Some things are more difficult when you return to skiing after a hiatus … like those boots

NSAA reported a 6.6. percent increase in skier visits for the 2022-23 season. (Getty Images)

It must be perfect. The snow. The light. The number of skiers on the mountain. Are they on skis or snowboards? Are the blues really blues or are they easy blacks?

Sure, I want to keep skiing at my age, but that was before two back surgeries, a broken wrist done cross-country skiing last season, and a whole season of COVID avoidance.

Now, I’m ready. Mount Cranmore in the morning, at the head of the lift line, when it opens might do it. Or the lesser hills at Bretton Woods. But, despite their allure and familiarity, both of these options give me anxiety now. That is because I know I am not the type of skier who can just cruise or fall down the slopes in graceful, measured arcs. Even before the events of the last two years delayed my development into a semi-intermediate skier, I skied inconsistently. On some days I did a pretty decent job, but on others I only somehow made it down. 

Let’s just say I was always a defensive driver. If I heard the slicing of snow that signaled a teenage boy on a snowboard, I headed for the sidelines and waited it out. After watching my daughter get wiped out by a snowboarder — who kept going — when we were skiing in the Canadian Rockies, I saw danger everywhere. A hit-and-run everywhere I looked, knowing full well that a snowboarder fully in control is every bit as safe as a skier fully in control.

I put my training wheels back on at a small ski area in West Virginia that we have been frequenting for 30 years. Spent two days on the tiny incline of the baby hill. Graduated to the big chair and the midway station. But when I could cut off anything demanding, I did, escaping to a green from a gentle blue.

I kept saying to myself, maybe next time I’ll go all the way up, as I had done for years, skiing all the available options off the top. Anxiety does not go well with skiing. If you can’t relax, you are not likely to find your rhythm. It’s a kind of dissonance that interferes with the Austrian waltz that should be playing in your head as you let your skis turn over and carve the way down for you. 

Of course, the only way to get back in your tracks is to struggle into your boots, ones that feel much tighter than they did only two years ago. 

Do I have COVID feet from wearing slippers or shuffling around the house in socks? Has this sloppy footwear given my feet permission to spread out like pancake batter on a skillet? How could this be? I wore athletic shoes on occasion. I slipped into my well-worn winter boots for a walk around the block. How could my feet have gotten so wide?

I probably should have struggled into my boots — a model from 15 years ago, maybe more — at home where they had been kept warm and somewhat more pliable by resting overnight in the soft warmth of a baseboard heater. But, fearing I might find myself on my back stepping out of the car, I elected to carry and cram. That is, haul them inside the lodge with a huge ski bag and deal with the boots there.

My husband assured me that it would be easy with the use of a magic spray that you spritz into your boots to provide some slide for the foot. For good measure, I also generously sprayed the bottom of each sock. This spray was acquired somewhere in Canada where everyone is a great skier, probably because they sprayed the inside of their boots.

The application did not make me a great skier, nor did it help me get my boots on. 

The first try was tough and painful. I yelped as the plastic housing, that I had pulled apart as far as I could, retracted on my hand. I had one-third of my foot in a position that no part of anyone’s body should ever be put in. I took the nicely lined, fleecy tongue of the boot and pulled it to the side, away from my foot. Not much luck. I’m wondering how I did this repeatedly over the past 15 years without sounding like an animal in pain.

I resorted to asking for help. This resulted in shoving the foot into the boot at an angle that even a tiny foot would object to. After repeated tries and repeated protestations, my foot flattened into the boot after a big push. The pain relief was something like finishing the birthing of a baby. You’re grateful, but pretty beat up. 

So, enough about the boots. Now that I know I can carry and cram, a real ski trip to the Mount Washington Valley has been planned. This is where everyone is a skier — or a boarder — because busloads of kids are off-loaded in the afternoons for PE on the mountain. They have no choice but to become confident skiers who can put their boots on. This why when a ski jump opened in the vicinity, there was jubilation. This event even exceeded the joy that ski racing at breakneck speeds provided.

It will be a 10-day trip. The expectation is that everything will be perfect.