I went to Koktokhai on New Year's Day, skied 200km within the province, and also tried skiing in small forests and wild snowy mountains outside the province. I have skied over 500km this snow season; with the end of the journey and the closure of Chongli, the 2122 snow season is probably over.
This is the second snow season of formal skiing, and I have gained a lot of happy, painful, unforgettable experiences and lovely skiing friends. I would like to record and commemorate the achievements and insights of me and my friends in skiing with this article.
Pain and Joy#
In the winter of 2019, I went to several suburban ski resorts a few times, but it was just for fun. In the winter of 2020, I bought my own snowshoes and practiced following Huang Jialan's videos on YouTube, which can be considered as officially starting to learn this sport.
Although it is now promoted as "300 million people on ice and snow" and there are many "snow beauties" on Xiaohongshu who wear bikinis at ski resorts, skiing is primarily a dangerous sport.
Amnesia#
On December 12, 2020, I went to Taiwu Ski Resort for the first time and fell and lost my memory on the Salsa slope. My helmet cracked when I fell. When I woke up, I found myself lying on the ski slope and couldn't remember why I was here; before waking up, I had many dreams, fragments of memories from the past few months: galloping in the ginkgo forest under the warm sunshine; the wind at the beach in Quanzhou; the fragrance of osmanthus flowers on the roadside in Shanghai for the last time; the small boat in Beihai Park... I had to check the calendar on my phone to know who I was and where I was. I rested in a small cabin at the foot of the mountain for over half an hour before finally regaining my memory, but I still don't know how I fell.
Later, I found that four other friends in a skiing group were also injured on that day. Considering that there were less than two hundred people in the group, this proportion was frighteningly high! So we agreed to avoid skiing on December 12th. I set a recurring reminder on my calendar to remind myself to stay away from ski resorts on that day (I even seriously studied the lunar phase and astrology for that day, but found nothing). However, on December 12, 2021, I couldn't resist and had a great time skiing at Yunding, and returned to Beijing safely. It can be considered breaking a curse.
Later, I changed my helmet to protect my life, and it looks something like this.
Tire Blowout Adventure#
This snow season, due to the impact of the pandemic and the Winter Olympics, Chongli's access policy changed every day. On a weekend in November, @SAAB and I planned to go to Yunding. Some ski friends successfully entered the resort the night before, while others were turned away. Early Saturday morning, we decided to give it a try. So we set off in a Q5 before dawn. On the way, some ski friends ahead sent reports that they had successfully passed through. We arrived at the Taizicheng toll station at 9:50, and tragedy struck! The inspection staff told us that they received a call from their superiors at 9:35, and all people from Beijing were advised to turn back. We were only 15 minutes late, what a pity.
But we were not willing to give up, so we found a small road to try to bypass the toll station. The road became narrower and narrower. First, we passed through a village where it seemed that no outsiders had ever been. An old lady sat by the roadside cracking melon seeds, looking at us as if we were fools. We continued driving and came to the foot of a mountain covered with snow without any tire tracks. We were not worried because we had Quattro (Audi's four-wheel drive technology)! The snow was very deep, and the road was narrow, with a cliff on one side, but we had Quattro! @SAAB skillfully maneuvered the car on the snowy slope, and then tragedy struck again! The car got stuck in a ditch.
No road, we had to pave our own
We shoveled snow, used branches, and a broken sponge strip left by someone to pave the way, and finally rescued the car. We rushed to a gentle slope, and now there was only a short distance to the top of the mountain. But then, tragedy struck again! The left rear tire blew out, probably worn out while struggling in the ditch. Don't panic, we still had a spare tire. So we struggled to change the tire, but another tragedy struck! The spare tire of the Q5 was a compressed tire, and there was no air pump in the car. We had to change back to the damaged tire and return the same way. The old lady was still cracking melon seeds by the roadside, looking at us as if we were fools.
In retrospect, we made the best decisions based on the information available at the time, but unfortunately, the toll station was too cunning and our luck was too bad. Fortunately, we remained optimistic and enjoyed a nice hot bath in Zhangjiakou.
Greedy algorithms don't always lead to the global optimum
Knowing Oneself and the World#
Amnesia, numerous injuries, tire blowouts, high time and money costs... I have repeatedly pressed myself against the wall and asked myself: why can't I let go? Why do I seek suffering? Why do I ski? Damn it, why.
