MVHS students share their skiing experiences and recommendations
Junior Aaryan Sharma hovers over the top of the ski hill, the landscape around him devoid of people. As he glides down the mountain toward the end of the run, an overwhelming sense of freedom enters his body. Arriving at his destination, the ski resort, once bustling with life and laughter, is now just as peaceful and cold as the mountain he came from. With the rest of the skiers packing into their cars to drive home, Sharma enjoys a moment of silence.
“You get to have the resort to yourself,” Sharma said. “Even if it’s just 10 minutes, you still get to ski down there all by yourself and you have space and freedom. You’re not constrained like you have been for the past hour because there were so many people surrounding you.”
At around age 10, Sharma initially started skiing due to the influence of his parents, but grew to love the sport on his own. He has fond memories of riding the magic carpet, a conveyor belt to transport skiers uphill, while attending lessons when he was young. Sharma says growing up, he felt drawn to the seasonal nature of the sport as well as the unique flowing sensation skiing provides to him.
“It’s the snow that makes skiing skiing,” Sharma said. “It’s nice because I wouldn’t want to ski all the time. I think skiing is one of those sports where I’d only want to do it when the time comes.”
Sharma’s favorite part of skiing is the thrill of speeding down slopes. His thick puffer jacket provides a layer of protection that ensures he won’t get cold or injured, which proves helpful in his need for speed.
“One thing about me is I don’t turn like I’m supposed to,” Sharma said. “I love just going down a slope and not stopping while going full speed. It’s very exhilarating.”
Face bruised and legs sore, Chinese teacher I-Chu Chang regretted her first experience on the slopes during graduate school, where she joined a student-arranged trip in Philadelphia. With only one experienced skier in the group, Chang remembers the commotion she caused when she tried to ride the ski lift, jamming the entire lift for the day. On the way down, she faced an even larger problem.
“I couldn’t stop,” Chang said. “There was a pole right in front of me, and I knew that I was going to hit the pole, but I couldn’t do anything about it. The pole ended up hitting me on the side of the face, and it really hurt. When we went back to our dorms the next morning, when I woke up, I couldn’t move. That was the scariest experience I’ve ever had.”
Although Chang swore to never ski again unsupervised, she gradually started to improve with the help of her husband after moving to Oregon. Now, she finds skiing more enjoyable than other sports due to an abundance of factors that separate skiing from the rest.
“If I play basketball, I sweat a lot, but since skiing is pretty cold, I don’t sweat as much,” Chang said. “After I started yoga, I also was better at balancing, which turned out to be really helpful for me when I ski.”
After several icy trips and fun memories, with her most recent ski trip being to Lake Tahoe, Chang is now confident in her ability to carve her way down the slope. With one sport under her belt, she plans to tackle new sports like snowboarding, hoping for a smoother experience compared to her first time skiing.
“I’m a little worried about snowboarding because I’ve heard people say that beginners injure their wrists or bruise themselves,” Chang said. “I’m debating whether I should try it out, but I like to play hard. I enjoy the risk.”
Growing up in Massachusetts, French teacher Sarah Finck has been around the snow her entire life. Finck specifically enjoys participating in cross-country skiing, an alternative form of skiing done on flatter ground without a chairlift or other travel assistance and is, according to Finck, a full-body exercise.
“I think skiing is similar to what people might say about hiking,” Finck said. “You are out in nature, it’s very quiet, there’s fresh air, you get exercise and the world is covered in white. It can be very magical.”
Finck recalls early memories of the school bus taking her and some of her classmates from their elementary school to a local mountain to learn how to ski. During high school, she became a member of the school ski team and placed well within her state. With her competitive experience from high school, Finck joined the Dartmouth College club skiing team and later raced in the Junior Olympic qualifiers, where she represented herself.
“I wasn’t skiing to have my school win or lose, it was always me independently, but the time spent with those people are good memories,” Finck said.
After moving to California, Finck still made it a goal for herself to head up to the snow and continue skiing. Occasionally after school on Fridays, Finck would make the drive up to Lake Tahoe to spend the weekend skiing. However, the transit was less convenient than what she was used to in Massachusetts.
“Tahoe can get many feet of snow at a time, and maybe I’ve lost my confidence in driving in the snow, but I don’t want to be on the roads trying to go over the pass into Tahoe during a storm,” Finck said.
Finck has already taken her 3-year-old daughter to the snow multiple times. In their most recent trips, Finck has attached a small chariot to herself to help daughter to enjoy the snow with her and her husband.
“This year, she called herself Santa, and we were the reindeer,” Finck said. “She was excited that we were pulling her along. So I’m teaching my love for skiing and passing it on to my child.”
