My boyfriend Kyle and I went on a day trip to Dodge Ridge with a group of our friends on January 14th, 2017. The night before our trip, we slept at our friends Carlos and Jennifer’s apartment in San Jose to avoid the commute to the South Bay from San Francisco in the morning. We woke up at 4am, got ready, and loaded the car with our luggage. We stopped by Castro Valley to pick up our friends Jenee and Tyler. We were en route to our destination by 5am.
I thought I would have fallen asleep on the drive there since we woke up early but I wasn’t very tired and it was great catching up with everyone. As we were getting closer to Dodge Ridge, we began seeing the snow build up. The trees were covered in snow and we saw a few cabins that had icicles hanging from the edges of the roof.
We arrived to the Dodge Ridge ski resort around 9am. We filled out paperwork and picked up our equipment. I felt both nerves and excited to ski for the first time. I’ve been wanting to go skiing for a while now and I was happy I got around to it. We brought our equipment back to the car and finished layering up for the snow.
We walked back to the ski resort and headed to the bunny hill first. Our friends have experience skiing or snowboarding so the bunny hill was mainly for my boyfriend and I to learn how to ski. Carlos showed us how to make turns and how to stop.
Our friends taught us the terms “pizza” and “french fries” in regards to skiing. Pizza is when the front of your ski’s are pointed in and the back are pointing out (resembling the shape of a pizza). This helps you slow down or stop while you’re skiing. French fries are when your ski’s are parallel and will help you gain speed.
If you’re also planning to ski for the first time, know that you will most likely fall down a lot. What I’ve learned that helped reduce the impact of my fall is making my ski’s into the shape of a pizza for as long as I can and falling towards the mountain. If the left side of my body is facing the mountain, I fall in that direction or vice versa. After you fall down, make sure your ski’s are parallel and push yourself up with your ski poles. Clearly there’s no right or wrong way to fall but this is what helped me as a beginner.
We went to the level 1 and level 2 sections of the mountain with our friends. I was a little intimidated to ski down the mountain in the beginning but I felt more comfortable after a while. I learned that shifting my weight made it easier to turn. Once I got the hang of it, skiing was really fun. I felt so much adrenaline.
It was rewarding to get out of the city for the day. The scenery at Dodge Ridge was beautiful. There were blankets of snow covering the mountains and trees. Around 4pm, we all returned our gear and headed to the car. We changed out of our damp clothes and began our journey back home. The following day, my boyfriend and I were very sore from skiing but it was well worth it. I had a lot of fun on the trip. I can’t wait to go skiing again.