Ups and downs: our readers' first times on the slopes

We asked you to share stories about your first outings on skis and snowboards. You responded with tales of adventure, mishap, humor and hysterics. One thing's for sure: Few of us forget the first time.

The bemused bison and I

My very first time on skis was when I went to Yellowstone in late winter with a friend for a weeklong cross-country ski tour.

I was on wooden skis and wearing a 60-pound pack. We were heading up the Madison River Valley from West Yellowstone on a fine, sunny, cold day when I spotted some bison resting on open ground next to the river. Wanting to get photos, I skied closer, accidentally slid off of a small bench and suddenly found myself racing down an icy snow slope toward the four alarmed animals, who were grunting and getting up. As I picked up speed, I realized I'd either hit one of the bison or shoot through the group and into the steaming river. Not knowing how to steer or even snowplow, I simply fell over and did a long, sliding crash, skis and poles flying, me rolling over the pack. I finally stopped, gathered my scattered gear and limped back up the hill as the bison stood there watching.

Jon Herman, Ellensburg

Skiing a blue streak

During my sophomore year of college in Indiana, five of us decided to drive to Tahoe, Calif., over spring break to go skiing. After 44 hours of nonstop driving cross-country, filled with all the skiing glory stories from the other four, I felt like an accomplished skier despite never having stepped on a ski slope. As I was going up the rope tow for the first time, I grew impatient waiting for action and decided I would try to ski on one ski. Needless to say, I fell quickly, with my jeans ripping from my knee to my crotch and then up my rear. As I walked down the hill in total humiliation, my jeans flapped in the wind, showing my underwear.

After a quick trip to town to get a new pair of jeans, I returned to the slopes a humbler man. It wasn't long, after several falls, until I realized the blue dye in my unwashed jeans would streak the hill every time I fell. At the end of the day, I was able to gaze up the hill and see where I had been. In hindsight, getting beyond my ego allowed me to learn quickly and enjoy skiing.

Ron Large, Woodinville

Wigging out at White Pass

This saga occurred in winter 1969-70 when wigs and "wiglets" were a fashion statement and there were no seatbelt requirements and it seemed like everyone had a blue station wagon filled with kids and dogs and, in this case: skis.

After taking ski lessons for a few weeks I was excited to plan a ski trip to White Pass with my friend and our seven kids. We took our first trip up the ski lift and when we started downhill I fell and my cable binding snapped. We couldn't fix it so we hoisted our skis over our shoulders and hiked down the mountain with many chairlift riders shouting down to us, "Is it that bad?" Got back to the ski lodge restaurant and whipped my hat off in frustration and, unfortunately, also my snazzy pageboy wig — to the gasps and laughter of our neighbors in the cafeteria. At the end of my disappointing and embarrassing day, we trudged to the station wagon, piled seven very wet kids, ourselves and the ski equipment inside and discovered I had left the lights on and our battery was dead.

That was my first and last ski trip of the downhill variety. Snowshoes are now my outdoor equipment of choice, and my hair is my own.

Ruth Drewniany, Leavenworth

Bridging the gap

It was January 1956. My husband had just brought this New York City girl to the great Northwest and decided we would go skiing at Stevens Pass. Our brother-in-law was the snow ranger there and had just managed to get a new pair of Head skis with long thong bindings. He thought I would do well on these state-of-the-art skis! They put the skis on me, took me up the bunny hill and let me loose. At the bottom of the hill was a little open brook. You guessed it. There I was, tips on one side and tails on the other with me bouncing in the middle, and the little brook merrily gurgling under me. After good laughs they helped me out and took back those expensive skis. A poor start for one who never did learn to ski.

Joan Jernegan, Bothell

A singular reply

I was a young wife and mother in my early 30s, out skiing for the first time. After the morning lessons I ventured into the line waiting to get on the ski lift. A young man in his 20s came up to me and asked "Single?"

I was shocked. I replied, "NO, I AM MARRIED!"

We still laugh over that one.

