January 17, 2002 — The “snow” at Sky Valley Ski Resort near Dillard looks as though it seeped up through a crack in the Earth. There’s a bright strip of white from mountain-top to mountain-bottom, and it’s surrounded on both sides by still-green trees and grass.
The scene looks unnatural, and it is. All three feet of packed powder on Sky Valley’s slopes are manmade.
But you can still snap sticks onto your shoes and slide down this spurious stuff of white. And in Georgia, that’s about all you can ask for.
Sky Valley — not surprisingly Georgia’s only ski resort — is just an hour’s drive from Gainesville. It’s a few thousand feet above sea level and a few thousand feet from being in North Carolina.
But last Friday — mid-January — temperatures at Sky Valley approached 50 degrees and made the notion of participating in a winter sport seem rather absurd. Snow is not so dry and fluffy when it’s melting.
“When you go down in it in these temperatures,” said my skiing instructor Daniel Williams, 27, of Franklin, N.C., “you’re going to get wet. And once you go down, it’s a miserable day.”
Unless, of course, you are dressed for the occasion. I had a feeling I’d be falling, so I chose clothes that would try to keep me dry.
Even though I grew up just outside of Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, even though I went to a high school that had a ski club, I had only been downhill skiing once before my lesson last week in the North Georgia mountains.
My initial experience some six years ago was both exhilarating and excruciating. It made me understand why my high school basketball coach prohibited his players from participating in alpine activities during the season.
Most skiing in the South takes place on water, so beginners are expected at Sky Valley. The first thing Williams taught me to do was fall, something I would later become quite skilled at.
Next, he taught me how to avoid a fall — something I still need to work on.
“The key to skiing is controlling your speed,” Williams explained. “If you know how fast you can go, if you can control that, it doesn’t matter how steep the slope is.”
To put on the brakes, skiers either turn from side to side or employ a technique known as the snow plow, basically traveling pigeon-toed down the slope.
Don’t know how to do either one? Prepare to be a projectile.
Midway through my tutorial on the appropriately-named Pokey slope, a voice through Williams’ radio said a girl was being taken to the first-aid room.
“Uh oh,” Williams said. “Probably didn’t take a lesson.”
Williams said he thinks he’s got the “best job in the world.” Too bad in Georgia he’s only able to do it a couple months out of the year. Sky Valley is currently open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, but everything is generally labeled with a qualifier: “weather permitting.”
But, hey, this is the Deep South. What did you expect?
“It impresses some people just to be able to drive to it,” Williams said of Sky Valley, which during most of the year is a golf resort (in fact, there were some folks golfing the same day that I skied). “Now, it’s not elaborate by any means. You don’t have slopes all the way around the mountain like, say, Utah. But it’s still a fun day.”
For a beginner, Friday morning is the best time to visit Sky Valley. The crowds don’t come until later in the weekend. And fewer people is a luxury when you’re learning.
There will be plenty of times when you’re thankful there’s no one around to laugh at you.
Like when you lose a ski getting on the lift, and someone is forced to tote it to the top of the mountain for you.
Like when you stumble onto your side getting off the lift, and must duck your head to avoid the further humiliation of being hit by the chair that brought you there.
Like when you fall violently on the Scooter slope, and leave a trail of tragedy to dot your hapless path: one pole, then the other, your right ski, then your left, and finally you (hopefully that part lands in one piece).
A first-aid guy skied past me as I brushed myself off from one such wipeout. I’d like to believe that he was simply making his normal rounds.
I skied the fine line between control and chaos for much of the day, constantly swerving from one state of being to the other, and finding odd pleasure in both.
The key is finding a balance. It’s mind over mountain.
“I like that it’s perpetual motion,” Williams said. “It’s all downhill. It’s just free and easy. I love it.”
I got to where I could stand all the way through the Scooter slope, and I decided to move on to the more advanced Panorama path because I heard a 7-year-old girl say to her younger sister that it was “easy.”
I never made it down the Panorama without falling at least once.
Williams instructed me earlier to break out the ol’ snow plow technique whenever I found myself saying, “Oh my God, oh my God,” while speeding down the slope. He didn’t tell me what to do when the snow plow didn’t manage to scoop up all the “Oh my God”s.
Snow Skiing at Sky Valley
* Facts: Sky Valley Resort, Sky Valley, Ga. 3,500-feet elevation. Five trails, beginner to advanced (three are currently open). Longest run, .5-miles. Vertical drop, 250 feet. Season runs through mid-March, weather-permitting.
* Hours: Ski slopes are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.-10 p.m., and this Monday (MLK day), 9 a.m.-4 p.m. All hours subject to weather conditions.
* Rates: Depending on day and hour, adult equipment fees range from $13-$22, lift tickets $15-$32, tow tickets $10. Youth (10 and under) and senior citizen (60 and over) equipment fees range from $11-$18, lift tickets $12-$25, tow tickets $10. For snow boards, add $7 to equipment cost. All rates subject to change.
* Lessons: Private and group lessons are available 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday. There is a group lesson nightly at 6 p.m. Fees: private, $30/hour per person; semi-private, $30/hour first person, $15/hour each additional person; group, $15/hour per person. Minimum age is 8.
* Directions: Follow I-985 north to U.S. 441/23 north through Clayton and into Dillard. Turn right at only red light onto Highlands Road (Ga. 246). Sky Valley Resort is 4 miles on the right.
* Information: Call (800) 437-2416 or visit www.skyvalley.com