Last Thursday, I skied for the first time since recovering from lumbar fusion surgery. I use the term “recovering,” as that’s the blanket term for whatever time it takes to restore the functionality that the surgery was meant to ameliorate. It’s been 14 months since surgeons reassembled my lower back from whatever bits were still serviceable. I’m still recovering from my recovery.
The whole process got off to a rocky start when a pre-op EGK revealed an abnormality in my heartbeat, requiring a cardiologist to clear me for surgery. Eventually I was okayed to filet, but not before other members of the medical community caught wind of the immense billing opportunity my frailties were engendering. So, we took a bone marrow extraction using a method perfected by the Chilean secret police, the results of which were inconclusive, so a hematologist was added to the team. I wore a heartbeat monitor for a week here and there that had to be glued on and was best removed by a sharp machete. After examining all the evidence, the ultra-expert at the end of the advisory chain declared that my blood was fine, everybody can relax.
Testing begets more testing, and soon we’re doing a CT scan of my beleaguered brain. At my next appointment with my primary care physician, she cautiously inquired if I knew what the word, “atrophy” meant. When I told her I was familiar with the term, she cleared her throat and said that I had global brain atrophy and was losing brain mass at a precipitous rate.
Which is how I ended up in the care of a neurologist who examined every slide in my brain scan before announcing there wasn’t the slightest evidence of atrophy on any of them. Case dismissed.
The only symptom that remained was some variant of vertigo, with its attendant balance issues, along with intermittent bouts of tinnitus. The neurologist administered a standard test for cognition/memory which the PA informed me I aced. In any case, the neurologist said I no longer needed his services and that was that.
Except that the vertigo persists and I can’t get an appointment with an ENT until later this week. So, when I ventured out to ski last Thursday, it was with the expectation that the skies would be blue and the snow would be groomed. Neither forecast proved accurate, but at least there was snow and I could see where I was aiming, kinda. In my exuberance/stupidity, I had grabbed a fair-weather goggle lens, dark as coal, so my balance sensors weren’t picking up many clues. My back tightened up in anticipation of immanent disaster.
The next two hours were not pretty, but at least my skills partially returned. With the patient oversight of my dear friends Nick Allen and his daughter Lara, I ultimately fashioned a few respectable runs. But all the key elements that go into high-performance, all-terrain skiing – strength, quickness, endurance, anticipation, multi-axis manipulation of the ski – were in short supply. I had to remind myself that in January of 2025 I would spontaneously generate full-body spasms with enough electricity to run a blender. All things considered, I’m winning.
What did I learn from this odd gift of a first day back on skis?
- Pay attention to the details. Going out with a dark lens on an overcast day was dumb. I forgot my Leki glove bra wasn’t on the pair of gloves I carelessly grabbed. I wasn’t gliding on the new snow because I didn’t wax properly. Details matter.
- Vertigo really sucks. Skiing is a sport of balance, so when your balance system is on the fritz, you never really feel inside your own skin. Brain fog and real fog are a deadly mix.
- Aging erodes elasticity. You don’t bounce back from serious injury, you crawl back. But no matter the injury or its consequences, skiers will do all that they can to remain skiers.
The first time on skis in over a year made two things abundantly clear: I’m going to complete the long, multi-stage arc of recovery and ski deeper into my dotage. But I can’t resuscitate the market conditions that made realskiers.com possible.
What Happens Next?
Seemingly, nothing. At some point, I’ll shut off the auto-renew function, but the members’ site and its lode of archived content will remain up until we can no longer afford to operate. If you’ve recently re-subscribed and would like a refund, just let me know and I’ll reverse the charge.
Regardless of the status of the site and its contents, if you’ve ever had any correspondence with me you perforce have my email, which I don’t intend to change. I’ll still respond to member queries through the end of this season.
Once Realskiers goes dark, where will you be able to get reliable information on gear selection? Instead of rummaging around on the Internet – a fertile breeding ground for misinformation – find the best brick-and-mortar specialty ski shop near where you live or ski. (If you don’t already have a favorite shop, I suggest you find your new retail ally on Jackson’s List).
As I have been advising my Dear Readers and Dear Listeners for years, the most important piece of equipment you will ever buy are your boots, and boot buying entails bootfitting. If you think you can successfully shop for boots online, you’re skating on thin ice. Compounding the problems of long-distance fitting, BOA’s successful infiltration of the boot market takes the focus away from fitting close to the shell, imparting a sensation of all-around comfort that can mask the absence of proper underfoot support, among other potential pitfalls. To be clear, I’m not saying don’t buy a boot equipped with BOA; I’m saying don’t buy any boot, BOA or not, without a veteran bootfitter’s guidance.
