Skiing year-round is an accomplishment in itself. What about when you get to 10 years?
Our very own, beloved Powder7 staffer Ryan Poteat nailed 120 months of skiing this September. That’s right, 10 years of finding turns all year. Ryan is a man of many talents. Rolling wide skis over on edge, impressive comedic timing, and color-coordinated ski gear. He also happens to be our resident summer snow specialist and always knows where to find the turns. We sat down with Ryan to pick his brain on the gear, the locations, and what it takes to ski every month for a decade.
Skiing 120 months in a row is quite an accomplishment, when did you decide to commit to skiing every month?
Ryan: “There was never any intention to get to any kind of streak or for any duration, and there still isn’t, I was just kind of like oh I can just keep skiing, I don’t have to stop skiing.”
Can you think of a particularly special day or moment during this journey?
Ryan: “I think it’s kind of special and kind of cool when my friends are like ‘I’m at 5 years, or 6 years, or 7 years’ and I’m the one who got them into streaking. These are obviously party laps, but there’s also good skiing that takes place, but in general when people come up to me and tell me they are X amount of years deep because I first showed them summer skiing, it’s kind of cool.”
So is streaking the official term?
Ryan: “No, no haha. Typically it’s called turns all year, there are TAY groups and stuff like that. So most people refer to it as turns all year. I call it streaking.”
Have you had any near misses, or times when you almost didn’t ski one month?
Ryan: “Several. It’s one of those things where it’s really hard to be healthy and not have life stuff going on for like a full 30-day stretch every single month, or to have an available day out of that 30 days every month. There have been a lot of close calls where it was either weird to ski because of life stuff or I was injured and probably shouldn’t have been skiing. The most memorable one would be one August 31st. It was pouring. I kept waiting out the rain and it never let up and so I was like, ‘well I’m not going to not go.’ So, I hoofed it up to St. Mary’s at 11 o’clock at night, the snow wasn’t even suncups, it was ice peaks of doom, frozen completely solid. I got soaked and I was just laughing because it was so miserable. I just sat in the rain drinking a beer and waiting for midnight to strike so I could get September done at the same time. There was no way I was coming back unless there was a lift or new snow.”
How long do you plan on continuing this tradition? And, do you plan to pass it along to your little one?
Ryan: “There has never been a goal. When you get to a certain milestone [like 2 years] you think, ‘Man I hope I can make it to 5 years’. When I got to 9 years I was like ‘it would be cool to make it to 10’. It would speak to my health if I’m able to make it to 20 or something like that, but I really don’t look at it like that, I just keep skiing and if it ends it ends. I told myself if I made it to 10, I’d be cool if it ended because I’ve done some weird stuff to keep it going. As for the little one, she’ll be a part of it. I’ve already got her pack. She’ll be going uphill very shortly and, if she wants to ski all year, she’s got a buddy.”
