retirement skiing

[jimk]

Are some of you guys retired?

Where, when, and how has being retired affected your skiing?

For me it's been pretty dramatic. I spent over 40 years primarily skiing small resorts in the Mid-Atlantic US. While there were a few years in my 20s when I skied 40-50 days, I usually averaged about 10-20 each winter over the decades. I was lucky if I escaped the Mid-A one week per winter to ski New England or US West.

In early 2015 I went from full time to half time working hours (semi-retired) and started doing 2 or 3 one-week or longer western trips per winter. This coincided with my adult son (avid skier) moving to Utah in 2015 and most of my skiing being redirected from the Mid-A to Utah and CO. In early 2019 I fully retired and started doing 3 or 4 month stays in Utah with my average ski days per winter increasing to 40 or 50. I might have been tempted to ski even more, but my non-skiing wife accompanies me and I take quite a few days off to be with her.

I was never a super strong skier, but it's possible my abilities have actually improved a bit since retirement. This is basically because of more slope time, but also skiing in the Rockies (mostly at Snowbird) instead of the Mid-A tends to force you to raise your game or die. O
Perhaps the best thing about skiing while retiring is that I now in the position to mostly ski partial days. I don't have to ski bell to bell to feel like I'm getting the most out of my precious few ski days. I can ski when I feel good/strong, rather than ski because it's the only chance I can. A quality over quantity thing. 40 half days is definitely more fun than 20 full days when age 65+

 

[Tony Crocker]

I retired in September 2010 just short of turning age 58. From Nov 2010 - July 2012 I skied 143 days in 21 consecutive months. Yes that broke prior records by a lot, but I had been averaging 45 days/season since my divorce in 2004. Retirement gives you more time for exercise, so conditioning bumps up some. Since I did not learn to ski until I was an adult, it's likely those 21 months were the peak of my skiing ability.

Unlike jimk I was skiing the same type of terrain and resorts before and after retirement. In the first few years of retirement I had some extra days chasing admin and his Utah posse around Alta, and I believed my traversing skills were enhanced by that.

As far as how much I ski per day, that's remarkably consistent over the past 40 years, nearly every season averaging between 18-22K. Before high speed lifts and mostly skiing weekends, most days were indeed bell-to-bell to accomplish that. Now that can be done in a 5 hour ski day. I'll do more when conditions are great, which means less effort needs to be expended. Abbreviated days are still rare. They occur more often than before due mainly to the Ikon Pass. It's easy to test questionable conditions and bail if it doesn't pan out if you're not paying for a day ticket. But overall I'm more likely to take a day off when relocating or if excessively tired than to shorten a ski day.

The pandemic shut down two gyms that I patronized once a week when I was home. This has also coincided with with a slight decrease in max cardio capacity. But my decline in ski capacity is modest considering it's been 11 years since I retired. I still believe firmly in the Warren Miller plan "If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do." When I started going to Iron Blosam Week in 1996 there were four of us about the same age pushing each other. I remember the expression then, "Cirque till it hurts." I'm the last one of those four still skiing that type of terrain. Varied health issues have forced one to stop skiing completely and the other two have been confined to groomers the past couple of seasons.

One great aspect about skiing as a lifetime sport is that you can gradually dial down the pace/challenge depending on how you're feeling. That's the way Garry Klassen looks at it. He skis a higher proportion of groomers now, but can still get after it when conditions are optimal.

 

[tseeb]

Are some of you guys retired?

My last days working full-time were in mid-Jan 2011. I've worked event (mostly football, some concerts and a few baseball and soccer games) starting before I retired to get my Social Security credits and qualify for Medicare and hopefully get enough Social Security to pay for Medicare (which is now coming out of pocket) when I collect it - just hit SS full retirement age. Now working Mobility Service for events at Levi's stadium which means pushing people in wheelchair from/to parking lot, gates, light rail to/from their seats. I average over 20K steps on game days.

I was never a super strong skier, but it's possible my abilities have actually improved a bit since retirement.

