What’s a “fine skier?”

I often get this question from my wife: What make a “fine skier?” Like to many similar questions, I’d like to answer this one by “It depends...”

It depends on what kind of skiing we’re talking about like freestyle, alpine or just racing, among other categories, so I would like to stick to “Alpine” which is the form of skiing I practice and enjoy and from there, deliver my own definition.

For me skiing is the result of ease, efficiency, fluidity, adaptability and the whole end result has to be fun. The way I see it, skiing isn’t limited to running gates, skiing on corduroy or under a picture-perfect blue sky and over the finest powder there is.

The realm of skiing is only limited by the imagination of the beholder, so it can take you into all kinds of ice, snow or lack-thereof, all kinds of terrain, like into the woods, into places where you and your skis get stuck, into the edge of cliffs you don’t want to jump, etc.

It’s a passport to adventure and with plenty of practice, it makes you a fine undefeated skier that stops at nothing and do the seemingly hard work as if it were extremely easy.

And you, what’s your definition of a fine skier?