The gondolas are small boxes, brightly colored, roped together like Christmas lights rising with stoic determination up the white snow dressed hill. They sway up and down the mountain from 8 – 6pm most days. Sometimes later. And never rest. They wait for us at the top of the carpark.
Though obviously sturdy, the gondolas appear almost fragile, like a child’s plastic toy tied to a rope. Obediently we line up for our passes to be scanned. The gondolas are pulled down towards us on steel cables. They rock. And slow. And never stop. Simply slow. I gather with the children and they slide into the moving box. Skis are left in the ski holder set at the moving door; helmeted and booted and gloved, anonymous, camouflaged in neon, the group clutch their poles that look like fencing sticks, glide through the doors, slide across the benches and settle into the tiny hanging room. It is still moving. I do not look as practiced and easy as they do. Walking nonchalant into a moving room. This person has to stumble in, choosing the wrong moment as the gondola inches and sways forward, I am attempting to make the next lurch look considered, sitting and sliding with disguised relief along the bench, the floor slippery with melted snow. I am glad about my decision to bring my work boots on this trip. They are big and black with deep tread and good grip. I relax as I sit. Everything is wet. Everything is movement. I did not make an idiot of myself. Thanks Gods. It is snowing again as the gondola doors slide shut and we are yanked unceremoniously up the mountain.
It is snowing – skiers are looking out the windows using the words powdery, light, deep maybe even heavy. None of this makes any sense to me but I nod and smile.
And Yes! You can see the whole gondola ride HERE. (Nothing ever comes out the way we imagine it to. Everything carries surprises and disappointment. Though disappointment is too hard a word). We dismount the gondola without incident, my boots holding firm and proceed to trudge up the hill through the riot sized crowds to the hotel.
Mission accomplished.
My storm-trooper ski party escorts me, and all their extra gear, up to the lovely restaurant with a view of the fields. I buy myself a glass of wine, and surrounded in jackets and various paraphernalia, write for the afternoon.
Only in the ski fields can you tramp into a lovely restaurant wearing helmets and boots and goggles, and plastic pants, dripping snow, leaking water and sniffing from the cold and be greeted with a smile.
It was delightful.
A small child crept into bed with me this morning saying “The shovelers woke me up”. There are people employed to shovel snow off the sidewalk. They are a blessing but start early. “Bother those shovelers.” I say. And we sigh back to sleep.
Have a lovely day!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
29 responses to “Gondolas strung like giant Christmas lights”
You are getting good at posting blogs on the go, complete with pix. A talent that could not have been foreseen 20 years ago . . .
That’s true. I love taking the blog traveling. Since it’s beginning actually, though in those days I used my Nikon and my heavy laptop. Now I can do the whole days post on my phone! And you are right. I did not imagine that 13 years ago.
I admire your flexibility. It’s needed in today’s world.
/Wow fragile looking is the right word! the pics from the gondola look like a nightmare especially for someone with fear or heights and claustrophobic. I suffer from neither malady but you couldn’t pay me enough to take a ride in one! At least they are enclosed, all the ones that I have seen (never in person, you know) are open and so seem even more precarious and scary. Guess I’m just a flatlander person.
They are a little nightmare-ish. There is a lot of trust involved. Especially when they swing down together so you can get off! The stills make them look like little rooms. I like the red ones .
How exiting – a bit like the ancient cable cars going accross Barcelona harbour, made famous by a mad Jack Nicholson in the “Passenger“.
Jack Nicholson does mad exceptionally well.
He does indeed!
Love that photo with the goggles, very artsy! I’ve been in gondolas before but never for skiing. It was always just chairlifts.
You wouldn’t get me in one of those for love nor money! I would be terrified! But l love the chance to live vicariously through you, thank you. Such lovely photos for us to enjoy. A nice glass of wine at the top, perfect. Actually the wine would be the closest thing to get me there, but not quite.
