Top 100 Things Every Skier Should Do Before They Die

1. Call in sick on a powder day. (Extra credit for using one of these excuses: )

 "I fell asleep in the tanning booth and was seriously burned over 96% of my body. It's imperative that I remain naked" (This explains your tan)  "Okay, since you asked: It really hurts when I pee..."  "I don't know what it is. The doctors are saying it's an airborne Ebola variant... Yes, I'm sneezing. Should I come in anyway?'  "The plate in my dog's head froze last night. Right now I'm holding him upside-down in lukewarm water with bendy straws in his nose so he can breathe"  "My great aunt from just had a nervous breakdown and is picking off squirrels with a .357 Magnum. I've got to get up there; I'm the only one who can talk her down.

2. Ski these classic runs:

 Corbet's Couloir, Jackson, WY  High Rustler, Alta, UT  Couloir Extreme, Blackcomb B.C.  KT-22, Squaw Valley, CA  Goat, Stowe, VT  Kant-Mak-M, Telluride, CO

3. Ski runs just as good, but less well known:

 Steep'n'Deep, Monashees, B.C.  Pas de Chevre, ,  Big Couloir, Big Sky, MT  Cambodia, Red Mountain, B.C.  Red Square, Vail, CO  Skydive, Fernie, B.C.

4. Rent ski flicks in July

5. Do a heli

6. Rack up 10,000 vertical at a ski area with less than 500 vertical

7. Be the first one into an untracked bowl as patrol drops the rope

8. Give first tracks to someone else

9. Put your boots on in August and walk around the yard

10. Get countless face shots

11. Tune your mom's skis

12. Ride a T-bar on a snowboard to reaffirm you love of skiing

13. Take a non-skiing friend skiing 14. Ski naked

15. Drive through a raging snowstorm on a lonely road at night not go skiing

16. Know how to make a hot toddy

17. Flirt with a lift op

18. Hike for your turns

And here's why:

 You didn't buy a lift ticket with a fine print warning about the skiing at your own risk.  Nobody is cell phoning his broker in the lift line.  Everybody you ski with has nice big thighs.  You can eat brie and burgundy al fresco for the price of a greasy burger in a crowded cafeteria.  Parts of your lungs get air for the first time in years.  It isn't nearly as disfiguring when you run into a tree going uphill  If you take a big spill, nobody yells insults from the chair above.  Fun tickets in your wallet don't keep changing into lift tickets on your jacket.  After a while you learn to really love the pain.  You get to ski flawless, untracked powder in solitude, at your own pace, without the rabid feeding frenzy of inbounds.

19. Go to France

Ride two trams to the Aigulle du Midi, a huge rocky pinnacle at 12,604 feet on the legendary Mont Blanc. Then spend the day skiing the crevasse-strewn Vallee Balance back down into Chamonix. Eat a jambon sandwitch along the way.

20. Paint your face red white and blue and go to a World Cup Downhill and scream your bloody head off

21. Own a chainsaw, cut your own line through the woods. Name it. Ski it.

22. Ski under a full moon

23. Ski at Aspen wearing camouflage pants, a fluorecent orange knit hat, and a hockey jersey

24. Ski at Pine Knob, Michigan, wearing real fur

25. Dance in your ski boots

26. Lose both skis, gloves, goggles, and all your spare change in a spectacular yard sale under the chairlift

27. Take a huge biffer on ice in the parking lot

28. Get a letter published in Skiing magazine

29. Master the one-finger farmer's blow.

30. Ski with Billy Kidd in Steamboat and with in Deer Valley

31. Ski on a volcano  Cotopaxi, Ecuador  Orizaba, Mexico  Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand  Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii  Mount Shasta,  Mount Bachelor, Oregon

32. Take a road trip

33. Do the Utah Interconnect

On this granddaddy of accessible guided off-piste adventure, you ride slopes and lifts at Park City, Alta, Snowbird, Brighnton, and Solitude and ski the untracked backcountry in between. In a single day