Veronica Johnson, Seattle

I'd just turned 11 and gotten my first pair of skis for Christmas. My father took me out to a sledding hill just outside of Green Bay, Wis. He thought it best that I should ski through the woods rather than in an area where many people were sliding down and climbing back up. He found a narrow path that twisted through a thick patch of trees. Having had no lessons and just my dad saying "point the skis downhill and go," I took off. Hit my first tree after traveling all of two feet. For the next hour I went from tree to tree like in a pinball machine. For the rest of the day it was the same routine, hit a tree, fall over, hit another tree, etc. By the end of the day all I wanted to do was go home and lick my wounds.

Jerry Fondow, Poulsbo

1936. I was 20 years old and a novice skier. My date offered to teach me on a lovely, snowy day at Mount Rainier. After I crashed a couple of times on the marked trail, he decided to make a trail for us off through the trees. He was just ahead of me when his ski tips caught on something and I saw him fly through the air! All I could see were the bottoms of his skis lying across a deep hole at the base of a tree. He hung head down, not touching bottom. I grabbed the release latch of one of his skis while he "climbed" his leg to reach the other. At the count of three, we released both latches and he fell into the bottom of the hole.

I laughed. Couldn't help it. Shouldn't have. Last date with him.

Dorothea Nordstrand, Seattle

The bobsled champ

December 1959, 57th Fighter Group, Paine Field: Enticed by two Air Force buddies who had commandeered a Jeep from the motor pool to go skiing, I went on my first and last ski trip. I am from Michigan; hockey and tobogganing I did, skiing only heard about. We arrived at Stevens, poorly equipped and dressed, to a sleeting, mist-shrouded slope.

The bunny hill, on the other side of the frozen creek that ran behind the lodge, was my initial training. I could not make it up the icy, kid-covered slope. "Forget it, George, let's go to the rope tow." The rope's speed seemed awfully fast. "Just grab it, keep your skis in front and together." I did, only to find myself face down in slush as the guy behind skied over me! "Next time, George, slowly grab it." Up I went and promptly got off at the first stage, turned around, looked down and announced, "I am walking back." "Snowplow, George — here, watch me." I did. Thirty seconds later I collided with another, lost both skis, landed in the frozen creek, became a human bobsled, exiting by centrifugal force, "sledding" on my back across the parking lot and ending under a big yellow school bus parked three feet from Highway 2!

"Oh, what fun it is to ride ... "

George Mauer, Shoreline

Just say ouch

At 61 years young I gained a new family (all avid snowboarders). With absolute determination, my feet strapped onto the board in the position of a cast-iron triangle and with promises from my new family that they would not let go of me, I headed down the beginner slope and boarded straight into the women's restroom, yelling, "You abandoned me!" I heard a cracking noise but was assured "you hear that all the time when snowboarding." I boarded for two more hours that first day on a broken ankle.

At the end of the season, my ankle fresh out of a cast and under doctor's orders not to snowboard, I went airboarding, crashed into a building and broke my hand. However, I am proud to say that last week I was able to board down from the chairlift and return home from our snowboarding vacation with no broken bones.

Pamela Alexandra, Issaquah

Bumpety, bump, bump

When I was 17, my best friend taught me downhill skiing. Late in the day, I found myself facing a heavily moguled steep slope leading down to a flat runout at the bottom. After precariously snowplowing around two moguls, I caught an edge and lost control. Quickly I was going too fast to snowplow, but I managed to get both skis aimed straight downhill. I rode it out, my legs feeling like jackhammers.

By the time I reached the flat runout, my legs were on fire. I snowplowed one ski then the other, about 10 times, until finally I came to a stop, gasping. My friend whizzed by, yelling, "Why did you stop?" My eyes followed him up a gentle but long uphill slope to our destination. I had had the speed I needed to get there, but had stopped 200 yards short.

Ken Giesbers, Burien

Hung out to dry

The year was 1963 and I was 5. My brother had me ride my first T-bar, and when we were about to get off he pushed first and the T-bar spun around, hooked under the back off my new knee-length coat and I started to be lifted off the ground, hanging upside down. The operator stopped the lift with all my appendages hanging 20 feet up. As a crowd gathered, my brother laughing his head off and the lift guy scratching his head, I felt very embarrassed. After what seemed like a lifetime, I heard the sound of stitches ripping and the sides of the new coat came flying apart with me falling flat on my stomach, skis pointing into the snow and my face splatting, cracking my goggles.

