Like the freeway

Tuesday, in three hours of skiing at Breckenridge, three different guys ran into me. All three were out of control, careening down the trail in white-out conditions. By the last collision, I was done. I packed up my stuff and headed home. The next day, when I told people about the crashes, I got the same reaction every time: "Were they snowboarders?" As a matter of fact, they were all on skis. I was starting to think the image of the renegade snowboarder was so last decade, but I was proven wrong. Even though the designated bad boy of the U.S. Olympic Team this year is a skier, (Go, Bode) there are still people who think that boarders are everything that's wrong with snow sports. I don't think we can blame boarders for everything bad at ski resorts anymore than we can blame SUVs for everything bad on highways. If we could just figure out how to put a rear-view mirror in our goggles, we'd be all set.