from when I was 10 is falling on my butt over and over. I was excited to see how skiing differed and I have heard it is much easier than snowboarding.

Do a lesson

I would highly highly highly recommend you do a lesson for the first time. They teach you the basics like how to stop and turn which is pretty damn important! It’s about 2 hours for the lesson and one instructor has 6 or so people in their group.

They start out with the very basics like putting on and off your skis and practicing moving around in them. They take you down an ‘incline’ and teach you to stop and turn. You basically make a pizza with your ski to stop and turn your skis the direction you want to go. You always stay in an athletic posture with your knees bent and leaning forward. You should have your hands up like your holding a tray of margaritas and your eyes looking up. If you find yourself looking down to check your form your actually going to cause yourself to have bad form!

After that you get to move to the bunny slopes! The instructor takes you down a few times and has you go single file following each other practicing turning and stopping and critiquing you on your form.

The great part about a lesson in skiing? Looking over at all the snowboarders on their butts haha. Only two people in my class had a tumble and they both got right back up. Both their falls were from getting out of control. Overall the lesson was so worth it and made me feel like I mastered the basics of skiing pretty fast.

Bunny slopes

After your ski lesson go down the bunny slopes a few more times to build up your confidence. I think you will quickly find that skiing is fairly easy to pick up. You’ll be flying down the slopes and constantly going back up the lift to get more time in actually skiing. At this point it’s time to move to the green slopes!

Green slopes

So you’ve graduated the bunny slopes with great confidence! The green or beginner/intermediate slopes will really test you! I swear, when I got off the ski lift for the green slope after doing the bunny, I felt like I was on the black diamond. My eyes went wide and I just saw what seemed like a cliff propelling me downward. When I thought I had mastered my stopping and turning on the bunny slopes, I was taken for a ride on the green. I kept going what felt like out of control speeds so when this would happen I’d slide on my butt to stop myself instead of listening to any of my training! Ha! Funny how when your nervous you don’t use your brain. I must have taken an hour to go down this slope I was so nervous and kept stopping myself.

Something adding to my stress was a ton of very advanced people were flying down the beginner slope which was actually really annoying because I was going slow and weaving and stopping and I was so worried one of these people would just take me out as I was trying to learn how to ski. If you’re a good skier please don’t do the beginner slopes!! Or don’t fly down them and be mindful everyone is learning on these slopes! Smh.

Don’t give up!! After a lunch and break, I went down again and this time I did it in like 10 minutes!! I had so much more confidence and just tried to look up and trust what I had learned in my lesson. I still felt like I was going too fast but I just had to get comfortable with skiing being a fast sport. My boyfriend showed me a video of me going down the slopes and in the video I was legit going at a crawling speed and in my head I was going WAY too fast and just blazing down the mountain hahahahah it was hysterical. Sometimes you just gotta get outta your head!

End of the day

All in all, that was my first experience with skiing! I accomplished all that in just one day! I definitely had fun and would do it again! Hopefully a few more times down the mountain and I’ll laugh at the green slopes 🙂

How to prepare

What to wear

Borrow clothes for the first time if you can to see if you like it skiing first. Buying the clothes is a huge upfront expense. Or maybe you don’t live in California and snow clothes are already part of your wardrobe hahah. What you will need in essence is layers. It was 60 degrees and I got warm skiing which for me is shocking so I was glad I had layers! You will need:

• Warm socks
• Long johns or leggings
• Snow pants
• Long sleeve T-shirt or under armor
• Light jacket or middle weight fuzzy jacket
• Outer waterproof jacket
• Gloves
• Hat
• Goggles
• Scarf (optional)
• Snow boots (for walking around when your not skiing)
• 

Where to go

The closest mountain to you! In Southern California, Big Bear is closest to me, a quick 2 hour drive. I did snow summit. The lesson I took was here, I would highly recommend them.

When to go

Depends where you live! At Lake Tahoe, the skiing season has been open until July 4th before. To get the ‘fresh powder’ you should probably go between December and February. I went in late March and I’d just missed all the fresh snow. Didn’t affect my skiing at all but did affect my sledding options haha. It was actually gorgeous because it was so warm. And you had a perfect view of the lake on the sunny day.