I think skiing with your son at Snowbird must have improved your skiing. My son is less than half my age and in much better shape (planning, but not yet seriously training, for Big Sur marathon in April), but doesn't ski as much so I can usually outlast him, especially over multiple days.

Perhaps the best thing about skiing while retiring is that I now in the position to mostly ski partial days.

I feel like I never get enough days so I'll ski as much of the day as possible, often taking lunch on a lift. My average vertical per day was 24K last season (only season higher was 02-03) and that included one day with early closure and a few short days when my wife was waiting at the cabin or I had to quit early to get home. I have good records going back to 1999-2000 and think the 10-15 years before that were similar. When I lived at No. Tahoe/Truckee are during 1975-77 drought, I think I had 45 and 35 days, respectively with lower number 2nd year due to full-time day job.

Average
Years Days per year Notes
99-00 to 03-04 15.2 No season passes. Used a lot of ski show tickets and other deals.
04-05 to 09-10 21.2 24 days when I had Heavenly only season passes in 05-06 and 07-08, but only 17 days on year in between
10-11 to 14-15 38.4 Squaw pass first winter retired, but may have had best powder days at N*. 11-12 had Kirkwood added to Vail Tahoe pass. 13-14 was first year I had MCP in addition to a version of Vail Tahoe pass. First Canadian road trip inc. 3 days at Mustang Powder in 14-15 was 19 ski days with 18 in a row.
15-16 to 18-19 56 Average vertical per day declined from 23.1 to 21.5 as number of days went up. MCP -> Ikon in 18-19
19-20 to 20-21 31.5 Early end to 19-20 and late start to 20-21 due to COVID. 20-21 included 7 days on next year's Ikon after Kirkwood's (way too early) close. No 20-21 Ikon pass and all my skiing was in CA, except for NV side of Heavenly.

 

[Tony Crocker]

79-83

84-96

97-04

05-10

11-19

20-26

Average Season Vertical

544.4​

457.6​

578.0​

882.5​

1247.4​

1041.5​

Average Days Skied

30.6​

23.2​

27.8​

45.0​

64.8​

53.4​

Average Powder Vert.

27​

30​

81​

159​

188​

87​

Vertical per Day

17.67​

19.79​

20.95​

19.61​

19.26​

19.49​

Powder per Season

5.0%​

6.6%​

13.9%​

18.0%​

15.1%​

8.4%​

Different Areas Skied per Season

13​

13​

17​

20​

29​

28​

New Areas Skied per Season

4​

3​

6​

6​

10​

8​

Median Opening Day

25-Nov​

12-Dec​

31-Dec​

4-Dec​

2-Dec​

5-Dec​

Median Closing Day

1-Jun​

13-May​

26-May​

16-Jun​

21-Jun​

28-May​

79-83 were my formative ski seasons before marriage and kids.
84-96 I had younger kids
97-04 I had older kids and more vacation time
05-10 I was divorced, still working and had up to 6 weeks PTO per year
11-19 are the early retirement years
20 and onwards (updated through 26) is perhaps a new era of retirement

Opening and closing days exclude southern hemisphere, where I've skied in 8 different seasons.
1997 is when I started cat skiing in Canada, so that's when powder numbers get better.
Spring of 2005 is when I got a Mammoth MVP. This became Ikon in 2018-19.
The above demonstrates the consistency of vertical per day when averaged over multiple seasons. I don't see that number declining so far. Age/stamina issues result in skiing a higher proportion of groomers, which has kept my vertical per day in its historic range.
Details of individual seasons here

 

[Tony Crocker]

I feel like I never get enough days

I don't think that hardly at all since I retired. I guess the basic benchmark is 1 million vertical per season, which I missed only with the surprise shutdown in 2020 the week before I had scheduled 2+ weeks in the Alps. I resist committing to extended time away from skiing during the core season of Jan-early Apr, only made an exception for the 2016 eclipse in Indonesia. Over 80% of my skiing Oct-Dec and May-Jul is drive-up, which tends to be short notice, relatively short trips that can be fit in with other plans.