In my year-end summary of 2019, I wrote that skiing is a sport that allows me to be with myself: when you ski, "you must be in harmony with your body and mind, otherwise you will fall"
At that time, I was a beginner (and I still am), and two years later, I still agree with my previous view. However, with the advancement of skills and a deeper understanding of this sport, I have gained new insights.
Skiing is a process of self-discovery. I learned for the first time how much my hip joint can rotate before it locks, and I realized that my flexibility is so poor that I can't kneel down; I also continued to learn about myself, knowing my physical limits, knowing the energy replenishment and rest duration required when approaching the physical limit, knowing which slopes I can ski and which slopes I can only push, so that I can continuously break through this limit.
Skiing is a process of deliberate practice. At the beginning, you need to overcome the fear of speed and falling, and master control of the snowboard; then you need to overcome the fear of steep slopes, the towering mountains at the foot of the mountain are not as terrifying as they seem when you look up; then you need to deliberately forget the subconscious movements, correct incorrect movements, even if they are familiar to you, you need to deliberately do those unfamiliar but correct things in order to further break through.
Skiing is a process of understanding the external world. You will know what kind of snowshoes, bindings, and protective gear are suitable for you, and how to adjust them to the most comfortable state; you will understand your snowboard, know its sidecut radius, know how much energy you need to release when returning to the mountain without hurting yourself. You will be familiar with the ski slopes, know which spots have the best snow conditions and the fewest people, know where there are bumps and where you can have a great time, know when the snow is almost ruined and it's time to call it a day. You will also understand your friends, know when to provoke them to organize a skiing trip (in heavy fog).
So, you understand your own abilities, with familiar equipment, together with your friends, conquer one ski slope after another, one mountain after another. Ah, it's so wonderful.
The whole process is not easy, it requires a high investment of energy and money, and it requires constantly breaking your instincts and path dependence to establish new correct muscle memories. But the famous Nobel Prize companion runner Haruki Murakami also said when running a marathon: "People exist because of pain."
Breaking Limits and Pursuing Freedom#
Once, while on a cable car, I talked to @狮子哥哥 about the process and feelings of skiing:
At the beginning, we need to overcome fear and learn the movements, establish correct muscle memories and snow feel. At this stage, the limitation is the technique itself; after mastering the correct methods, physical fitness and core strength become bottlenecks, good physical fitness is needed to support skiing for at least 30 kilometers a day and accumulate skiing mileage, and when bending under pressure, if the core is not tightened, it cannot withstand the centrifugal force brought by speed. When all of this is not a problem, ski resorts in the suburbs of Beijing and even Chongli may no longer satisfy you. Ski resorts in Northeast China, Xinjiang beckon, further away there is Japan, even further away there are Switzerland, Austria, and Canada, and in summer, you can go to New Zealand; in addition to the ski slopes at ski resorts, there are also forests, powder snow on mountains, ski mountaineering, and even helicopter skiing. There is always one that suits you, and the bottleneck at this time is time and money. And when you can freely shuttle through major ski resorts around the world during the snow season, I believe you are no longer young. The limitation at this time is the fight against time, aging, and injuries.
You see, the more you progress, the more basic and fundamental abilities you require, but basic and fundamental abilities are even more difficult. Skiing when you are young is just about having fun, but skiing at the age of forty requires a strong body, a harmonious family, family support, a stable career, financial freedom, and a youthful mindset...
In this regard, "See you at the mountaintop" is such a beautiful blessing, containing so many beautiful expectations.
I almost knelt down and converted to Buddhism when I saw the phantom sun at Koktokhai
We constantly break through limitations, gain greater freedom, and go to bigger worlds, and challenge higher mountains.
See you at the mountaintop, my friends!
The first draft was written on the flight from Urumqi to Beijing, but I kept delaying it from being published; this weekend, I couldn't resist and came to Qishan Ski Resort again, and then tragedy struck, my ankle was injured; it turns out that I shouldn't have said "the 2122 snow season is probably over", this time it's really over.
So now I'm sitting by the window on the second floor of the ski resort lobby, watching the heavy snowfall outside, while my friends are enjoying the powder snow, my heart is calm, I just feel a bit swollen in my ankle.
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2022/01/23 @Beijing