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Lake Tahoe
Rolling on the Slopes

View of Lake Tahoe from the top of the Eastridge trail on Mt. Pluto, NorthStar.
“Roll . . . roll . . . roll . . . roll.” This is my mantra on the slopes. I was not born to skiing. In fact, growing up in Pennsylvania, I was not born to any sport. I grew up in the house. I hated the cold and, for that matter, I wasn’t thrilled with summer heat either. So the house it was.
And yet, here I am, on my second week of skiing at Lake Tahoe (the first was earlier in the season – I would never make it 14 days in a row). It’s a miracle – a testament to perseverance and Fossamax.
My first downhill skiing adventure was many years ago at Killington, in Vermont. The first syllable says it all for me. I was supposed to go with two friends, both of whom got the flu, so off I went on my own. The highlight of the trip was skiing into the top of my class, lined up down the hill, thus reaffirming both gravity and the domino theory. I met a ski bum at the lodge who had broken his leg and we spent a couple evenings talking. A safe bet.
These days my family and I ski at NorthStar, on the north side of the Lake Tahoe. Mammoth, it seems, is not a get-away; it’s simply Southern Californians transplanted to a winter location and driving on skis. The north side of lake is less hectic, almost rural.
A ski trip takes you away – from home, from routine, and frankly, from your right mind. Call it high-altitude goofiness. If you’ve ever wondered why skiers have two of everything, it’s because they are always forgetting one of them. This trip I bought new gloves. In another goofy move, I spent all Tuesday afternoon, wondering how I was going to tell my husband I had locked us out of the condo – after we had made a second key to prevent this situation. I tried not to think about it on the slopes. At the end of the day, after we stored our skis, I confessed. “Oh,” he said, “I have the extra key in the car.”
We are back at the condo now for après-ski: a glass of wine, two Motrin, reading and snoring. There are three TVs here with VCRs but no cable TV, and we can’t get the VCRs to work. So we read a lot and listen to music on the radio. We even heard the President’s State of the Union message on the radio.
I am thinking about the day on the slopes. Skiing, strangely, is kind of like politics: the end justifies the means. You look not where you are going but where you want to go. You focus on that downhill spot and roll right, left, right . . . . Whatever happens in between goes up (or down) in a cloud of snow.
Tomorrow we will hit the slopes again, face downhill and roll . . . roll . . . roll.