So I see a minimum season in a bad snow year around 50 days, but the big years at Mammoth that start early and end late can get to 70. A big year in SoCal could push ski day count higher (Garry Klassen hit 86 in 2004-05) but that hasn't happened since I retired.

Garry was still working a swing shift job in 2004-05 so most of those 86 days were morning only at Baldy, 20 minutes from home. Perhaps that's why jimk has a lot of partial days; he's at his son's home in Utah much of the time, half an hour from the slopes. By contrast, once you've made the commitment to paid overnight lodging or a few hours of commute time, the incentive seems strong to put in a full day of skiing to make that effort worthwhile.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

20 and onwards is perhaps a new era of retirement

Can you explain what that means?

 

[jimk]

When you're in the senior phase of life skiing is like sex, sometimes less is more. Quality over quantity thing.

20 and onwards is perhaps a new era of retirement

Can you explain what that means?

That is a topic that could go in all kinds of directions. With all the extra people now doing work from home I could see a great many people retiring in a gradual phase-out, rather than completely stopping all at once. Also, Covid is going to continue to put a damper on the numbers of older people that travel and how ambitious they make their itineraries.

 

[Tony Crocker]

It's mostly age. I have a bit of a decline in max cardio, and losing two of my workout sources due to COVID shutdowns didn't help. My slowing down is gradual but if I were to draw a line somewhere between "early" and "normal" retirement, 2020 seems a logical place.

I mentioned in the 2020-21 recap thread that due to only skiing groomers the first 5 days of that season, I had an adjustment period to more challenging skiing starting Jan. 27 in Utah and didn't feel I was skiing up to normal standards until well into the February/March road trip. Historically I had found that step aerobics almost completely erased the "early season warmup" issue.

There is no question that retirement enhances the ability to chase quality. That's one reason why vertical per day is not declining. I'm much less likely to be skiing a day with poor conditions because I was committed in advance to weekend/vacation days. Taking a day off/adjusting the schedule is much easier when retired.

As far as COVID is concerned, I was and still am aggressive about getting vaccinations. I've had four, Moderna Jan & Feb, then Pfizer July after Israel recommended booster for over age 60. Earlier this month I had a J&J because we were in their clinical trial. Liz got that vaccine Oct. 2020 but I got the placebo then. If vaccinated as far as I'm concerned you lead a normal life. Breakthrough cases (my son Adam had one in July) are no worse than the flu. Yes we have to carry our vaccine records when we travel and get tested as well for foreign countries (Chile this week, Canada February, Europe in March). But those minor inconveniences will not deter us.

 

[jimk]

The challenge to continue to ski as we age is something we all have to face. Especially those of us closer to the end than the beginning Myself included. Skiing probably should not be the most important thing in our lives, but it sure is fun and something we want to continue doing if practical.
Not sure if I shared this before, but here are some thoughts I had on this subject last year: https://www.dcski.com/articles/1767

 

[MarzNC]

I find it quite inspiring that he and MarzNC seem to be at their peak ski levels past age 70.

I know of plenty of 70+ skiers in multiple regions, including some who are continuing to ski well into their 80s. For those in their 70s, I'm not just thinking about people who stick to groomers. Recently someone started a Facebook Group for 70+ skiers/boarders, which is quite international. The posts are quite different than in the Senior Skiers 60+ FB Group. (I don't spend much time in FB but read posts in a few Groups every so often.)

Have you ever seen the video released in 2015 about Phil Capy, a long time patroller at Big Sky? He passed in December 2025 at age 97. He was over 85 and still helping with patrol work when the video was made.