34. Get snowed in at a ski resort

35. Ski a full day, from first chair to closing bell...all on high speed lifts

36. Use a rope tow to reaffirm your appreciation for padded chair-lifts

37. Every year, catch a flake from the first storm of the season on your tounge

38. Ski until you are over 70 so you can ski free

39. Ride around the bullwheel, on purpose or not

40. Go to the Winter Olympics

41. Get risque in a gondola, preferably with someone

42. Do a grab

43. Ski at night

44. Click into your skis, set at max DIN, and ride on the roof of a moving car

45. Go to a Warren Miller movie

46. Steal some of those little plastic trays from the resort cafeteria and slide down the mountain after the lifts close

An aside from personal experience; this is illegal, and the ski partol yells really loud if you do it.

47. Donate clothing, equipment, money, or your time to a ski program for disadvanated youth

48. Write to NBC and insist they devote more airtime during the 2002 Olympics to skiing, preferably at the expense of figure skating

49. Take a hut trip

50. Win one of those stupid little NASTAR pins

51. Pack 10 people into a one-bedroom condo 52. Sleep in your car in a ski-area parking lot

53. Scam a lift ticket

54. Memorize Squirrel's lines from Hot Dog...The Movie

55. Ski a long bump run without stopping - and nail it

56. Ski alone all day, telling outrageous lies about yourself to the people you meet on the chair

57. Ski all day with a group of ripping locals. Tell them what you really do

58. Own a classic wool ski sweater

59. Rely on duct tape to keep something essentail together

60. Be a ski bum

61. Hike and ski a fourteener

62. Ski across a border

 Switzerland to france in the Portes du Solei,  Massachusetts to New York at Catamount,  Nevada to California at Heavenly,  bonus points for India to Pakistan

63. Make as few turns as possible in a single run

64. Make as many turns as possible in a single run

65. Jump a cornice

66. Ski perfect California corn snow in the spring

67. Wear a helmet

68. Pond skim during a spring fest; make it only half way across

69. Ride down the mountain in a ski-patrol sled

70. Later, tell war stories about your injury in the bar

71. Cartwheel in deep powder. Get up laughing hysterically

72. Ski in a halfpipe, without looking stupid

73. Go heli-skiing

74. On a sunny June day, hike and ski Tuckerman Ravine on New Hampshire's Mount Washington. Have lunch on Lunch Rocks like thousands of skiers have done since the early 1900's.

75. Skin in summer in the Southern Hemisphere 76. Keep a gummi stone in your pocket

77. Try telemarking

78. Ski something that scares the holy bejesus out of you

79. Wear sunscreen

80. Fart in a crowded gondola and blame it on your friend

81. Bobsled at Lake Placid; ski jump at Park City

82. Ski the Sierra High Route from Mount Whitney to Sequoia park

83. Drag a snowboarder on the flats while skiing

84. Go on a winter camping ski trip

85. Know how to make killer chili

86. Do the Haute Route in the Alps

87. Do a slalom shot at NYC's Ski Bar

88. Ski a vintage trail: a narrow, windy, Eastern run cut in the '30;s

89. Learn how to avoid dying in an avalanche by taking a backcountry safety course

90. Ski in denim...and rip

91. Help a stranger find a lost ski in deep powder

92. Take a really good lesson

93. Ski south of the Mason-Dixie line

94. Ski north of the Arctic Circle

95. Find a copy of Ski Party. Buy it. Read it. Live it.

96. Remain standing while watching eight hours of the 24 Hours of Aspen downhill race

97. Transport your skis via public transportation - subway, bus, train (bonus points fro doing it during rush hour)

98. Take the "MAD RIVER GLEN: SKI IT IF YOU CAN" sticker off the car of someone you know has never skied there

99. Buy a patch from the ski area you grew up skiing. Sew it on your jacket. Be proud

100. Be grateful, everyday, for snow, mountains, gravity, and skiing