Introduction by Chris White
Essay by Yupin White

When most people think about raising a ski family, the focus is on the kids. Getting them started early, making sure they’re warm, challenging them without putting them in danger, and turning them onto alpine fun. But another common factor is the non-skiing spouse. How does a skier bring an absolute beginner, one who happens to be his or her husband or wife, into the sport?

The simple lesson, and the most common sense approach, is lessons. As one Jay Peak instructor told us, “You want to keep your marriage, you want us to teach her how to ski!” Just as kids often respond better to instructors from outside the family, so do many spouses.

When my wife, Yupin, and our son Luke moved back to the States from their native Thailand, one of my chief goals was to get them both skiing. I never doubted that Luke would take to the sport. He’s seven now, but he was six when he took his first chair, and as they say, “Kids learn quick.” Especially athletic adventurous ones. But I wondered about Yupin. She was nearly thirty years old before she saw her first snowflake. Most of her life had been spent in weather that we call summer, and not just Vermont summer, but the humid, sticky stuff that you find in New Orleans in July. HOT.

Now, we are looking forward to our third season of skiing at Jay Peak. Yupin’s rocking pink and black twin-tips, and she just scored a raspberry-colored helmet to match her jacket. She digs the gear as much as I do. But far more, she’s into Jay. When I ask her what she likes best about skiing, she can never quite pinpoint it—the snow? the views? the peacefulness? the quiet? the challenge? Like love, it’s hard to define, except to know that its love.

She’s a full-time student these days—and a proud holder of a Triple-Major pass—completing course work so she can be an accountant here in the States. This means good vacation time during ski season, which makes the five-to-seven hour drive from the south coast of Massachusetts much less daunting. Of course, half a day in a car is nothing compared to the trip we took initially, flying from Bangkok, over the North Pole, to JFK Airport.

For one of her English courses, her teacher assigned her to write an essay about a memorable experience, one that has had a profound impact on her life. Yupin chose to write about skiing at Jay. The essay, in its entirety, follows:
Yupin White
Dr. Karen C. Sheehan
ENG11 B17
3/05/09
Winter Sport

I never thought that living in the cold weather would be my first choice, especially cold weather activities such as ice skating, sledding, and skiing. I always thought that I would never harm myself to do anything like that. How did I know about my future? Here I am! I live in the cold weather and skiing is one of my favorite things to do now. I am fine with cold weather, and I enjoy it.
 
I was born and grew up in Thailand, where the climate is tropical.  I was worried when I knew that I had to move to America. I worried what would I do if the weather was too cold for me, but I like to try. I have lived in America for almost four years now, and I figured out that the cold weather was not too bad at all. I am ready to try what I can do about the weather.
 
Since I have lived in America, my husband loved to talk about skiing. He convinced me to try it; I might like it. During spring break in March, 2008, we drove to Vermont where my parents-in-law live. Our plan was to ski for three days at Jay Peak, near Canada. My husband had done everything such as signed me up for skiing lessons, as well as ski school for our son, Luke. I was nervous while we were driving to Vermont. I worried that it would be too cold for me; it would not be fun. What would I do if I got injured? Were my clothes warm enough? How many clothes should I wear? I had so many questions in my brain, but I told myself that everything would be fine. I should not be worried about anything—just do it.
 
Then came the first day for my lesson, the first day for me to ski. I didn’t want to leave our house in the morning. The weather conditions were not so good; it was freezing rain and windy. We had to drive thirty-minutes to the ski resort from my in-laws’ condominium in Newport, Vermont. I almost changed my mind, but when I looked at my husband and my son, they were so excited. How could I fail them? I decided that whatever makes them happy, I would do, and I would try. We drove at the resort quite early, so we had time to rent equipment for my son and me. When I first slipped my foot into a ski boot, I was not sure how I felt. Was it supposed to be tight or loose? I couldn’t really tell, so I figured that it should be a little bit tight. I felt uncomfortable when I had to walk with the ski boot. I could imagine that I was some kind of a robot. My lesson started at 9:45 AM. Here I was—I would find out if I would like skiing or not.
 
My lesson had seven people, and all of them including me were beginners. We started to learn about our equipment first, and after that we went on a small hill. We learned how to slide down the hill by making our skis like a slice of pizza or snowplow. After we learned the basics for an hour, the instructors took us on a chair lift to ski down from a beginner trail. Due to the weather conditions, there was not much snow on the trails. The trails were icy, and that scared me. I kept telling myself that everything would be fine. If the other people could do it, so could I. We snowplowed down the hill, taking it slow and easy. When I had done the first run with my instructors and my group, I was so proud of myself. It was fine; I fell down a couple times, but it was fun, I could tell.
 
