It takes a special breed of human to want to hike and climb to ski every month of the year. They possess a passion for unpredictable adventures and a love of manky snow, and mostly they are owners of many layers of Gore-Tex. These weirdos are my people: we are Turns All Year (TAY).
TAYers are easy to spot with their Skittle colored garb and quads of steel, generally carrying the biggest most awkward looking pack on the mountain. To those of us in the “in crowd”, these Skittles represent a bastion of sanity in an otherwise confusing and snow-free world. To the non-TAYers, we are a rare sighting, more nimble than the mountain goat yet more elusive than the wolverine. When we are spotted in the wild, questions are thrown at us, quick and percussive. Can you really ski here? Is it safe? Where’s the chairlift?
In honor of these questions, and the fact that we’re in the middle of October, generally my least-favorite month to TAY, in no particular order here are the brilliant and not-so-brilliant questions asked of the unsuspecting TAYers (and the things we wish we could say in response, although sometimes no response is the best response):
Best questions to ask someone hiking to go skiing:
“Where are you going? There is no snow.” (You see that white stuff up there? It’s not marshmallows like Dr. Seuss would lead you to believe. It’s SNOW!)
“I used to cross country ski!” (I bet you did Steve. I. bet. you. did.)
“Are you going skiing??!!!!!” (Nope, I’m just carrying these an incredibly long distance for no reason because I saw someone else do it and I thought it looked fun.)
“Who’s paying you to do this?” (No one. Also, your mom.)
This summer, on the way DOWN:
“Are you going skiing??”
“Nope, just did.”
“Did you go up THIS MORNING?!?”
“Yup, this morning.”
“WOW! You did that all in one day??”
At Paradise, bus full of tourists starting at us, pointing, laughing, and talking.
“Is that your training weight?”
“You going to ski some rocks?” (I don’t know Sharon, are you going to trip over some rocks?)
“You do realize they have ski lifts and gondolas for skiing and snowboarding?” (I had no idea. Never heard of them.)
“Did you find powder? Where did you find snow? How do you get up to ski down? Did you ski ‘the face’?” (That’s a new one…What face?)
“We’re visiting from South Carolina. Can we take your picture? Our friend back home would never believe this!”
Related: “Some guy asked to posed with my splitboard after doing Paradise last Summer, it was quite entertaining. He even stood IN the bindings with his regular shoes on and threw one of these out there for the camera.”
“Where are you going with your skis?” (Umm, skiing I hope!)
“Where is the snow to ski?” (On the glacier you are standing on.) Related: “You won’t find snow up there.”
“I just hiked up to that area, there is no lift up there.”
Bottom of MT Washington in NH in August. “Why do you have all that stuff? You do know it’s August.” My reply, do you have anything besides that T Shirt and shorts? You do know it’s 38 degrees at the top, right?” Saw the guy at the top after I skied. He was near a waterfall freezing.
“Is there a rental shop up there?” (Yes! And they have free beer too!)
“Do you get a fine for making marks in the snow like that?”
“Have I seen you in a movie?” (Yes, I’m very big in Sweden.)
“What kind of skis are those?” (The kind you ski on!)
“Can you ski to the top?” (Theoretically, if I were better at this and had sponsors and time to actually train instead of working my 9-5 job where the life is slowly getting sucked out of me.)
“That’s quite a lot of gear you have there for this climb.” -expert climber
…as a splitboarder… “Whoa, what are those? Like, the fattest skis I’ve ever seen!” [Proceeds to take a thousand photos] “what will they think of next?! Back in my day, it was tennis racquets on your feet.”
“South America is a bit of a walk still….think you’ll make it before dark?”
“This is the most extreme thing I have EVER seen!” (Really? You should probably get out more.)
“Are those skis?!?!?” (No, they are rollerblades.)
“Did you find any snow to ski on?” – guy standing in front of a 6′ wall of snow at Artist Point
“Oh good, people still are adventurous!” (Okay, I’m done being cynical, this is a response I can get behind!)
And three bonus feel-good stories for you, proving that anything can be a backcountry icebreaker:
By Sam Hapke: I wear my son’s sloth hat for every summit/tour to show him just how far it (ultimately: he) can go, kind of like the lawn gnome in Amelie. It’s an amazing ice-breaker outdoors. My personal favorite was overhearing someone in the distance talking about Go Dog Go being his favorite children’s book. When we passed each other, I said “Hello” and he replied “Hello.” I asked him “do you like my hat?” He caught on immediately and we re-enacted the recurring conversation in Go Dog Go without stopping our opposing routes. “I do not.” “Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” We parted ways, two grown men cackling in the dawn haze. Seuss’s genius!
By Matt Smolinski: I was hiking up to Daniel in the summer and I passed a guy on a horse who looked like a super stereotypical cowboy. Accent and everything. I was about to pull out my camera and take a picture of him when he interrupted me with, “are those skis! I gotta get me a picture of this!” Then he whipped out his camera and we both took pictures of each other.
By Ali Gray: I once had a pair of brothers from Mexico ask to take my photo with them, and they then proceeded to sing me a Mariachi song. They were in a band. There was dancing.
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