By Nielsen Greiner EBS COLUMNIST
I strolled up to the gondola on a mild, sunny afternoon and passed through the gate to the singles line, glancing at the number on the screen after the beep. I thought, “Only 35 days and it’s the beginning of March? Sheesh. I really dropped the ball this season.”
Prior to this winter, I had a job for many years that allowed me to ride most any day of the ski season, if I wanted. This year, things changed—or I changed.
Ski towns have their own version of the rat race. What makes our rat race any different than any other, as counter-cultural as dirtbag life may appear on the surface? The ski town rat race doesn’t involve business suits and briefcases, but Gore-Tex shells and expensive skis or boards; it doesn’t include trading on the stock market or bragging over sales figures, but trading stories on line choice and quality, or bragging about the number of tram laps and ski days.
In ski towns and similar outdoor-lifestyle-focused destinations, we locals often pride ourselves on being independent and individualistic. Even so, like anywhere else we may quickly blend into the crowd and lose these very characteristics, adopting our own versions of “keeping up with the Joneses”—trying to ski as many days as so-and-so, for example, forcing ourselves out the door to do so when, on some days, our time may be better spent. This is just one of many examples; I’m certain you can find your own.
While I’ve had a few consecutive years of 100-plus ski days in the past, this winter I’ve taken more days off than I have in many years. Maybe it’s because I’ve been too tired to ride after the back-breaking work of snow shoveling, or picking up side work that cuts into the ski day, or long stretches of mediocre snow conditions, or a passion project that kept me days on end at my desk during a high and dry spell. Or maybe I’ve just needed a break in general. Whatever the case, I don’t go out just because I can or have to, but because I want to. And it’s freeing to come out from under the self-imposed pressure.
I know this speaks to a certain amount of privilege, the fact that I have the time and freedom to opt out most days on what others might only be lucky enough to do one week a year. But for all of us—and I speak not only of skiing, but more broadly—there is some image to which we feel the pressure to conform, some internal or external expectation we relentlessly attempt to fulfill. Thankfully, we can train ourselves to resist, to cut back or say no, if it’s best for our own life or season.
I have friends who’ve found partners and more serious jobs and bought homes and dialed it back, still enjoying the ski town life within a healthy balance and broader rhythm. I have friends who get after it just as much as ever before, and would have nothing less.
Neither of these are right or wrong. It’s up to us to know what we need and when we need it, season to season and year to year.
Nielsen Greiner is an aspiring writer, outdoor enthusiast, and small business owner based in Big Sky. To read more, visit nielseninthewild.com.