Even if ski boots were as easy to fit as slippers, you would still need the other services that only a specialty shop can perform, headlined by ski base and edge prep. A well-equipped shop can substantially modify a ski’s on-snow characteristics by playing with base grinds and edge angles. For example, I can take my Volkl M7 Mantra (in a 178cm), which is essentially a Power ski, and use a modified thumbprint pattern and careful edge beveling to help it slip and slide laterally through tight troughs and trees, essentially turning a powerhouse into a pussycat. I realize that specialty grinds like a thumbprint cost more than a standard ski tune – okay, quite a bit more – but they should. The right tune on the right ski is a game changer.
Once you’re in the care of a specialty shop, you’ll discover other ability amplifiers such ZipFit inner boots (nod to the late, great Sven Coomer for the enduring value of his liners) and Booster power straps. Among the several ski accessories that have become essential equipment for me is the heated boot bag (another Coomer creation), without which I doubt I could even get my boots on.
A Peek Over the Horizon
As I reported earlier this season, ski prices remained remarkably stable for over a decade, but the epoch of price stability appears to be over. Next season’s price bumps are actually pretty modest, mostly up only $50 or $75, and many returning models are holding price. While adding $50 to what it costs to ski in toto is effectively trivial, if you’re looking to save a few shekels, all indications are you’d be better off buying this season than next.
Knowing my propensity to pontificate, I doubt these words will be the last to find publication in these hallowed pages. But the end is nigh, and I already feel the pangs of missing you all.
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It’s About Nothing
In the last week of January,2009 I was able to spend a few days skiing in Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is always cathartic for my ravaged soul. The conditions were all over the map, the mountains having experienced a long, hot spell followed by rain, grapple, wet snow and finally dry snow driven by winds that could flense an adult walrus in a few minutes. Couldn’t have been better.
I had been preparing for the trip for weeks, psychologically. Two back surgeries the previous winter had reduced my training regimen from semi-annual to non-existent. Scheduling conflicts such as work kept me from visiting the areas that abound at home near Lake Tahoe, so I had zero ski days on a body with more fat on it than a French duck. I had as much chance of surviving Snowbird and Alta as a rib roast in a piranha tank.
Fortunately, the Lord is merciful, anti-inflammatory drugs are powerful and there are techniques that allow one to block out pain. There are also many wonderful people in this world with which to ski, kind people who stand quietly by, pretending to be in awe of Nature, while my chest heaves so violently in its futile quest for oxygen that tiny lung particles break lose and make for the exits. One such person is Guru Dave Powers, a man whose passion for the sport hasn’t diminished after thousands of days of riding gravity down the infinitely variable slopes and crannies of Snowbird. The Goo knows this hill, and in knowing it well knows so much more.
The Making of a Skier, Chapter XII: Putting Words into the Mouth of God & Other Mid-Life Adventures
When I was cut adrift by Head on June 13, 2001, my once glowing prospects dimmed considerably. The date is etched in memory because I hosted a small soirée that evening in honor of my darling wife’s 50th birthday. One of the attendees was Paul Hochman, who would play several roles in my life as I wandered in the wilderness of unemployment during what were supposed to be my peak earning years.
During the gaping hole in my career that spanned 2001-2011, I would eventually spend every cent of my inheritance, plus most of what I’d saved from earlier bouts with gainful employment, just keeping the household afloat. Despite a river of red ink, my resume would suggest that I was not only commercially active during this epoch, but had my hand in all sorts of ventures.
Fit the Whole Skier
We bootfitters are naturally obsessed with feet, but the best bootfitters don’t just fit feet; they fit the whole skier. The “whole skier” includes more than just a quick survey of the lower leg and how it’s connected to the foot. It’s even more than all of the skier’s physical attributes, which include not only height and weight, but seated posture, stance, kinesthetic wiring, arch health and stiffness throughout the kinetic chain; the whole skier also includes his or her history with the sport and, most importantly, what sort of skier he or she wants to be.
One of the most obvious traits about almost all boot customers is his or her gender. (Please forgive me if I don’t overcomplicate what should be a simple point about body type.) The first step in a sales process that consists of winnowing all possible boots down to one is picking from the pile of unisex boots or the alternative world of women’s boots.
No-brainer, right? Not so fast. What if a particular woman were tall, with a long tibia and a tapered calf? Let’s add to her profile that she’s a good athlete with a background in dance. Up to now, she’s only been an occasional skier who rented her gear, but a new beau has persuaded her to take a deeper dive. She already has her season pass.
