sure it makes you "appreciate skiing a LOT" more, but im pretty sure i still like skiing just as much now as when i started. last season was the first time that i was fully back on snow (the year before i was in north carolina, skied twice there and blew my knee for the second time, hte season before that got cut short in january when i blew my knee out at mammoth)...believe me , ive had plenty of downtime to have dreams of being in the whiteroom again. this past season i finally got to do it again, a bunch at that! skiing on an epic day is amazing! epic can totally be left open for interpretation, it might have been epic today for some people on the hill, being able to lap the park on a nice highspeed quad...no hiking anymore right !?! but for me, i have absolutely no desire to go mess around on those things, ill leave it to you. i dont need to get my skiing fix EVERYDAY anymore i guess...just to go up to the hill every so often, hit up some good, quality, runs, grab a beer, sit in the sun, and soak up the whole ambience. whats important with that routine however is to get up there when the snow is at its best. that way you can cut out all those slightly annoying things on the side (flat light, rain, ice, etc). with all of that cut out then you can focus on the joy of skiing way more. skiing in 100% perfect conditions is awesome, and id much rather leave it at that.
its the same with a ton of other things. some people refuse to drink shitty ass beer and stick to micro brews. its all beer in the end, but there is DEFINATELY a difference. same here. if i had a choice of going to pc today, deal wth a huge amount of people all crowded around the rails, icy spots all over the place sicne its manmade, longlines @ the liftl, traffic jams going up and down the mtn etc...or wait a couple days and go skiing on a day wehre i dont have to worry about shit except how i should celebrate the PERFECT couple of runs i just had...id wait. oh snap! what do you know, i did have that oppertunity to go today...but i, along with a bunch of other people who call themselves skiers stayed home.Â