How I became even more ski-obsessed

Folks who happen to stumble over my blog must think that skiing is the only thing that counts in my live, like if “I lived to ski” and this is not far from the truth. From the first time I strapped skis on my feet, I loved the feeling it gave me and I was hooked for life. 

Yet, as I’ve explained in the past, the skiing continuum in my life would be broken many times. First when I had to served in the military, then when I joined the wholesale side of the ski industry in France, and during all the years I was marooned near New York City. 

During all these years, skiing was by far my main preoccupation, but since I couldn’t do it practically, I idealized it and promised myself that one day, I would catch-up, and this is precisely what happened. My only consolation was to work in the ski industry and be intellectually exposed to my favorite sport on a daily basis, an excellent recipe too for deep and lingering frustration!

All that pent-up desire once release and enabled became totally obsessive. While I believe I’ve skied some 50 million vertical feet (15 millions of meters) in my lifetime, I have done 40 of them in Park City over 37 seasons, and my practice intensified ever since I retired. 

Will it dwindle and stop sooner than later? You bet, it will, this is good and that’s life! Does that justify my intense passion for skiing? In my mind, yes, of course. For the rest of the world, people are free to judge me at their leisure and disagree with my behavior or wonder if I’m a bit or totally crazy, but that’s fine with me.