Unlike folks who were skiing advanced/expert terrain before age 30, when I started skiing more regularly after age 50 I never expected to get good enough to enjoy skiing terrain at Alta such as Supreme Bowl, or even the steeper sections of Ballroom. That could be an advantage as I reach 70. Been working on improving carving technique lately, which is new to me. I became a solid advanced skier after blowing an ACL around age 55 (not skiing related) and opting to become a coper (no surgery required for a stable knee). I decided that taking lessons and working on ski conditioning year round was worthwhile because I was in a position to do more ski trips. I had no clue back then how much technique improvement was possible with the help of good instructors and plenty of mileage on snow. Going forward, I expect to be able to continue to improve technique for another 5-10 years, even if I opt to take it easier at times in less than optimal snow conditions, visibility or temperatures.

As my instructor at Massanutten warned me from the start, it took a few years to get rid of the worst of the bad habits I had based on learniing on straight skis for only two seasons during middle school. It's been well worth the investment in time and money for lessons after knee rehab was completed. Another intermediate skier might have simply been fitted for a custom brace to ski groomers with perhaps an easy off-piste run occasionally. My ACL-deficient knee was very stable, so I decided to spend money on lessons instead of a custom brace. I plan to continue taking lessons and doing Taos Ski Weeks as long as I'm up for traveling to ski. My parents both lived until 95, and were in pretty good shape well physically and mentally well into their 90s.

Note that Albuquerque Bill and my other advanced ski buddies understand the value of semi-private lessons with very experienced instructors, mainly PSIA Level 3 with 20+ years of experience. Bill had the meniscus removed in high school long ago (soccer injury). He's a few years older than I am and hadn't been doing much alpine skiing for a few decades before he joined me for ski trips starting in 2012. He was skiing Ajax bumps every weekend in high school on straight skis. Like me, Bill was born and raised in New York City. He grew up skiing in New England, but all his skiing since he moved to NM in the 1970s has been at big mountains in the west. First joint lesson was at Jackson Hole in 2014. Next lessons were at Alta the following season.

It was clear after a couple lessons that Bill could appreciate there is a different approach to making turns on post-2010 skis that was easier on his bad knee. Developing muscle memory for a slightly different stance took a few seasons. After I set up the first trip to Taos for a crew in 2017, doing a Taos Ski Week became an annual habit for Bill. He probably has averaged 55 days over the last fifteen years. He didn't quite make his age the year he turned 70 for number of ski days but only missed by a few days. Bill skis far smoother than a decade ago. Also skis longer days when snow conditions are worth it.

A few of the hard chargers from EpicSki/Pugski/SkiTalk have become Taos Ski Week regulars in recent years. Becoming retirees over a certain age was a factor in adjusting their goals for a week of lessons. My sense is that improving technique to ski more efficiently has become a higher priority than pushing an instructor to find the most complex and steep terrain available.

For ski conditioning, my focus during the off-season is on 1-leg balance, flexibility, and core strength. To support the knees, I've learned assorted exercises for hamstrings, adductors, and abductors. Those were emphasized during the physical therapy I did for about 3 months after blowing the ACL. Also do worked on some strength training because it's good for bone building, but don't do that as consistently. I've worked with a couple of personal trainers, mostly in the fall during pre-season. The sport I do at a recreational level from May-Nov is indoor rock climbing. My daughter doesn't get to ski much as a working adult, but is also an advanced rock climber having started as a kid. Our rock climbing gym has multiple locations and each includes a well equipped fitness area and fitness classes. Doing laps on an auto-belay is one way for HIIT for cardio.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Everyone knows about the people skiing into their 80's or 90's. The unusual situation with Jimk and MarzNC is that they are skiing in their 70's better than when they were younger than that. Though I started skiing seriously at age 26, there is little doubt that my peak was the start of retirement at ages 58-59 when I skied 143 days in 21 consecutive months. I think most expert skiers who started as kids would say that all of us weren't that great skiers because if we had proper technique, like most athletic endeavors, of course we would have been in peak form somewhere in the 18-40 age range. We have three high school race trained skiers here on FTO: EMSC, ChrisC and occasionally Patrick, and my guess is that's what they would say.

a coper (no surgery required for a stable knee)

I blew an ACL on my second day on skis in 1976. There was no MRI back then, so it was diagnosed in 1995 after I tore the meniscus in the same knee. The doc then said I'm not a "coper" but among the lucky 10% who have no instability without an ACL, usually due to tight patella tendons. That's why the 1976 injury was undiagnosed. There was zero instability even though I was not doing any kind if regular exercise then.

