To ski or not to ski? That is the question. We had two of our writers face-off and make the case in favor of or against this polarizing winter sport.

“I Love Skiing” by Molly Metzig 

I didn't know that I would love skiing. As a winter hater, I spent the first two decades of my life dismissing the sport as cold, costly, and arduous. But when some friends suggested driving to Galena, Illinois, for a weekend of skiing at Chestnut Mountain, something came over me. Maybe it was the desire to have my scorn of winter further substantiated; maybe it was fear of what I'd miss if I didn't go. But at 23 I went skiing for the first time, and loving it was effortless.

Skiing allows you to shift easily between society and solitude. You can spend the whole morning with your friends on the bunny hill, or leave them all to take on the toughest run. You can meet for food at noon. You can meet for drinks at 3. You can run into your people at any moment, but the skiing itself is a solo mission.

“Gliding down mountains with fiberglass strapped to their feet, people are momentarily in love with living.”

Secondly, it's quiet. Snow softens the whole world. On the mountain, there’s no screaming or shouting. No music blasting. No motors, save for the steady rhythm of the lift—and I love the lift. You sit there swinging, watching the skiers below, your legs dangling, your feet heavy from the boots. All you have to do is wait and try not to drop your poles. Then you get to the top, and you get to go down again. You feel like a joyful, inverted Sisyphus.

Most importantly, people who are skiing are happy. They may not have been before they arrived, and they might not be later that night. But gliding down mountains with fiberglass strapped to their feet, people are momentarily in love with living.

“I Hate Skiing” by Zac Thompson

I haven’t read David Foster Wallace’s book A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, but I’m just going to go ahead and assume he’s talking about skiing. I know there are a lot of people who claim to derive enjoyment from this particular activity, but then, there are probably people who claim to like yellow Starbursts. That doesn’t change the fact that they taste like pencil erasers dipped in lemon-scented furniture polish, now does it?  

As for skiing, please explain to me why it sounds like a good idea to attach two narrow, unwieldy slats to your feet and go whizzing down an icy mountain at speeds that never feel possible to control. It’s at once dull and terrifying—an unpleasant, vaguely unnatural combination of standing still and moving way too fast. There’s a risk of colliding with trees and other skiers or, in my mind at least, of veering wildly off the trail and off the mountain before landing splat on the valley floor like Wile E. Coyote.

“[Skiing is] at once dull and terrifying—an unpleasant, vaguely unnatural combination of standing still and moving way too fast.”

Did I mention it’s cold? And you can’t really talk to anybody while you’re making your lonely descent ‘cause you don’t want to get too close lest you crash? And you can’t really take in the scenery ‘cause you’re too busy trying not to become a permanent part of it?

When I was a kid on the bunny slope, the instructors said that if you want to go slow, you have to turn your feet inward like pigeon toes so that your skis form a wedge. They called it “making a pie slice.” How dare they sully the good name of pie.

Ski like a pro with tips from the The Guide:

 Skiing Advice for Beginners, from a Pro Instructor

 Common Types of Skiing, Ranked by a Beginner’s Level of Terror