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Originally Posted by Bob Peters
Every ski season I try to check off a couple more items on the old list that Skiing Magazine ran back in February of 2000.
Some of the things on here are kind of dated, but it's still a pretty darned good target list of ski-related things to do during your life. I've done 71 of them and I might try to get it to 75 by the end of this season. I've never done #62, #66, or #74 and maybe this will be the year. Here's the list: Top 100 Things Every Skier Should Do Before They Die Extra credit for using one of these excuses: "I fell asleep in the tanning booth and was seriously burned over 96% of my body. It's imperative that I remain naked" (This explains your tan) "Okay, since you asked: It really hurts when I pee..." "I don't know what it is. The doctors are saying it's an airborne Ebola variant... Yes, I'm sneezing. Should I come in anyway?' "The plate in my dog's head froze last night. Right now I'm holding him upside-down in lukewarm water with bendy straws in his nose so he can breathe" "My great aunt from Vermont just had a nervous breakdown and is picking off squirrels with a .357 Magnum. I've got to get up there; I'm the only one who can talk her down. 2. Ski these classic runs: Corbet's Couloir, Jackson, WY High Rustler, Alta, UT Couloir Extreme, Blackcomb B.C. KT-22, Squaw Valley, CA Goat, Stowe, VT Kant-Mak-M, Telluride, CO 3. Ski runs just as good, but less well known: Steep'n'Deep, Monashees, B.C. Pas de Chevre, Chamonix, France Big Couloir, Big Sky, MT Cambodia, Red Mountain, B.C. Red Square, Vail, CO Skydive, Fernie, B.C. 4. Rent ski flicks in July 5. Do a heli 6. Rack up 10,000 verts at a ski area with less than 500 vertial 7. Be the first one into an untracked bowl as patrol drops the rope 8. Give first tracks to someone else 9. Put your boots on in August and walk around the yard 10. Get countless faceshots 11. Tune your mom's skis 12. Ride a T-bar on a snowboard to reaffirm you love of skiing 13. Take a nonskiing friend skiing 14. Ski naked 15. Drive through a raging snowstorm on a lonely road at night not go skiing 16. Know how to make a hot toddy 17. Flirt with a lift op 18. Hike for your turns And here's why: 10. You didn't buy a lift ticket with a fine print warning about the skiing at your own risk. 9. Nobody is cell phoning his broker in the lift line. 8. Everybody you ski with has nice big thighs. 7. You can eat brie and burgundy al fresco for the price of a greasy burger in a crowded cafeteria. 6. Parts of your lungs get air for the first time in years. 5. It isn't nearly as disfiguring when you run into a tree going uphill 4. If you take a big spill, nobody yells insults from the chair above. 3. Fun tickets in your wallet don't keep changing into lift tickets on your jacket. 2. After a while you learn to really love the pain. 1. You get to ski flawless, untracked powder in solitude, at your own pace, without the rabid feeding frenzy of inbounds. 19. Go to France Ride two trams to the Aigulle du Midi, a huge rocky pinnacle at 12,604 feet on the legendary Mont Blanc. Then spend the day skiing the crevasse-strewn Vallee Balance back down into Chamonix. Eat a jambon sandwitch along the way. 20. Paint your face red white and blue and go to a World Cup Downhill and scream your bloody head off 21. Own a chainsaw, cut your own line through the woods. Name it. Ski it. 22. Ski under a full moon 23. Ski at Aspen wearing camouflage pants, a fluorecent orange knit hat, and a hockey jersey 24. Ski at Pine Knob, Michigan, wearing real fur 25. Dance in your ski boots 26. Lose both skis, gloves, goggles, and all your spare change in a spectacular yard sale under the chairlift 27. Take a huge biffer on ice in the parking lot 28. Get a letter published in Skiing magazine 29. Master the one-finger farmer's blow. 30. Ski with Billy Kidd in Steamboat and with Stein Eriksen in Deer Valley 31. Ski on a volcano Cotopaxi, Ecuador Orizaba, Mexico Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii Mount Shasta, California Mount Bachelor, Oregon 32. Take a road trip 33. Do the Utah Interconnect On this granddaddy of accessible guided off-piste adventure, you ride slopes and lifts at Park City, Alta, Snowbird, Brighnton, and Solitude and ski the untracked backcountry in between. In a single day 34. Get snowed in at a ski resort 35. Ski a full