The Ski Life Blog

I can’t think of too many things that I owned in 1993 that I still have today. If I dug through my dresser drawers I might find my high school ring. My book shelf has a couple yearbooks from back then, probably a few other books I was given as a kid. I can only think of one thing that I have for sure owned since I was twenty one years old and have used continuously ever since, my blue cooler.

To say I own the cooler might not be accurate. We found each other some time in 1993. I was in college and sharing a place in the Bronx, near Van Cortlandt Park with four other guys. There were a lot of people in and out so I can’t really say who first brought the blue cooler into the apartment.

Continue reading →

By Saturday I’d been in a foul mood for at least ten days. Job stress, a seemingly endless stream of bad news from family and friends and an energy-sucking head cold combined for a perfect storm of gloom. On top of it, I missed skiing the weekend before and a mid-week warm spell, followed by plunging temps overnight, could only mean one thing for Saturday — ice.

It was one of those cycles where a little flexibility made all the difference. Friday was a spring-like day filled with sunshine and corn snow. By Sunday, the mountain ops would have time to groom everything into fresh, carve-able corduroy. With the ice locked in, Saturday would suck. Friday or Sunday were obviously better choices.

Continue reading →

I started skiing in 1968 at Ski Dutchess in Beacon NY. It was at night and I was on rental skis. After setting off, I promptly rotated around and proceeded down the slope backwards until I fell on my behind. Pulling myself off the snow, something was ignited inside me and that fire still burns today. Skiing has rewarded me with some of the best moments and memories of my life.

Twenty years earlier in Bombay NY, my future father-in-law, David Lee Ghostlaw was having a similar experience in an open hayfield adjacent to his home. On wooden skis without metal edges, skiing straight down the hill, over and over, he also experienced the magic.

Continue reading →