They ruin my lift ride with their stupid questions and their dumbass stories about getting powder “in the trees”. They choke up the mountain with their slow-ass, run-hogging, edge-to-edge turns. They choke up the lines with their cell phone-talking, watch-my-topsheets, hey-that’s-a-nice-jester-hat arrogance. They make me want to choke.

I’ve dealt with this hatred of all things touristy for a while now. As a snow-spoiled, broke ski-town local who has made financial and social sacrifices to ski as much as possible, it’s hard not to feel bitter towards the richer side of ski society…these wretched, ignorant people who seem intent on ruining my weekend skiing experience… the weekend warrior.

It’s been truly hard to understand these people. I laugh at them when they rave about the 3 cm of sticky, wet, new snow. I snicker as they all funnel into that one narrow, bottlenecked run…run after run…all…day…long. I howl uncontrollably while they don a clear, plastic garbage bag and keep on keeping on in the worst monsoon of the season, determined to get their $60 worth of turns. Very hard to understand indeed…

The funny thing is…I’ve started to admire them…somewhat. After leaving Fernie to attend school in the city I myself became a weekend warrior for a winter. Thankfully, it was the worst winter in recent memory. Regardless, I could be found choking up the runs with all the other gorbs on a Saturday afternoon, day ticket flapping loudly, informing everyone of my non-local status and unfamiliarity with the terrain. I got lost in the daylodge, asked how to find the bathroom, paid $10 for a smokie and all around looked like an idiot. I recall one Sunday in January where it started raining about 10 in the morning and didn’t stop till March. If I had been in Fernie, confident in the fact that there would be many more, much better days ahead of me, I’d have been home in about 15 minutes, delightfully sipping on a cool Lucky beer and trying to beat my manual record on Tony Hawk. Instead, the weekend warrior in me fought hard to stay out all day long. I even wore a Burger King plastic rain poncho that day, although that could probably be credited to the 10 or 12 cool Lucky beers I drank that morning. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, even with the glares of contempt I received from the lifties who obviously felt that as a tourist I was the reason they were made to stand in the rain all day (I know this to be true cause I use to be a liftie).

All winter long, on every one of those 10 days I squeezed in that season, I stayed out all day and enjoyed it no matter the weather. That’s admirable considering all of it was done on Vancouver Island, a region not known for it’s light, dry, fluffy snow and outstanding weather. I even had fun being unfamiliar with the terrain. I got to search new lines and treed areas with the enthusiasm of Tom, Dick and Harry Daypass from Cowtown. Being a tourist wasn’t so bad I found, other than the fact that I never got to ski that is…I appreciated every day, every run, every turn because I knew that on Monday I would be falling asleep in class to the sounds of art-snobs-in-training critiquing still-life photos of manhole covers...boring! I counted on that ache in my thighs on Monday morning (and Tues...and Wed) to remind me of all the turns that made those stuffy, sterile classrooms bearable.

So here I am now, a year later, $30,000 wiser and back in a ski town making turns whenever I damn well please. Sometimes I find myself barking at the tourists that cut me off, getting all bitchy in the cluttered liftlines and becoming frustrated with the stupid questions. When I do, I try and remember where these people are coming from; how it feels to only get 2 days every month, how it is to be on a strange mountain in different conditions, how it is to enjoy every aspect of the day no matter what the consequences. It works sometimes and other times it doesn’t but in the end it makes me appreciate skiing that extra little bit…like a tourist.

and I still hate them….


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