Not really a gaper but more of a cool surprise.
My church hosts this ski trip every year and one of the skiers who I ski with most of the time is in their 50s and basically has that signature "I ski 3 days a year" look to them (properly fitted columbia jacket, solid color, 7+ years old). I'm chatting with him on the chairlift and he asks about what kind of tricks I like to do. So I am very honest about my Minnesotan habit of 95% rails 5 % jumps, give a mini-lecture on rail trickology:
Me: "Staple rail tricks for good rail skiers are the 4 "feds" (k-fed, b-fed, ray-fed, pretz-fed) which is where you do a 180 on the rail after sliding on it a.k.a. a change-up followed by a 270 spin out of the rail, the names correlate to the directions of both the spins."
Him: "Interesting... So have you seen those crazy guys who do the street skiing?? Some of those maniacs jump off roofs!"
Me: "URBAN. Yes, I participate as well."
Him: "You're crazy, you better be safe."
Me: "Don't sweat it. I try to be reasonable. It's my favorite type of skiing because it's like the back-country for a skier in Minneapolis; a lot of prep and danger for a short but well worth payoff- and that's the attraction of it."
Him: "I never thought about it like that, my son who skis Jackson almost everyday put it like that for the touring he likes to do around there."
Basically, I expect him to know nothing about freeskiing, but it turns out that his ski-bum son has exposed him to plenty of it. So then we continue on a deep and profound conversation on the applications/implications that being a skier can have on your life- a convo which would bore all of you to tears.