well i go to a boarding school in wisconsin and you must play a sport every season. and one of the sports available during the winter is skiing. its racing but its still sweet to get to the mountain 3 or 4 days of the week and a meet on every weekend. and plus we get a whole lot of extra time...
i learned getting up on one. and i personally think its way less of a hassle than dropping a ski and not much more difficult. its a pain to search for a ski after you drop it after you have a long run all over the lake