We moms weren't fooling around.
We had gathered at Snowbird Resort in Utah, home of some of the most challenging slopes in the country and a "macho" reputation to go with them.
We were going to conquer this "guy's mountain" and brag about it afterward to the skeptics we'd left behind at home.
"You get to a point in your life where you feel like, 'Why not try? Why not stretch yourself?' " says Cyndi Jones, a therapist and mother of three from Boston. Widowed at 40 with three young children, Jones said it had taken her 14 years before she had the time, money, or inclination to learn to ski. Her kids were all adept at snow sports.
Tracy Young, a 35-year-old computer specialist from Texas, is both a new mom and newly divorced. "After this last year, I needed to do something good for me," says Young, who hadn't skied in four years.
There were 31 women in our Women's Ski Camp group, ranging in age from 26 to 70-plus. The group included moms and a few grandmothers. Among us were engineers and historians, doctors and homemakers, law clerks and graphic designers.
But our time on and off the snow turned out to be as much about meeting challenges off the snow as navigating moguls, as much about building relationships as carving turns. These types of women-only skiing clinics and other all-female adventures have become increasingly popular in recent years, as active women come into their own in traditionally male-dominated sports. Such camps are offered around the country:
"It's very empowering to try something new and succeed," says Hollace Weiner, a historian and author from Fort Worth who is a Snowbird women’s camp veteran.
San Diego physician Jill Ellis came to the Snowbird camp with a friend rather than her snow-loving husband and two kids. "I don't want to be responsible for anyone else," she says. "This is time out for me."
For four days, all we had to worry about were the snow conditions. We shared leisurely dinners, exchanged confidences and jokes on the lifts, and encouraged each other on the steepest, bumpiest slopes we'd ever attempted. No one was urging us to go faster, as our kids typically do, or begging for our attention.
We skied each day with the same upbeat instructor and a small group of campers whose ability was similar to ours, forging new friendships as well as skills. "When you're skiing, you can't think about anything or anybody else,” says 61-year-old instructor Connie Bauer, a mother and grandmother who has long been involved with this clinic. “You go back a different person, and it might not be the person you were expecting.”
By: Eileen Ogintz
