Skis to success
Skis to Success! (get it? It’s a pun on keys to success)
- The absolute practical guide to learning how to cross country ski as an adult, if you’re Penny McQueen -
Get some skis you have no idea how to maintain.
Get some grip tape and throw around some terms like ‘kick zone’ and ‘wax pocket’ like you know what they mean.
Clip on your skis at home and step onto a bit of paper, preferably a bank statement you need for you residency permit application, and move the paper back and forth under the skis, until you find the point where it starts tearing in the forwards and backwards directions. Mark these points on your skis.
Mutter anxiously while you apply tape in the kick pocket ... wax zone ... whatever.
Now you’re ready to actually head outdoor with the skis (once you’ve made sure there’s actually snow somewhere).
Don’t look in the mirror. Your haphazard collection of ski pants and jacket paired with op-shop overpants and ski-innapropriate beanie and scarf doesn’t win any fashion awards. Try to forget that as you walk out in public.
As you step onto the bus to head to the snow, drop your hat, gloves, ski poles in a clatter while the bus driver waits patiently for you to validate your ticket.
Try to coordinate your HSL (public transport), Google and ski track maps to figure out where to get off the bus, then just get off several stops too early anyway.
Once the tracks have been found, make sure absolutely nobody is around to see you clip on your skis, flail your poles, and ski straight off the path.
Attempt to make progress in a forward direction.
Progress in the forward direction
In the event of progress in the backward direction while climbing up hill, firmly lay the blame for that on your husband.
Choose a route that has the most hills-with-sharp-turns-in-them in the region, so that all future skiing will seem much easier.
Take advice from absolutely nobody. Except when it’s a kindly Finnish person who is pulling you up by their ski pole after you’ve thrown your entire body in a horizontal manner into the path of an oncoming skier.
Don’t cry. That’s not sisu.
Stop at a cafe that serves salmon soup and freshly baked bread rolls. Eat.
Realise that skiing has actually been incredibly fun and beautiful, but that you’d gotten so hungry that it had felt like the world was ending.
Go home to sauna, exhausted but satisfied.
Try to remember to look up once in a while to take in the pretty forest
