“It’s around this time of year that we tend to ask ourselves the big questions: Am I living the life I want to be living? Am I a good a person, a friend, a parent? And of course, there is the other big, important question a lot of people who listen to the show ask around now: is this going to be an epic ski season or a bust? This week we present a story that miraculously addresses all of these questions. It comes to us from the good folks at the Dirtbag Diaries and has outdoor-industry veteran Dan Kostrzewski sharing a very personal tale about a skiing accident with his young daughter and how it helped him gain a new perspective on the sport that has long been at the center of his personal and professional identity.” -Outside editor Michael Roberts
This ski story starts where all epic ones do, the magic carpet. My daughter Flora and I were under the bright lights at Summit West, with the Little Thunder quad spinning in the background. The run was flat and the two of us were still attached via a pink Lucky Bums ski harness, one of the constraints of teaching my little one the finer points of pizza pie and french fries.
As all ski dads know it had taken years of groundwork, a lot of tears and gallons of hot chocolate to get us to this moment, where my girl was comfortable in ski boots and confident at the mountain. After a year of touring in the Poco pack, a year in boots and a year just shuffling around on skis, she’d just nailed her first perfect dead stop pizza pie snowplow on those 67 Rossis.
The problem, she’d dead stopped on a dime directly in front of me and I was barreling forward, trying to untangle the harness straps and get my own skis into french fry form. In one split second, I was about to hit her like a 200-pound linebacker.
Months later, sitting in our living room, we were surrounded by six of Baker’s finest. Pro patrollers, avy educators and a freeride tour judge. My daughter was curled up in footsie pjs, playing with hot wheels and watching Daniel Tiger on the tv. For her, this bearded crew seemed pretty normal, just like braving a Baker storm, walking in ski boots through a muddy parking lot or asking for help from the ski patrol when you fall down.
In this moment I realized that an entire community would be there to watch out for her. She’ll learn the ins and outs of night skiing, the rules and etiquette of the backcountry and even the little tricks like poaching a parking space by moving the orange cone. She’ll know to watch out for tree wells and not to date park skiers. It’s the little things that make a skier, not the gear, not the likes on Instagram but this community built through days and years in the mountains.
My passion has been my work for so many seasons that long ago they merged into one. When work became crushing with politics, injury or tragedy, it was easy to loose sight of who I was, what really matters and who your people truly are. It took looking through those two little blue eyes on the trip to the aid room with the questions, the wonder and, of course, the tears, to remind me where my soul will always be at home. I found my community and I know, if she chooses, they’ll be hers too.
