Kindness: On the ski slope

It started with a girl’s weekend. Me and a few other gals from my office headed up to New Hampshire to spend the weekend hanging out, shopping, and skiing. There were two in the group who had not really skied before (“the Beginners”) – one, pretty much never (“Zero” experience), the other about ten years ago (“Minor” experience). So, while the rest of us geared up and headed toward the blue slopes, the remaining two headed to a lesson. Or so we thought. While we enjoyed a morning of great skiing with the occasional lovely snow shower, the others were stranded elsewhere on the mountain.

It started when the ski rental line was enormous. For some reason, it took well over an hour to rent skis and boots. Bummer. So, the Beginners missed the 11:00 lesson. So they decided to shoot for the 12:00 one. In the mean time, they decided that they shouldn’t waste an entire hour, especially after having stood in line forever. They could totally get in one run before noon. So they headed to the lifts that led to a green slope.

There may or may not have been some confusion in the lift line when the guy scanned their beginner (read: restricted-to-certain–small-slopes) lift tickets, but he let them through anyway. Amazingly, Zero made it on and off the ski lift in once piece. To me, that’s pretty shocking, seeing as I still get nervous getting off, and I ate it EVERY lift ride the few times I tried snowboarding. Well done.

The problem started when they got to the top of the green slope and looked over. It was just a tad steeper than expected. A few kindly skiers, seeing them look uncertainly down the slope, made sure to let them know that the top was the hardest part and that it leveled out significantly further down. With some quick instructions from Minor about “pizza” and “snow plow” they began their descent. Onward they went.

For a bit. Until Zero got going too fast in her snow plow position and fell. And got up and fell. And got up and fell, fell, fell. Every few feet, every few inches. Meanwhile, Minor was cautiously making her way down a little more smoothly. She trailed, yelling directions and cheers and gathering skis and poles as they detached from Zero. Several skiers stopped to talk to them on the way down, lend support, return a stray pole, give them pointers. But still, stressful cannot begin to describe their descent. Grueling is more like it, on both their parts. Zero for the shock and the physical exhaustion. Minor for the cheerleading, the picking-up-the-pieces and the getting-herself-down-in-one-piece-too in the 2 hours it took to do so.

Major kindness props to Minor for sticking with it. Not freaking out. Not abandoning her friend. Not leaving her for a minute, even if it would have been to get help. Not being too annoyed that she was missing out on skiing a bit more, a bit faster. There was also great kindness shown by strangers on the mountain. From the first guy who said the trail got less steep just past the top to the (presumably) several others who helped cheer them along and pick up the odd ski or two. And also to Zero who didn’t kill Minor for taking her up the mountain and who didn’t give up.

After all that, they missed their 12:00 lesson. Zero has quit skiing for good. And Minor conquered the green slope a few times after lunch. I think we all learned a lot that day, about skiing, patience, perseverance and kindness.