Older, but not Wiser

Bundling into Josh and Sandra’s car, we hit the road to Oukaimden for a skiing adventure in celebration of Josh's birthday. With skiers on both sides of our families, hell, you’d think we’d be looking forward to this. But we’ve managed to visit family in Vail for years without hitting the slopes once and the fear of getting hurt while trying to impress myself is real. As we snaked our way above the snow line, a 7-year-old Berber girl danced on the side of the road in time to the music inside our car, and others stood watching the passing stream of cars, which provide the daily entertainment on this bleak hillside.



We crept into the town’s carnival atmosphere with people clogging the streets and made our way past ugly mountain condo architecture to a rental house stocked with skis that would have been deemed old the last time we hit the slopes a decade ago. While we were resigned to skiing in old-school cotton cargo pants, we managed to sweet talk the owner into renting us a couple pairs of Gortex gloves – something we haven’t had in years – and promised to return his equipment by closing at 5pm. Of course, the Dowe-Sandes snickered to ourselves – there was no way we’d still be skiing at that point – a couple of runs and we’d be content to wile away the rest of the afternoon nursing hot chocolates in the sun.



The parking lot, as we drove from the rental shack towards the lift, was littered with aggressive kids trying to sell us cheap trinkets and bags of herbs, of the culinary variety. Josh wondered why none of them has considered a business ferrying skiers and their equipment from the lot up to the lift – a 15-minute walk, which at altitude (Oukaimden is Africa’s highest ski resort!) and in ski boots through 18 inches of dense snow, was a struggle. And on our so-called fresh legs, no less. When Josh suggested the ferrying enterprise to a man selling snacks at the bottom of the lift, he though it was “a good idea, insha’allah.”

A quick warm-up run on the rope tow reminded us that this skiing thing could be fun, but also that skiing is not like riding a bike. If we were once mediocre skiers, those were now our glory days. The spring-like conditions, while nice for a tan, made the snow a challenge. The relentless grooming we remembered from New England mountains was absent, and the deep heavy snow made it nearly impossible for us to turn: something that, as we were soon to remember, is crucial to skiing. But on the sunny, sunny bunny slope we sailed down blithely, taking in the fresh mountain air.



We got our legs warmed up in time for lunch and repaired to Juju, the local French restaurant, for some wild boar and cassoulet and a round of beers. As we basked in the sun, we turned around and saw a cloud role through the mountain dropping visibility to nil. This prompted all sort of cheerful stories about survival and death in the wilderness just as we headed back out.




Though the two of us felt we could honestly say we’d gone skiing, Josh was determined to take the lift to the top. “The view, the view,” he kept repeating. We noticed that something like 90% of the visitors to Oukaimden treat the mountain like a park: they walk, they toss snowballs, they take pictures. What they don't do is ski. In fact, most of the people waiting in the lift line intended to ride the lift to the top for the view and then turn right around and ride it on down. For Moroccan youths, the 45-minute round-trip on the chairlift provides some welcome privacy. As we made our descent, we looked down at the jagged rocks and nearly empty mountain. I would say “empty trails,” except there were none. This was free skiing, pure and simple.

Indeed, as we reached the top the view was stunning as promised and we looked out over a blanket of clouds below us. Josh and Sandra were determined to ski down - the Dowe-Sandes less so. Hadn’t they seen the terrain from the lift, we whispered to each other. “We saw the view. Now let’s take the lift down with everyone else,” I suggested. Somehow, gravity beat out sanity, and Josh lied to a local guide that we were all good skiers. And once you commit, you commit. We attempted a few hairpin turns dodging rocks, and then the mountain opened up before us, wide and steep. Groomed, or with light powder, this would have been a fun challenge. But in the hard, heavy snow, unable to turn, this was ill advised at best. By now it was 4:30, and the sun was off our side of the mountain, leaving a blue light and temperatures dropping precipitously. Each of us improvised our own way of turning, though nobody had better than a 20% success rate. Each failed turn led to a face plant in the snow, and our reactions varied from laughter to scowls. In response to a faint yelp, we turned to see Sandra half-buried in the snow clutching her knee in pain. Her skis sailed past us, gathering speed before they cart wheeled to a stop hundreds of feet below. We’d covered perhaps a twentieth of the slope, and Sandra would now be shuffling the rest of the way on her butt. This was not skiing, in any sense, but rather trying to get down the mountain in one piece, before the sun went down. Break a leg in Vail, and the world’s top orthopedic surgeons wait for you at the bottom on the mountain. Break a leg in Ouikamden, and well, good luck to you.



Would we be mentioned in next year's Darwin Awards? Slowly, and with myriad images of death-by-stupidity in our heads, we tumbled towards the chairlift's midway station, hoping for a ride down. Sandra, meanwhile, was careening down the precipice at a terrifying speed, Josh hot at her heels. With a wrenched knee and no skis, we reasoned a sled was the only way to get her to safety. After prolonged negotiations with the midway station agent, a rescue sled, which Sandra described as very Joseph Buyes, was secured and the elegant injured one dragged across the face of the mountain to the lift. Once Sandra and Caitlin were loaded onto the chairlift and headed down, and despite the last half-hour of terror, Josh suggested, without so much as a wink or a smirk, that we might finish the run.

And so, as we celebrate a birthday with a bit of mountain danger, it seems that while we keep getting older, we do not, as promised, get wiser.