day, from first chair to closing bell...all on high speed lifts 36. Use a rope tow to reaffirm your appreciation for padded chair-lifts 37. Every year, catch a flake from the first storm of the season on your tounge 38. Ski until you are over 70 so you can ski free 39. Ride around the bullwheel, on purpose or not 40. Go to the Winter Olympics 41. Get risque in a gondola, preferably with someone 42. Do a grab 43. Ski at night 44. Click into your skis, set at max DIN, and ride on the roof of a moving car 45. Go to a Warren Miller movie 46. Steal some of those little plastic trays from the resort cafeteria and slide down the mountain after the lifts close An aside from personal experience; this is illegal, and the ski partol yells really loud if you do it. 47. Donate clothing, equipment, money, or your time to a ski program for disadvanated youth 48. Write to NBC and insist they devote more airtime during the 2002 Olympics to skiing, preferably at the expense of figure skating 49. Take a hut trip 50. Win one of those stupid little NASTAR pins 51. Pack 10 people into a one-bedroom condo 52. Sleep in your car in a ski-area parking lot 53. Scam a lift ticket 54. Memorize Squirrel's lines from Hot Dog...The Movie 55. Ski a long bump run without stopping - and nail it 56. Ski alone all day, telling outrageous lies about yourself to the people you meet on the chair 57. Ski all day with a group of ripping locals. Tell them what you really do 58. Own a classic wool ski sweater 59. Rely on duct tape to keep something essentail together 60. Be a ski bum 61. Hike and ski a fourteener 62. Ski across a border Switzerland to france in the Portes du Solei, Massachusetts to New York at Catamount, Nevada to California at Heavenly, bonus points for India to Pakistan 63. Make as few turns as possible in a single run 64. Make as many turns as possilbe in a singe run 65. Jump a cornice 66. Ski perfect California corn snow in the spring 67. Wear a helmet 68. Pond skim during a spring fest; make it only half way across 69. Ride down the mountain in a ski-patrol sled 70. Later, tell war stories about your injury in the bar 71. Cartwheel in deep powder. Get up laughing hysterically 72. Ski in a halfpipe, without looking stupid 73. Go heli-skiing 74. On a sunny June day, hike and ski Tuckerman Ravine on New Hampshire's Mount Washington. Have lunch on Lunch Rocks like thousands of skiers have done since the early 1900's. 75. Skin in summer in the Southern Hemisphere 76. Keep a gummi stone in your pocket 77. Try telemarking 78. Ski something that scares the holy bejesus out of you 79. Wear sunscreen 80. Fart in a crowded gondola and blame it on your friend 81. Bobsled at Lake Placid; ski jump at Park City 82. Ski the Sierra High Route from Mount Whitney to Sequoia park 83. Drag a snowboarder on the flats while skiing 84. Go on a winter camping ski trip 85. Know how to make killer chili 86. Do the Haute Route in the Alps 87. Do a slalom shot at NYC's Ski Bar 88. Ski a vintage trail: a narrow, windy, Eastern run cut in the '30;s 89. Learn how to avoid dying in an avalanche by taking a backcountry safety course 90. Ski in denim...and rip 91. Help a stranger find a lost ski in deep powder 92. Take a really good lesson 93. Ski south of the Mason-Dixie line 94. Ski north of the Arctic Circle 95. Find a copy of Ski Party. Buy it. Read it. Live it. 96. Remain standing while watching eight hours of the 24 Hours of Aspen downhill race 97. Transport your skis via public transportation - subway, bus, train (bonus points fro doing it during rush hour) 98. Take the "MAD RIVER GLEN: SKI IT IF YOU CAN" sticker off the car of someone you know has never dkied there 99. Buy a patch from the ski area you grew up skiing. Sew it on your jacket. Be proud 100. Be grateful, everyday, for snow, mountains, gravity, and skiing |
Personally I have done #'s 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 (will be doing it this coming Feb.) 27, 32, 34, 36, 39 (only have done this in summer...) 42, 43, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 57, 59, 60, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 77, 78, 79, 83, 84, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 97, and 100.
45%...
How bout you?
(Bob, let me know if you get around to number 74 this year. I'd be happy to show you around up there.
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