How long can you go

I don’t know how many it was in a row but when I was ski bumming we skied everyday. We rarely took a day off and it was only to run to town or go soak in a hot spring. I skied over 120 days one year. A couple seasons were just over 100. One year was over 70 with another 30 in the backcountry. Nowadays I rarely ski two days in a row. Sometimes I’ll downhill one day and cross country the next. I give people a lot of credit for waking early, driving hours and skiing multiple days. Especially driving back to go to work. I skied hard all day yesterday, passed out on the way home and barely left the couch today.
 
I used to be a ski bum so months of back to back days. I even skied every month for three straight years. That was in my 20’s.

I can’t do that anymore. I need recovery days and I’m not going to do 300 mile drives to go ski either.

My work can take it all out of me anyways. This weekend I’m resting to be ready to work on Tuesday. I spent last week hand building trail and doing rock work. It’s a butt kicker.
 
Have been skiing 7 days in a row at Taos the last four seasons. Got in 14 days in a row at Alta in April 2018. The limitation is not wanting to be away from home for more than a couple of weeks. Longer trips tend to involve skiing in more than one location, with a day of driving in between stops. In far better shape and a better skier at 64 than at 54.
 
At one point in my 40s, 6 days in a row. That was on the annual New Year's trip to Lake Placid. Sadly those trips are shorter these days. Whether it's snow or dryland, I need one rest day each week.
 
When I was in my fifties, I had the same fantasy as a lot of others, to move to a cool ski town to ski all winter in retirement, or, when I was old. Fortunately, a smart friend mocked me and then talked me out of it, and he was right. No way I could ski every day, and what happens when the next injury stops me from even being able to deal with stairs, let alone mountain activities. Ski towns are no place for old men.
 
Benny Profane said:
When I was in my fifties, I had the same fantasy as a lot of others, to move to a cool ski town to ski all winter in retirement, or, when I was old. Fortunately, a smart friend mocked me and then talked me out of it, and he was right. No way I could ski every day, and what happens when the next injury stops me from even being able to deal with stairs, let alone mountain activities. Ski towns are no place for old men.
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I don't think it is more than 5 days for me. Most of that relates to vacation/family/work limits. One bucket list for me is to ski 100 days in a season/yr. I don't know if or when that will happen.

I do think it is plausible to end up with a ski 'retirement' - you just have to plan well, ease into it, and leave yourself optionality. Not sure it would work for me, but you could be in Vt near very good hospitals/health care. Not sure about NY health care mountains (though this would be the place to ask); those are just two states.

I continually tell (rather, very humbly smile and suggest to) my wife that retirement/life's next step is going to involve skiing. We'll see. There are a lot of factors that go into these kind of decisions, but I would love to do something like that.

Also, I am probably not someone who is going to just chill out in retirement/next act. I haven't taught since senior year of college when I TA'd a handful of classes, but I love teaching. I don't know how to do much with my hands, but I (maybe oddly?) would love to learn about plumbing, electricity, contracting.

Random philosophy tidbit - Total detour: While we are at it, I love reading. I was reading some Seneca (good stoic philosopher, bad adviser to Nero), and realized that an FDR speech writer may have been a classicist who lifted from Seneca's 2000 year-old works. Sound familiar: "there is nothing to fear in your affairs but fear itself"? That is from Seneca's collection of letters that are contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth and St. Paul. So funny - now adays, someone would be professionally flayed for lifting a quote. Of course, I only suspect that the Seneca quote was borrowed by FDR/an adviser and have done 0 research into the issue.
 
Well. I'm at a stage when I talk to my doctor and tell him, hey, considering, everything is cool, but, it hurts when I ski sometimes. So, what does any smart doctor say to that?
 
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