Skiing with Siri

BEGINNING OF SKI	END OF SKI

Siri asked me to take her skiing. As much as I LOVE taking people out skiing, I have to say I felt a bit intimidated. I mean, this is SIRI we are talking about--anyone with such a fine Norwegian name (I think it means something like "beautiful victory") is probably an amazing skier already!

"Did you say this would be your first time skiing?" I asked a bit incredulously.
"That's right," said Siri.
Okay then, we would begin on the flat football field at the high school where Siri teaches.

It became clear pretty quickly that Siri would not need the basic tutorial I usually give to new skiers. She could handle her equipment, stand upright, keep her balance without poles, and weight shift to kick and glide pretty much right from the start. After a traverse of the football field, I could tell she would be bored pretty quickly (if she wasn't already).

"Let's face it, Siri, even if you have not skied before, you clearly inherited the skiing gene through your DNA . . ." Siri laughed. " . . . so, why don't we drive over to the Anishinaabe Center and get on some real trails?'
Siri readily agreed.

We had to park at the entrance because the gate was closed, but we soon found an opening in the woods that beckoned. I broke trail and Siri followed. Sadly, just a few yards into the trail, my new-to-me skis I picked up from Dakota Boys Ranch for $19.95 last week simply . . .  delaminated. A long blue strip was soon hanging from the underside of my skis. I picked up the shed fish scales and glided/ground back to the car to swap out for my waxable skis, rejoining Siri a few minutes later.

Our ski was going along pretty smoothly, until we got to a section by the lake, where the wind had blown in the snow until it drifted over the trail. It was tough going through the loose granular snow, punctuated by hard drifts that one may or may not break through any moment. For the novice skier, breaking through a harder section of snow, often meant sliding backward, falling, and then the major effort of getting up while thrashing through lots of loose snow that didn't really pack down. Siri was a great sport about this, though, showing great flexibility and persistence in getting back up.

I was getting a good workout by stomping down the trail to make it easier for Siri; Siri was getting a good workout by learning about vectors (Yay for Physics 101) and the importance of keeping skis perpendicular to the slope, keeping poles behind the boot (and on the outside of the ski edges) and what happens when skis cross each other ("Slip-slidin' away, hey"). Oh, and getting up again.

Some of the slopes were a bit steep, so I showed Siri how to herringbone up them, which she did like a boss, as you can see below:

The trail ended in a big circle, and the only way out was down. Way down. OK, so maybe I should have checked out this trail a bit more carefully before taking a new skier--even one named Siri--on it, but here we were, in the woods, no one around, nowhere to go but down, and the winter daylight fading away.

"Okay, I'm going on reconnaissance," I shouted as I pushed off and flew down the slope. My scream near the end was probably not confidence-inspiring, but I was startled by the flock of pigeons that burst out of the abandoned building at the end of the hill. I quickly skied back up the hill and gave Siri my last big tutorial--"You can sidestep all the way down if you want to (I demonstrate), you can sidestep part way, then go downhill in the tracks I just made (I demonstrate), and if you start heading downhill, be sure to bend your knees, and just sit down if you have to."

Siri asked me how I would react if she hit a tree and ended up in an Ethan Fromme-type situation, but I suggested that such a scenario would be better explored in her own fiction, as it was extremely unlikely she would hit a tree. We laughed about the potential scenarios. Actually, we did quite a bit of laughing from the ground near the end, which turns out to be a great place to have a bit of a rest, while also laughing a lot.

Plus, you can admire different views of nature from down here. And the snow is so soft...

Eventually, we determined that the coldness of the snow was detracting from the softness, so we pulled ourselves together, got down the slope, finished our ski, and departed for dinner!