Oh so happy to hear you went to Sunshine Village! It is my favorite ski resort and have so many memories of skiing there. The best times were skiing in May, spring skiing in bikinis, in another life time! You can take the gondola up in the summer months and walk to meadows filled with wild flowers. Such a beautiful part of Alberta! Enjoy Celi!
Skiing in a bikini! Oh Lord. And I never thought about about what the mountain was like when there was no snow!!
Thankfully you said “skiing in May, spring skiing in bikinis” Del! Never did make it out west, but around here spring Break is in March so shorts and T-shirts were the closest most of us got (‘cause Spring Skiing was on treacherous corn snow and throwing my 190 Yamahas around the moguls was a matter of survival! (Actually tried going barehanded for a couple of runs… and had the scarred-up knuckles to go with my best memories ever. *sigh* those were the days
Ah, you’ve brought back treasured memories of gondolas and open chair lifts from my younger skiing days here in New England. Alas, I hung up my equipment a few years ago upon discovering I no longer “bounced” quite as well as I used to. 💔 Your time spent up top working and with a glass of wine sounds delightful. It felt like I was right there with you. Easter blessings. Camille
Beautiful pics. I took my trusty workboots along to a bit of an outdoor excursion. They worked well until we got to some warm indoors and I realized, though I had cleaned them, they were redolent of horse pee. It tested my limits of feigning nonchalance!
ha!!! Ha! Nonchalance is the best.
Ha, lmao Sherry. Nothing quite like Eau de Chevalier; )
Oops! Not sure how that happened, but definitely in the wrong place:/)
I enjoyed your description of arriving at the restaurant and looking out onto the snow ‘fields’. Such a perfect choice of word! Growing up in Canadian winters we learned to say ‘ski hills’. But in fact they DO look more like fields! Takes a New Zealand farmer to SEE in those terms. And the ‘plastic pants’ too. Love seeing the world through your eyes (and words) Celi!
I think it is because I write how I talk. Sometimes I am too lazy to look up the current terms! Have a lovely day!
This reminds me of my skiing days, long-gone now! I remember feeling so pleased with myself for mastering the chair lifts which you couldn’t pay me to get on now. I’d be perfectly content sitting with you and my own glass of wine (which would be red, though), writing the afternoon away. The gondolas look a bit less treacherous, and I loved your description of getting in them.
one does not want to look foolish in front of children. So I was very careful to look nonchalant moving about in a completely foreign environment!! I b am a beach girl not a ski girl!!
What a delightful post. To hear your fresh eyes ramble through a scene which is so familiar is like seeing it all anew. Another life time ago I skied those mountains and rode the gondola mindlessly (not like my sister in a bikini though – she has always been the wild one). I loved doing the ‘ski-out’ instead of taking the gondola down. So fun! So enjoying your mountain posts. Thanks!
oh the sick out! Yes! The grown ups did that while the worn out kids came down on the gondola with me. We all arrived at the exact same time!
What a delightful post. To hear your fresh eyes ramble through a scene which is so familiar is like seeing it all anew. Another life time ago I skied those mountains and rode the gondola mindlessly (not like my sister in a bikini though – she has always been the wild one). I loved doing the ‘ski-out’ instead of taking the gondola down. So fun! So enjoying your mountain posts. Thanks!
this sounds like an incredible, perfect day
so lucky we are – to have such wondrous days!
Ah Celi, How I wish I were there to explain that Foreign Tongue of the Skier to you! You sang my song with that list❤️ Getting on a ski lift of any kind can be (“CAN BE??” – is terrifying for the first time…) At least riding a gondola you’re not also manoeuvring on skis as with a chair lift or ‘T’bar… (I know, my apologies for throwing more terminology at at you, lol)
I had some friends who went ‘out west’ to ski Sunshine when we were barely out of High School and one of them got a job there and never came back! This was many decades ago now, and as far as I know, she still lives out that way somewhere: )
They did try to talk me into going up
On the chairlift. (Thank you for the word) I declined – preferring to hold on to my graceful reputation a while longer!