“Snow skiing is not fun. It is life, fully lived, life lived in a blaze of reality.” -Dolores Lachapelle
You’re here for one of two reasons. Either you’re hesitating on whether to ski, or you already know how remarkable it is. For the formal, these are the Top 10 Reasons to Ski, and by default Reasons to go on a Skiing Holiday. I hope I can convince you to take up the ride of a lifetime.
For the latter, you already know its greatness. Amen, brothers and sisters. Let’s relive the emotions of life lived free on the mountain.
The word skiing and snowboarding is interchangeable. The top 10 Reasons to Ski holds true for Snowboarders as well.
Some of the points are hard to explain unless you’ve experienced them before, but trust me, it’s all real.
Skiing Makes You Invincible
Standing at the start of Black 51 in Cortina D'Amprezzo, Italy
Okay, let’s be honest. You’re not invincible. But when you’re heading full throttle down the mountain, trees whizzing past, turning like a pro, there’s a certain feeling that seems like you’re invincible.
The adrenaline’s pumping, which in itself is a great reason to ski, and you feel on top of the world. Life seems to have no limits. You feel Godlike. Nothing can stop you. Well, metaphorically. A bad turn, an overhanging tree, or a bad skier, can all stop you literally.
But there’s a feeling that every skier (and snowboarder) knows that you just can’t put down on paper – a sensation of completeness. That wherever you could be in the world today, this was the one and only place you should have been.
Skiing Makes You Ingnificant
Skiers on the San Bernardo Drag Lifts, heading back to La Thuile (Italy) from La Rosiere (France) as the weather comes in.
Wait, you just said skiing makes you invincible. Yes, it does.
But it also, on the other hand, puts everything in perspective. You stand on the top of a mountain, thousands of metres high, at the highest run. Maybe it’s first lifts and you’re the first one up there. Or maybe you’ve find an isolated run and all you can hear is nature.
You look out at the snow, the rocks, the mountains – at Nature herself. And you realise, in that instance, how insignificant you are.
Additionally, you realise how insignificant your problems are in the bigger scheme of things. How that argument you had with your sister, or the hassle you had returning that oven that was rubbish, or the worry about your impending high school reunion next week, is irrelevant. Even substantial money, family, and health issues seem to melt away. It means nothing here.
Here there is just you, a massive mountain and (hopefully) a shit ton of snow.
This is a true reason to ski. This is peace.
Skiing IS Something; It's an Achievement
Standing at the Highest Point in the Dolomites looking across the Sella and Sassolungo Mountains
Okay I can’t tell you why skiing matters, or what it really achieves – especially purely recreational skiing.
However, at the end of a long day on the mountain – and even long days go all too quick up there – there’s a sense of achievement. You may be stuck with a pint in your hand at Apres with your friends; or new found friends. You may be snuggled in bed with a hot chocolate.
Wherever you are, however tired and battered you are, there is this sense. This sense that today you did something. You achieved. You stood on top of that nursery slope/green run/blue run/red run/black run/off piste/shit-your-pants-hardest-run-in-the-world run [delete as applicable] and you smashed it!
Earlier, you were at the top, palms sweaty, throat dry, thinking “what the fuck am I doing?” Then you realised fear is just an illusion. So you just took the first step. You just went. That first step turned into a second turn, a third, a fourth. Before you knew it, you were looking up at that bad boy of a slope, feeling like you could conquer anything.
What a reason to ski – you can conquer everything. Maybe not today. Maybe another day, when you muster up more guts. But today, you smashed it.
Skiing is Beauty
The view from the Plateau Rosa above Cervinia at 3500 metres
There’s two sides to the beauty coin here.
Firstly skiing itself, is graceful. Maybe not when it’s your first week and you’re the King of the Snow Plough heading for a small kid in slo-motion but unable to stop yourself crashing nonetheless. Watching good skiers and professional skiers move – it’s impressive. When you become proficient enough to turn down a blue slope, even after a few weeks, you will notice the great turns you pull off. The bad turns will be ugly, and you will know it. But the good turns will be beautiful.
It’s not just skiing itself that is beautiful. The locations are stunning.
Even the ugliest ski resort in the world – I’m looking at you Sestriere, you sixties Olympic monstrosity – are stunning places to visit, to live, and just to be in. The more you improve your skiing, the more you will get away from the nursery slopes, and by default, the crowds. You will ski further, you will take more lifts, ski higher, and ski more remotely.
There will come a time when you do your first 40km day, and you will have a camera (or phone) full of amazing photos. That is the point you realise how amazing this sport is to put you slap bang in the middle of these incredible places, vistas, and environments.
You can make beauty IN beauty, and that’s pretty incredible.
Skiing Keeps You Sane
Standing at the top of the Sella Pass (Passo Sella) in the Dolomites looking out to the Val Di Fassa
How often on a normal day do you not check your phone for four hours? If you’re like me, that answer is never. Not on a normal day. Yet on the mountain, you’ll probably take it out at lunch and that’s it. Even then, it will probably be for one of two reasons. Firstly, to check all the awesome photos and videos you took this morning and maybe upload them to Social now to make everybody feel jealous. Secondly, to find out whether James is ever going to make it up the mountain, because he promised to come skiing today, and he’s missing out – but also, sod James, because as they say, “there are no friends on a powder day”. He made his bed. He can lie in it.
What you will definitely not be doing is spending an hour looking at memes or on Tinder. You know, boredom shit that you do on your phone.
In fact, skiing puts it all in perspective.
And for those of you from 9-5 workload, from the skyscrapers, and the million people cities, and the overpriced corporate bars where we all go Friday night to redeem what little hope we have left in life – but still manage to go home hopeless or with the Finance Girl Sharon who you don’t really like anywhere – this is salvation.
