I have spent the weekend enjoying the company of friends and the charm of Park City, but most of all I have spent the weekend skiing.

I learned how to ski on family vacations as a kid, stopped for over a decade, and only recently took it up again. It’s nice to regain an affection for something prominent in childhood later in life.

I truly enjoy the rush of wind while careening down the slopes, the challenge of turning and balancing simultaneously, watching out for obstacles and other skiers, and the feeling of speed. Skiing with friends is fun, but even if you are skiing with friends, you really are ever only skiing alone. It’s hard not to feel a connection with the mountain.

Skiing is an unusual recreation. It’s not practical enough to be most people’s main sport and too expensive to do it frequently, especially frequently enough to become good at it. For us vacation and weekend skiers, we don’t do it for the workout. We do it for the challenge, and we do it for the scenery. And we do it for the fun.

I’d like to become really good at it one day. But the chances of that are slim unless I one day find myself living near a mountain. In the meantime, I’m just a weekender. I’m ok with that.