Jimk doesn't mention instruction much, but his son is a PSIA3 instructor so he may get a fair amount of it informally. I took several lessons as a beginner, but in the 1978-79 period when I progressed most rapidly, it was from putting in more mileage and from reading some instructional books. The most influential one was Skiing, an Art... a Technique, by Georges Joubert. Unlike MarzNC and Jimk, my training ground was Mammoth, and I was highly motivated to ski its expert terrain comfortably before traveling to destination resorts in the Rockies. Since then I recall a very helpful lesson in powder skiing at Snowbird in 1991 after frustrating previous day at Powder Mt. I have also taken two-day Extremely Canadian clinics at Whistler in 2005, 2008, 2015 and 2017. In the former two seasons I also took their World Tours to Las Lenas and La Grave. I know they didn't care much for my habits in 2005 and 2008 and expressed surprise that I had markedly improved in 2015. That was my 5th retirement ski season averaging 65 days a year. So my experience is that skiing more improved my skiing. This surely seems true for Jimk as well, particularly since in addition to raising his mileage, he moved most of his ski time from the mid-Atlantic to one of the most challenging ski areas in North America.

My sense is that improving technique to ski more efficiently has become a higher priority than pushing an instructor to find the most complex and steep terrain available.

Skiing efficiently is of course more important with age. But I've always had that thought at least in the background as it's important if you're skiing 30+K vertical on your better days. The "suck wind breaks" since age 70 are negative feedback in that regard, as if I'm efficient enough I don't need them. I seem to require the least effort on the spring corn days, which is why my vertical per day is higher April/May at Mammoth than it is midwinter and five of my nine 40+K days are in April.

For ski conditioning, my focus during the off-season is on 1-leg balance, flexibility, and core strength.

After I started once or twice a week step aerobics in 1990, I thought that was the gold standard for 1-leg balance, flexibility, and core strength for skiing. For the next 30 years I almost never had the syndrome of having to take it easier on the first few days of the season. Occasionally Mammoth serves up some of its steep ungroomed in November and I was pleased to be prepared for that. It may not be coincidental that when I retired in Sept. 2010 and joined 24-Hour Fitness, I found an elite step instructor with complex choreography, where it took me 8 of her classes before I could get though it nonstop. She was there for only 18 months but surely deserves some credit for raising my conditioning at exactly the right time.

 

[Tony Crocker]

While on a roll here, I'll comment on Jimk's DCSki article.

Introduction

a prime ingredient for skiing into old age is that it’s still gotta be fun, real fun!

+10 to that. My concessions to age over the past 4 seasons have not been enough to change that. Drastic terrain limitations or the number of hours per day I can ski could eventually erode the fun factor. Since retirement I have on principle avoided non-ski travel during January-March. Liz had to lobby hard for the two exceptions, the 2016 eclipse in Indonesia and the India tour Feb. 2025. We still tacked Uzbekistan skiing onto the latter trip.

Know Yourself

I suppose my eyes and my feet are becoming limiting factors.

I am fortunate to being much more resistant to vertigo that most skiers. That may still be true but I am more sensitive to low light and thus am wearing goggles on some days now that I would not have needed them before. As for bunions, I can advise Jimk on that one. If your big toe is pointing at an inward angle, the bunion on that foot will continue to grow to support the big toe. Liz noticed my right foot as early as 2017, but my attitude was "If it doesn't hurt, why should I care?" In spring 2022 it started to hurt in a ski boot so I had the surgery to fix it in September. That does not mean just shaving the bunion. It means putting a couple of thin titanium rods in the big toe so it will point straight rather than inward. Nearly 4 years later the toe still is straight and the bunion did not come back, so this is an obvious fix IMHO.

I know some guys who want to charge hard or else stay home. I subscribe to the idea of pacing yourself. All skiing is good skiing. If your mind or body is telling you it’s a groomer day, then listen-up.