My lesson finished at 12.00 PM, so I met my husband for lunch. In the afternoon, we skied together. We took a chair lift and decided to take the same trail as in the morning.  When we got off the chair, it was very icy. I fell down and that scared me, but we skied down together just fine. The next time up, I could not get off the chair because I was afraid that I would fall off again. The mechanic didn’t stop for me, so I had to ride all the way down the bottom. That made me feel self-conscious when people who passed me made jokes to me. “You’re going the wrong way!” they said. I would not give up though. I tried again, and it was great. At the end of the day, I realized that the weather didn’t bother me at all, but I was so tired. I found out in the next morning that my legs and my arms were very sore. I didn’t want to get out of the bed, but I still had two days left.
 
The second and the last day were more fun than the first day because I could ski a little bit. I took lessons in the morning and practiced with my husband in the afternoons. I like skiing much more than ice skating because skiing has more space than an ice rink. While I was skiing, I could see very far across the countryside. As I got higher on a mountain, it was beautiful! The view on the mountain was unbelievably gorgeous, so I prefer to be on the mountain than in an ice skating rink. Of course, everyone does. My son took lessons all day long, so we didn’t have to worry about him. My husband is a good skier, so while our son and I were busy, he could enjoy himself skiing. After three days of skiing, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to keep practicing and getting better as soon as I could. If this meant I liked skiing, I could accept that.
 
As a result, freezing rain, icy trails, and a negative temperatures didn’t stop me from skiing. As long as I wore warm clothes, I would be fine. I was glad that I tried to ski. Skiing has become our tradition now. We will go up to Jay Peak and ski as much as we can. I keep getting better, and I am happy with it. I have as much time as I want to improve myself  skiing, but at least I can ski now. Every time when I thought about skiing, I couldn’t believe that I would love to ski and enjoy it very much. We need to take time to find out what we like or what we want so we can find ourselves.

For those of us not only down at sea level but way on down by the seacoast itself, skiing Jay Peak takes commitment, dedication, patience, a lot of gas, and, at times, hundreds of bottles of beer on the wall (the song!). It also takes a kind of idealism that approaches zealotry. After all, there are plenty of ski areas between the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts and the Canadian border. We could shave hours off our travel time, save months of our lives. But we don’t. We stubbornly hump our way to the far far north for all the reasons that Jay Peak skiers always list: the snow, the terrain, the chill factor, the beautiful desolation, the balmy weather…. This post isn’t really about the why, though. Because on our last trip up, something hit me. Part of the reason I like the long trek to the Northeast Kingdom is the drive itself. The ride has become part of the experience. Not something to dread, but more like fun.

Part of the drive, for me, is nostalgia. From age three to fifteen, I made this journey in reverse. We lived in Derby, then Craftsbury, then Derby Line, but my dad’s family had a place on Cape Cod that we hit as often as possible during the spring, summer and fall. The first sunrise I recall ever seeing was a blaze of pink, every bit as dramatic as the northern lights, exploding over Franconia Notch as Dad and I barreled right into the clouds. We used to always stop at Shelly’s Deli in Franconia for hot dogs or at Friendly’s in Concord for ice cream. When I grew older, Dad would sometimes sneak and take us to Wendy’s—the only time, it seemed, that I ever got to eat fast food. In the spring, we would listen to Red Sox games. Sometimes we’d race Mom and my sister as we exited the toll booths.

Now, with my own family, I feel like we’re building similar fond memories as places along the drive gain significance and solidify into our personal history. We know now, after our last trip, to always avoid Boston. It was a Thursday afternoon at three o’clock and we were stuck in the quicksand of interminable traffic. I took the opportunity to experiment with my iPhone’s new Voice Memo app and gave myself five reminders. Never. Drive. Through. Boston. AGAIN!

Last winter, we also scratched Lincoln, NH, off our list. No offense to Loon Mountain and all the lovely shops and restaurants there, but we suffered a series of mishaps that led us to believe that the town has cursed us. Now, whenever we pass, Luke reminds me, “We can’t stop there, Daddy. It’s evil.”

