skiing

As we approached Nanshan, I'd have had no idea I was nearing a ski mountain, were it not that I was on a ski trip. Everywhere was a deep winter brown--grass, trees, and buildings all. Beautiful.

Nanshan is an hour and a half outside of Beijing. It has maybe 6 or 7 real runs, all of them pretty short. The snow is completely manmade. But it does boast two mogul runs--both maintained by hundreds of farmers with shovels*--and a pretty sick snowboard park. There are 5 or 6 bunny trails besides the 'real' trails, and that's where I spent the first half of my day, smacking my incredibly hungover body against the slushy snow again and again.

I am not a snowboarder, nor do I claim to be. (That might have been a bit redundant there.) But thanks to someone who wanted to be sure he wasn't the worst snowboarder on the mountain, my alcohol enfeebled mind was convinced that I should slip into a snowboard instead of skis. Horrible, horrible choice. I bounced and flipped down the bunny trails, cursing my convincer, then I got up, popped one foot out of a binding, and tried to use the rope tow. Couldn't even do that right...fell out of the tow, which made the cable bounce and land on my shoulder, which through my clothes was able to give me a nasty steel cable burn.

This is the way my morning went. I made about 4 'runs'.

When we stopped for lunch, I was miserable. Luckily, through some smooth talking, I was able to procure some skis (caveat: the equipment is not great). The day was 1000x better from there. I miss skiing, and I like to think the terrible time I had snowboarding made it that much sweeter. Swishing through the slush, passing those in the very flattering wedge tuck position, it was nice to be riding parallel to the ground instead of intersecting with it.

As you might have guessed, there were a huge number of ski patrol at Nanshan--many more than I've seen at any other ski resort. They seemed to outnumber the skiers down at the lodge. Great thing was, once you got on the mountain proper, there was not a patrol to be found. Makes it great for horseplay and dangerous jumps.

The one rule of Nanshan that was enforced was 'put the bar down!!!'. The chairbumpers (who incidentally could not ski or snowboard) would chase down chairs and scream at people to put their bars down. Hey, don't worry about the 6 year old kid careening down the sole black trail out of control--you better get that bar down. You might fall off--or worse. We all saw those mortifying pictures of that dude (but I guess that had little to do with the bar).

My one real complaint, as it has been throughout, is the lack of lines. Man...and I thought the bus was bad. Instead of queues, everyone just crams in where they can.  When you have something attached to your feet it gets very political...whose skis are on top? How far are your skis between the legs of the person in front of you? Could I push you down without anyone really noticing? I am not a big fan of Western lift lines. Chinese lift lines made me want to scream.

But besides the BS, it was a great day.

For those of you traveling to Beijing in the winter, this is a great deal for you. 350 RMB (50 bucks) for transportation, tickets, rentals, and a beer and a burger when you return (the dinner alone is worth 100 RMB). Check Cityweekend or Localnoodles.com when you arrive.



*estimation by one George Scott--it might be a little high and/or completely incorrect.