It's usually the mountain that's telling me when it's a groomer day. Nonetheless pacing is usually necessary on a multi-day trip. But on an exceptionally good day I want to have enough in the tank to charge harder and/or ski bell-to-bell. That was the scenario for the last 3 days of this year's Euro trip. By contrast the tank was at least half empty by the last week of the 5 week road trip. If there had been a powder day at Snowbird I would have been lucky to last past noon.

Mid-winter powder days are still a blast, but they are very demanding, physically and logistically, and require careful patience.

Even if I'm rested, I can't really hack a bell-to-bell powder day at a competitive place like Snowbird any more. I have my own paced agenda now and I'm still probably shot by 2PM. When it reaches the chopped powder stage I will be taking way too many suck wind breaks. I don't think it's an accident I see fellow 70's skiers snowcat skiing. It's much easier when it's untracked, and I'm not demanding to to ski Mustang quantity of it every day now. If on a road trip, there's a strong incentive to seek out a less competitive area on a powder day.

Health and Fitness
Jimk and I are on the same page here. But as Al Solish noted, the exercise routine adequate in one's 60's might not be in one's 70's. PT for my knee injury will start in a week or two, so I may find out what modifications are necessary to maintain fitness. And if they don't work I may be on the road to more serious surgery than for the bunion.

Finances
I'll tread lightly here as YMMV. I find the recent runup in accomodation costs in the U.S. obnoxious. But I have little grounds for personal complaint as the stock market has far outpaced costs during the 15+ years I've been retired. Meanwhile my costs per ski day have been fairly flat for the past 20 years at around $230 per day. That includes transportation, lodging and equipment as well as the actual skiing. Why is that? Part of that is since 2013 the lodging is counting towards two ski days (me + Liz) vs. a lot of solo travel from 1997 - 2012. The other part is that the Ikon Pass is a windfall for frequent skiers. My Utah and Mammoth skiing are dirt cheap and an offset to Canada cat skiing and exotic ski travel. I also had 30 heliski days from 1997-2018 and none since then.

I recognize that both the accomodation costs and the season vs. day ticket costs are terrible for young families. Unlike us retirees they have ample grounds to complain.

Convenience
Here is my greatest divergence from Jimk. I'm a variety junkie and would highly resist the scenario of skiing 90+% of my days at the same place, even AltaBird. No season is complete with adding a few new places. I also married someone who is even more devoted to desiring new experiences than I am.

Tseeb is the polar opposite of Jimk when it comes to:

the majority of my ski days are just 3-4 hours in length.

Pre age 70 I was solidly in Tseeb's camp. Now I'm more sensitive to how good conditions are. Don't wear yourself out on the so-so days so you can be ready and able on the good ones. I'm amazed how much vertical Tseeb skied at Mammoth last Sunday/Monday when the top was closed and much of the rest of the hill never made it to the corn stage due to wind and unseasonably cool temps.

When you’re old and creaky, convenience is king. Obviously, staying slopeside or near slopeside is ideal

I have always resisted the premium most U.S resorts charge for slopeside. Road tripping to new places often requires drive-up skiing. But most of our Euro trips mix in a few days of slopeside or very nearby. Another plus point for convenience in the Alps can be the half board lodging so you're not getting in the car to go out for dinner, especially after a big ski day. In terms of wear and tear on a road trip, Liz suggest minimizing the one night stands and in Europe we generally hold them down to about one day per week. In recent years road tripping ski days are more often in the 4-5 hour range especially on days when we are relocating.

Friends and Family
I know I'm sort of a weirdo here. I was amazed when Jimmy Petterson told me he can't recall skiing without friends. I know that I have an unusual proportion of ski time skiing solo, including about half of my snowcat/heli days. But in retirement I have better than a wide circle of skiing friends; I have Liz who has similar ski enthusiasm, and on the occasions I have more, she's 100% supportive, just as I was when she took off for Kilimanjaro this February.