Here, you have the simple life. Skiing has a habit of keeping you sane and reminding you what matters.
Skiing is About Community
The Team Getting a Sunrise Ski in at the top of the Dantercepies Gondola, above Selva Di Val Gardena
Do you remember the last time you spoke to a stranger on the tube in London? I can answer that for you. Never. Unless, you’re crazy.
Do you remember the last time you spoke to someone on a chairlift, or at the bar at Apres? Yes, every day.
Skiing is sociable – you meet people if only for a fleeting time, and you interact with people as if they are ACTUAL people! Not as a inconvenience to your day, that must be bypassed and forgotten about.
This is yet another reason to ski.In fact, you may go home with life long friends and you may start booking future ski holidays with them. At the very least, you’ll know everyone in the local Apres Bar or Pub by the second day, and you’ll gather together, telling amazing stories of the happenings of that day.
The places you’ve seen, the strange weather, the unusual things that happened, and maybe a little brag about what you did. There’s a freshness that comes with ski talk. No more do you have to follow the well worn path of questions. What’s your name? Where do you come from? What do you do?
Now your name is irrelevant. I just want to know how many resorts you skied in and how fast you went today.
Close friendships are faster when you have a sport in common, a beer in one hand and a red face (from where you forgot to apply sunscreen earlier)
Skiing is About Great Food & Drink
Medium Steak, mountain vegetables and roast potatoes, together with a glass of Chianti wine
When we use to play Football back home, we would go into the pub and that end and have a nice, tepid Carling. Mmm hmm – cat’s piss all round. (Okay, so I never played football, but this is how I imagine it in my head.)
Not the same with skiing.
You’ve been up since first light, out on the mountain, then stopped briefly for a luxurious espresso on the mountain. Looking out at the light coming over the highest mountains, you drank down your little shot of Italian Perfection. You threw the €1 it cost on the bar; pocket money compared to the £4 back home it costs for a half-arsed Starbucks coffee. Then you went out on the mountain…
Till lunch. Now you’re having a Skiwasser and a kaiserschmarren in that little restaurant you love, with the great view of the five peaks.
More skiing till last lifts.
Skiing is done but there’s just time for a bombardino or a spritz or a Radler or a nice German beer before you need to get ready for dinner.
Many hours later you’ll walk out of dinner, stomach full of food fit for a king, and after many laughs with great friends (see Skiing is Community above). You’ll have eaten pasta, and good steak, washed down with crazily good house wine, finished off with a tiramisu, and wonder how all of that only cost €30. In London, that would have been three times the price.
Okay, now I just want to go on a ski holiday for the food.
Nowhere, in the developed world, will you eat or drink so well for so little. Furthermore, depending on where you go, you will be subjected to local delicacies that makes that experience even richer.
You won’t feel bad because you’ve spent the whole day exercising on the mountain. And that, is one of the true joys of skiing.
Skiing is Exercise (I think)
Standing at the top of the Seceda Area above Santa Cristina, looking out at the Sassolungo Mountains
I’m not a believer that skiing makes you lose weight. It never has for me, but that may be because I eat too much good food on a skiing day.
That being said, there are a lot of people that say skiing is a great way to lose weight.
At the very least, it has been proven to strengthen core muscles, improve your balance, increase your flexibility and enhance your mood. It also promotes deep sleep, and boy when you hit that pillow, you’re gone.
Furthermore, one for you smokers. Overall it improves your cardiovascular endurance, because it puts the heart and lungs under “good” pressure. Another reason to ski.
So much literature seems to be about how skiing can be bad for you – skiers get knee and hip problems. Snowboarders and skiers also fracture backs and coccyxs. And so forth.
But the positive benefits or skiing greatly outweigh the negatives, in my humble opinion.
Finally, skiing is fun exercise. You won’t find many people that come back from the gym, or a long run, loving life. Skiing doesn’t even feel like exercise. That’s why you’ll do it again and again, day after day, without a hint of regret.
Skiing Has No Limits
A Helicopter Sat Waiting in Alta Badia, ready to take Sightseers to fly over the Dolomites
It really doesn’t. Although you have plateaus in your ski quality, there’s always something more to achieve. You’re always chasing your future better ability.
Admittedly, the first few weeks can be quite sucky. Getting a snow plough right. Doing your first blue slope. Learning to parallel. It can be soul destroying and difficult.
When you get past that stage, the sky is the limit. You will feel it every time you go further, or go steeper. When you master your slip slide, or do your first little jump. You’ll remember the first time you off pisted and didn’t full on your butt, and the time you went through the snowpark like a pro.
The experiences just keep on going, and collectively growing in your memory bank. Soon you’ll only remember that first snow plough like a distant nightmare, but you’ll still look forward to the endless list of things that come next.
Skiing is Happiness
Messing around at the LOVE sign in the Moutains around Cervinia, Italy
At its base quality, you are happy.
There’s a certain addiction in recent years with chasing happiness, and a destruction that comes from not getting any success on that journey.
But somehow, skiing just is happiness.
The beauty of the mountains, the grace of your turns, the good food, the skill you’ve achieved, the adrenaline of hitting the slopes, the satisfaction of a good day out, the comradery of new friends and old, the cheeky look of your friend before he plummets off the top of that 73% black knowing he’s better than you at this – the list goes on.
It all combines, and though you didn’t expect it, though you didn’t chase it, you’re realise skiing gave you the greatest thing it could.
Pure happiness.
Further Resources
Click on each tab below for resources to plan your trip
To book your first ski holiday, have a look at the following operators:-
- Crystal Ski Holidays
- Inghams
- Mark Warner
- Ski Total
- Club Med
- Topflight (for Irish customers)
- Igluski
Check out my other Ski related posts here:-