Grays On Trays

Like many people, I put in some time working in the fast food industry, cleaning the grease vents at a Burger King franchise. (And if that wasn’t great enough, the district manager said I was the best deep-fry operator in the district!)

I hadn’t thought of those grease pits for quite a while until I was walking in the parking lot of one of the ski areas around here. The easiest way to get into the main lodge is to walk from your car in the parking lot through the back door. In that short walk, you’ll see the ubiquitous Dumpster (a registered trademark, in case you didn’t know). And you’ll also see a separate but similar container for storing the grease that the kitchen employees collect from the deep fryers and grills. On it were the words “kitchen grease only,” or something like that.

I don’t think I ever ordered French fries, onion rings, or even a hamburger again–at least there. If I drive to a local area for a day visit, I tend to pack a lunch.

Is there ever an appropriate time to stop snowboarding or skiing? The answer is yes, though for some of us, that won’t come until much later in life.

In 2000, I took a trip to Aspen with a group of people who had been making an annual trip there since the late 1960s (that is, before it became a ritzy place). Most of the people had worked at the same company at some time in their lives, or at the least (like me) were friends or relatives of someone who had. The group had a setup that worked for them. They had a single travel agent who bought group (discounted) tickets and arranged lodging, again at a discounted price. The group was big enough to allow people to hive off into smaller groups for each day–some went to Snowmass, some went to Buttermilk, and so forth–but small enough that they could all see each other during apres-ski.

I have made several return trips to Aspen with that group. Over the years people have started to drop out. First it was one person, or perhaps a married couple. Then the dropouts occurred with increasing frequency.

Usually, health is the culprit: An increased risk of high-altitude pulmonary edema here, shot knees there. Sometimes the cause is tragic, such as the onset of Parkinson’s. Sometimes it’s as routine as increased vulnerability to aches and pains. Vertigo is an increased problem for others, and declining eyesight a concern for others.

Changes in the body, then, bring one set of factors. We can do some things to maintain and even improve our health as we age, but we can’t stop aging.

A change in perspective can be another reason why someone stops riding. I once knew a lady from New England. We exchanged a number of e-mails about snowboarding, and even shared some stories about our family lives. She had been snowboarding longer than I had been, so she was something of a mentor to me.

Yet after a while, she disappeared. Why? One reason is that she had spent a lot of time in the Rockies, riding mountains much bigger than anything available in her part of the country, and on snow that was usually better than what she had available to her. She lost all interest in riding in the east. For some reason, she lost interest in riding altogether, and I haven’t heard from her in years.

Perhaps she encountered the dead end found by the author of Ecclesiastes, a book of the Bible. It is the memoir of a man who obtained or at least experimented in everything available to him: wisdom, achievement, wealth, laughter, sex, fine food and drink. After immersing himself in each of these, he rendered the same verdict: “vanity,” to quote the King James, or “useless” or “meaningless” to quote more current translations. I suspect that he would have tried snowboarding had it been available in the ancient Middle East. I’ll leave it to you to read through Ecclesiastes and come to your own conclusions, but I will say that it has helped me think through a number of questions.

Proving that yes, you can be a snowboarder and a parent as well, Shred Betties, a site that otherwise seems pitched to a younger crowd, offers some interviews with high-profile riders who are also mothers. It’s called Shred Mommies. Each rider, who had a great record as a competitive snowboarder, answers the same set of questions. But since “snowboarding while pregnant” seems to draw people into the site via Google searches, I’ll concentrate on those.

Tina Basich says of snowboarding while pregnant: “I had to take a break from snowboarding while I was pregnant. I was not willing to risk it at all. I felt like I needed to be protective of my body more than ever and even though I might trust my own riding, I don’t trust every other rider or skier on the hill. So I played it safe and stayed off the mountain.”

Shannon Dunn-Downing, on the other hand, says “I snowboarded until my last month of pregnancy. I had to ask for help buckling my bindings, because my belly was so big.”

Barrett Christy: “We’ve heard doctors advise against it, but it seems hard to go without! Yes, I snowboarded when I was pregnant.”

Go to the site and read the full interviews.

The common perception among non-riders is that snowboarding is much too risky of a sport. Maybe something like bungee jumping.

It’s true that injuries do happen during snowboarding. But sometimes the worst risks are those that aren’t so obvious. Take obesity, which is correlated with diabetes, high blood pressure, and other health issues that in turn have bad implications for health.

Writing on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, Phillip K. Howard explains Why Safe Kids are Becoming Fat Kids, and the item actually has some relevance to adults and their attitudes toward snowboarding.

You can read a summary here, but essentially the argument is that risk of physical harm is one thing that makes physical activity attractive. By removing opportunities for risk (e.g., banning tag at recess), our political and legal system encourages children to be inactive–and obese.

What’s the takeaway for adults? Some moderate amount of risk is still something that makes an activity enjoyable. Without it, there’s no testing of your abilities, and no “I did THAT?” sense of wonder and accomplishment after laying down a series of good turns or taking a pitch a little steeper than you did last time.

And so too many adults say “Snowboarding? Too dangerous. Not for me,” and they miss out on opportunities for personal growth–as well as a way to keep or get into shape.

One great thing about snowboarding is that it can provide the motivation to get fit. And if you want to get into shape, one good guide to doing so is “Open Your Heart to Winter Fitness,” by Lisa Marie Mercer.

I’m only sixty or so pages into it, but it provides both inspiration and instruction. The techno-babble can be a bit heavy in a few spots, but if you can understand that, you’ll have a better appreciation for what the exercises will do for you. If you’re not interested in understanding biomechanics, read the first few chapters and then plunge into part 2 for specific exercises.

You’ve got to take the bad with the good.

While higher elevations make for lots of snow and good riding, they can also lead to altitude sickness. Normally my bouts are limited to sketchy sleep, though during a recent stay in Aspen I was just fine.

Crested Butte, however, is another 1,500 feet higher, making the possibility of altitude sickness more likely, and the symptoms more severe. Right now it’s mostly tiredness.

As the Centers for Disease Control say, being in good condition is no protection against altitude sickness.

More on the subject later.