Ice-the-Cake Skiing

By Diana Hooley

Once when I was young girl in Indiana I leafed through a magazine and saw an advertisement for a ski resort in a place called Sun Valley. The picture showed happy people schussing down snow-covered mountains. I had no idea Idaho was mountainous.

It wasn’t until I married an Idaho farmer that I found out our state is full of mountains and several great ski resorts, too. I was intimidated by all these hearty, athletic Idahoans who skied—but my husband was one of those people, and he needed a skiing buddy.

My first attempt to ski was at Bogus Basin. When I got carsick on the curvy road up from Boise, it should have been a warning things might not go well. On the beginner’s hill I got rope burns from the towrope and decided to try my luck on the chairlift to Morningstar Run.

I kept my ski tips up like the sign said, but there were no instructions about how to disembark from the lift. When I saw other people ahead of me skiing off their chairs, I knew I was in trouble. My chair barely paused before I found myself lurching down an embankment.