I composed myself, skied to the condo and asked my mom if she could sew me up so I could get back out and try again.

John Forsen, North Bend

Snowbored

The first winter after Missy and I lost our sister Karen to breast cancer, we decided we'd do something out-of-the-ordinary for our Christmas holiday. Something we could do that we wouldn't spend our entire time saying, "Oh, she would've liked this so much," because she wouldn't have — Karen would not have thought trying out snowboarding was a great idea at all.

I was excited! We'd learned to ski as kids and this looked so fun, like surfing on snow, whizzing down the hill and carving long, curved paths into the slopes. The debut event took place at Big Bear, a resort in Southern California. Counting all the lines — shuttle, lift tickets, snowboard lessons for beginners, equipment rental — we stood around for about four hours before we trudged up the hill in the funny boots toward our cute, young instructor with the Brazilian accent.

At 40, I was the oldest person in the class, but hey, I was fit, adventurous and had a great attitude. I was ready to do this thing! After 20 minutes, I was checking my watch in disbelief that I had the remainder of two hours to go and I had actually paid for this. I could not stand up. I could not get my hips in the right place. No matter how much I told myself youcandothis, youcandothis, youusedtobeadancer, nothing worked. All the other students in the class were inching their way down the hill, my sister included. They took the occasional tumble, some even face-first, but it was nothing compared to the utter sprawling, completely unladylike poses I was affecting for the group.

After a while, the instructor came up to me with an expression of concern: "You seem to be having trouble, no?" I resisted the urge to shout back in a mock Portuguese accent, "WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE??!!"

Finally, he took my hands and helped me scooch painfully down to where the rest of the class had been waiting. He was excited about how now we were going to get on the lift for a real slope, not just the practice area. Missy and I looked at each other. Though she'd made it down the hill, we were missing feeling like the goddesses of intermediate runs from the day before.

"I'm 40," I said, "I'm happy doing what I like — I don't need to snowboard." We agreed to trade in our boards for skis for the remainder of the day, and we were happy!

Libby Wagner, Olympia

It was 15 or so years ago, and my then-boyfriend treated me to a vacation at Whistler. He was a ski enthusiast and very good at it. I was a young city girl, eager to please by joining his hobbies. I was to start with a beginner class on the bunny slopes, but it was November and the only good snow was at higher altitudes. When class adjourned we were set free to ski down the intermediate run on our own. I would not budge, and boyfriend was unable to coax me for what seemed like eternity. Ski Patrol took me to a lift line (boyfriend skied down) but I ended up in the vacant Old Village. Alone and terrified, I carried my ski equipment and walked along an empty highway. Boyfriend drove out to find me.

The rest of the long weekend was spent sipping cocoa in the lodge.

Fiona Cutner, Seattle

Popularity at the Pass

I was so excited 47 years ago to finally board the ski-school bus to Snoqualmie Pass for my first attempt at skiing — I'd be just like my athletic older sister! She reluctantly lent me her ski pants and overlong skis. My parents gave me the $2 insurance money, and I enrolled. Junior-high popularity was coming my way! At the bunny hill I struggled with the rope tow, got tangled, fell over, but finally reached what felt like a mountain top. Fearfully, I pushed off. Approaching a dip, which the overlong skis traversed, I lost my balance and hit the snow, perpendicular with pain.

Popular I was not, when on the doctor's table with leg in cast, I sheepishly handed the forgotten insurance money from the torn jeans and ski pants to my forgiving father and "told you so" sister. Crutches didn't help that junior-high popularity either.

Cheryl Gruger, Camano Island

Monkey see ...

I was a freshman in college in Pennsylvania, taking ski lessons for a PE requirement. After a day on the bunny slope and rope tow, our instructor led us to the chairlift line. "How do I get off it at the top?" I asked. "Just watch the person in front of you," he answered.

At the end of the ride, the girl ahead of me let her ski tips down. They hit the wall; one ski fell off, the other broke in two, dropping into the abyss. The chairlift stopped and she was gently guided away. As the lift restarted, I realized my doom. "I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET OFF!" I yelled. Too late. As the chair began its turn, I fell off, lost the skis, dropped the poles and bruised my backside.

It was a long time before I dared to try a chairlift again!

Donna C. McLean, Kenmore