Replying to Self-made skiers

Mainly at younger guys like me but older riders who’ve had to experience the same thing.

I have way more respect for the self-made skiers than anyone in this community. Self-made, as in

worked a shitty nightshift job in highschool during winter to pay for their gas money til 3am, then go to school the next morning from 6-2, then go ski til 8 and go work their job again. Repeat. A brutal job with 50 hour weeks during the summer so they could make car and insurance payments, year round. The kids who have to pay for their own pivots, their own Vishnus, their own pass, their own clothes, their own food when they’re on the road to and from the hill. The kids who drive 45 minutes to the hill 5 days a week and lap in the shittiest conditions to grind out tricks and learn new ones. The kids who are often riding alone on weeknights or when no one else is at the hill, getting better and better. The kids who don’t have the luxury of having mom and dad spend hundreds of thousands on a condo at the hill. The kids who set up a tripod with their iPhone that they have to pay for and charge it with a portable battery they bought so the phone doesn’t die when they finally get the clip.



Those guys in their mid 20s that aren’t trust fund babies having parents still pay for their rent and car out in SLC, and work a brutal night shift til 4am every night to stay alive, all the while going out next morning at 9am to stack street clips all day

nothing against the kids who came up by parents paying for their car, their trips to windells in the summer, their tuition at a ski academy, their gas, their gear, their tuition at a ski academy or CSU or UofU, their everything (unless you flaunt these things, of course… then fuck you). Those kinda kids might be your next or current favorite skiers but…

Even if they’re not tossing the biggest tricks and sickest axis’ on jumps, doing the most mindfucked shit on massive rails, I’ll be DAMNED if I don’t have tenfold the respect for those self-made skiers out there, where their level of skiing is 110% earned from start to finish.

**This thread was edited on Jan 18th 2022 at 3:52:52pm