The ride breaks into five parts. From the seacoast up I-495 to Route 24 is cranberry land that fades into suburbia. It’s usually pretty quick and painless. Then comes the Greater Boston cluster. Since we (finally) know better than to go through downtown, and we’re never again going to be tricked again by that crazy idea that maybe there won’t be any traffic, we take 128 around. Here we get to tick off Route 2, where we would exit if we wanted to visit my boarding school alma mater in Concord. We always pass the same stretch where Luke NEEDS to know our location, and I never know what to answer. It’s somewhere around Waltham. “But WHERE? are we?” he’ll insist. This is not such a fun circle.

What we do like is stopping at Panera Bread in Concord. It’s about half-way, it’s pretty cheap, and it sits in the gut better than a greasebomb from Wendy’s—that same one from my childhood, just up the road. Even better, this marks the end of Boston. Now we’re entering ski country.

With a kind of perverse pride, we cruise the stretch between Concord and the Notch. Because we know the secrets that every Jay Peak skier knows. We know it’s worth it to keep going. And we’re more rugged and insane and dedicated and clever than the average city dweller who swerves to the siren songs and skis New Hampshire. Now, I have fond memories of skiing at Waterville Valley, so I’m not knocking it, but if we hopped off the NEK highway way back down in Campton, we’d miss out on hours of sweet anticipation. For the suspense builds with every mile north. The mystique thickens. The holy grail is only for the pure of heart. We drive past Pat’s Peak, Gunstock, Tenney, Waterville, and Loon—and we haven’t even reached Franconia.

Entering the majesty of the Notch brings us to Part 4 of the drive. If Concord represents the end of Boston, this mountain pass is the end of New Hampshire, the beginning of the Northeast Kingdom. I used to love looking for the Old Man; my sister and I would fight over who saw him first. We thought there was a turtle sitting on his head. I’m not sure if other families saw that or not, but we thought we had discovered it, that we were just a bit more special for our powers of observation. For Luke, I point to the spot where the natural monument once stood and review the tale of acid rain—how the evil dragons of industry out in Ohio poisoned the sky and killed the lakes and rivers and caused the Old Man’s face to slide off into just another pile of scree on the mountainside. I’m not sure if this is one hundred percent true, but story has become a little ritual that passes the time. We like talking about environmental devastation on these car rides. Global Warming. Endangered Species. Selfishness and Greed. It’s fun, and I guarantee Luke knows a lot more about the stuff than the average kid in his class. He’s going to grow up and be a ranger. One who can fly planes around the national parks. Who can mow down poachers with a machine gun.

Sometimes I think about how Luke’s driving experience differs from my own. He talks with us, or listens to music on the radio or on his iPod Mini. Sometimes he naps, a neat little time warp that can transport him through an entire leg of our journey. Other times he plays, constructing elaborate battles in his imagination, blowing up enemies and monsters. Lately, since watching Clone Wars I think, he likes to have his characters bark, “Sir, yes, Sir,” before they blast each other away. Sometimes he gets cranky and wants to know when we’ll ever get there, but usually he’s pretty content. For me, the experience was more often fighting with the sister—drawing lines that she was forbidden to cross in the back seat of the Saab 99, suffering when she threw up on the floor rather than inform Dad that she was going to be sick.

Franconia Notch ends with Cannon Mountain, which I always think of as a sister to Jay Peak. It’s the tram, I guess. Or that it faces north. Or that it’s the last ski mountain in its state. It’s also the point in the trip where I begin feeling like we’re almost there. My parents’ condo in Newport is still over an hour up the road, but this is the easy part, flying along the deserted road past Moore Reservoir, over the Connecticut, past St. Jay, and up Sheffield Heights.

There are times, like when the weather turns nasty and adds hours to the journey or on the rare occasions when Luke’s crankiness extends for miles instead of minutes, when the drive is less than pleasurable, but most trips are actually surprisingly enjoyable. From our house on the coast to the condo above Lake Memphremagog, we usually spend somewhere between five and seven hours on the road. This includes a meal and usually a snack and stops at rest areas—long enough that you feel you’ve really gotten away from work, from your normal routines, yet not so long that you feel like you’re going to shoot yourself if you don’t get out of the damned car. If you think about it, it’s the same amount of time that a family might spend watching football or baseball on a Sunday, or going to a movie and shopping in a mall. I think it’s good family time. It’s relaxing to watch the landscape transform, to literally travel back into nature. And there’s a kind of thrill of accomplishment that you just don’t get on shorter road trips. It’s an adventure to climb to the Northeast Kingdom, and when you reach the summit of Sheffield Heights, the highest elevation on I-91, you begin to reap your reward as the Memphremagog valley extends before you. Here is the home stretch, the denouement of the quest, the downhill coast where Jay Peak dominates the view with the promise of the real prize, the true adventure, to come.