You Know You're a Skier When...

Skiing Vail's bowls in 2010.

I know that I like a lot of sports--and that I like to participate in a lot of sports. But there's no doubting the fact that I am a skier. I married a skier. I haven't gone a single season since 1992, if not 1987 when I was out with a broken leg (thanks to sledding into a fence), without skiing. And right now I'm trying to make myself feel better about the fact that it dumped in ski country and I can't be there to partake in it. So I'm thinking skiing, and what can maybe make some of us skiers.

You know you're a skier when...

• Your Twitter feed is literally a string of posts about white-outs, snow conditions and powder days to be had. 
• Your Facebook news contains picture upon picture of powdery action shots or snow-covered mountains.
• Your inbox is full of press releases about snowfalls, events happening at ski resorts, and more.
• You're excited to talk skiing even when it's nearly 90 degrees outside, it's summer and it's still months before you'll be on your skis again--and you live no where remotely close to true mountains .
• You're shopping for flights to Colorado, Reno and Salt Lake City in January, February and March instead of tropical paradises. 
• You're addicted to checking your stats on EpicMix, and you have a cache of ski-related apps on your smartphone.
• You have a ski season pass even though you can't simply hop in the car and drive an hour or two to use it. 
• You'll ski on days when the conditions are far from perfect--rain, hardly any snow, slush, you name it. 
• You've been told you ski like a regular even though you can count the days you ski per year, unless you've been really lucky, on one hand. 
• You beg lifties to let you on the lift up until closing time--and you rush down the mountain in hopes of getting one last run before heading in.
• You register for the Talons Challenge even when you know you won't be acclimatized to the higher altitude (you land the night before) and you haven't skied moguls
• You don't know what it's like to have a spa day at the Cliff Lodge, Alta's Rustler Lodge, or the Keystone Lodge unless someone has made arrangements for you (and you're on a media visit)--you're too busy skiing and tearing up those muscles that the massages repair.
• You can name all of the resorts you've skied at and you remember when you skied them--and you have a list of all the places you still have to and want to ski.
• You have a great Sunday morning run yet you can't help but wish you had been skiing over the weekend instead.
• You've never watched this many episodes of The Bachelor (ahem, all of them), but you tuned in because you continued to find ski adventures--in San Francisco, at The Canyons, in Switzerland.

We all have different reasons for loving to ski. These are some--or many--of mine (I thought of a few more while swimming laps in the pool--see my mind drifts toward skiing--but I forget them). What makes you a skier?

Photo courtesy of Vishal Verma.