Our Nightmare Ski Trip: Get Back Up One More Time

I'm somewhere in the mountains of western Ukraine, in a tiny cabin functioning as a ski rental shop. It's run by a man and his three sons, who are 8, 10, and 12. They were offered to us as ski instructors, but no one there speaks one word of English, and we don't speak Ukrainian or Russian.

My friend Volodya really wanted to take us skiing ever since I mentioned I liked to ski. He began planning a trip to Slovakia, then realized we didn't have time and said we would go to the local place.

The "local" place is actually a 4.5-hour drive from where we were, which isn't so bad, except that Volodya's time management needs some work. He said he was picking us up at 8 am, but it turned into noon. I would have protested going, but I wrongly assumed it was 30 minutes to an hour away.

I'm also with my teenage/young adult daughters Dimitra, Dalia, and Dafni, as well as Dafni's boyfriend (now husband) Nathaniel, my son Dino, John, and Kate, a 22-year-old family friend from Kiev. We are a motley crew of both experienced skiers (Volodya, Nathaniel, and I) and beginners, all wearing borrowed ski suits, hats, and gloves. We keep teasing each other about who looks more ridiculous in our 20-year-old ski bibs.

With about an hour left of daylight, we finally get our lift tickets, skis, boots, and poles. This fact is exceptionally annoying, except that our tickets and rentals cost less than $20 in total. I told Volodya very clearly multiple times that my three girls plus Kate are complete beginners and have only skied twice, ten years ago when they were kids. It was Kate's first time. Volodya assured me that we were going on the green run, the beginner-level hill.

A Steep Surprise

The chair lift stopped for the girls to get on because of their lack of experience. I had hoped that it would be pretty flat up top when they got off. On the way up a very long run, much longer than I expected, I said to Volodya, "This looks pretty steep and difficult, not at all like a green run." Volodya casually replied, "Yes, green run closed because of storm, so only blue is open."

My head did a 360, trying to grasp the entirety of his short yet frightening sentence. "Volodya! Blue! Storm!! Why didn't you tell us before we got on?! There is no way those girls can ski this!" Their blue (intermediate) run is more like an indigo, with parts of it looking like black diamond to me. Volodya shrugged, feeling like all would be well. Volodya's English isn't so great, so as I looked out into the thick gray sky that was beginning to turn to dusk, I wondered if the storm had just happened or was about to happen.

When I saw the get-off point, my heart sank. It was not flat at all but steep, with an open cliff just before it. I mustered every ounce of coolness to keep from panicking. I shouted, "Girls! Keep your ski tips up, all the way up, as you get off. Pizza, not French fries!!!" That was how we distinguished the snow plow formation of skis to go slow versus the parallel ski formation to go fast.

Dimitra, Dalia, and Kate were first and successfully got off the chair, but very soon after, they fell into a ski-pole-girl ball tangled into each other, blocking the path as the next chair delivered Nathaniel and Dafni. Dafni completed the pile of bodies as Nathaniel skillfully avoided them. Now, we were approaching the pile, but we managed to get off and avoid skiing over them.

As we helped everyone up and found a flat spot to regroup, there was definite anger, panic, and frustration within the troop. "Do we have to ski that?!" "It's getting dark!" "How are we gonna get down this mountain?!" "You said this was for beginners!" Everyone was yelling at me all at once.

"Guys! Listen, you can do this. We will go slow, and if it is too scary or steep, then you just take your skis off and slide down on your butt. Volodya just told me on the chair lift that they closed the green slope, and we only have this one."

Now there was panic: "I can't do it! No way! Impossible! This is too scary! We are beginners. We're going to get hurt!"

"You can do it! We will help you and show you how. Just try."

Pizza, French Fries, and Faceplants

With that we begin to ski down the first part of the mountain. I see Volodya starting to feel guilty and choose to take on Dimitra and Dalia showing them how to traverse sideways across the mountain and attempt to teach them how to turn. I take Kate, while Nathaniel works with Dafni, who seems to follow Nathaniel with minimal spills. Kate was somewhat of a natural and understood how to snowplow or make a pizza shape right away. She fell, too, but mostly giggled when she did.

We all wait together at the bottom of the first part of the hill, which admittedly isn't as bad as some parts I saw on the way up. I look up towards the top and see Dimitra and Dalia really struggling and Volodya speaking emphatically to them, waving his arms. I think I see both girls crying, but I can't be sure. I decide to side-step up the mountain to see what is happening. After 10 minutes of climbing, we meet each other, and both girls start screaming through tears as they see me: "There is no way we can ski this! We want to go home! We hate this! We're going to die!"

I try to tell them that they can slide down on their butts when it is steep and walk down when it isn't. They absolutely refuse and say they aren't skiing one more second. Volodya looks exasperated and suggests they walk back up to the top and take the lift down. The girls calm down and light up at hearing the suggestion.

"Okay, that sounds like a plan; take off your skis and carry them up. You didn't make it too far, so it shouldn't take you too long." We agreed that we'd see each other at the bottom and watched them as they worked their way up toward the top. I get one or two minutes actually skiing as I meet the others downhill.

Volodya tells us that he is going to ski down fast so he can get back on the chair lift to see if Dimitra and Dalia are okay at the top. I decide to keep helping Kate, and Nathaniel will help Dafni. We get moving because it is getting dark, and we may only have 20 minutes of light left. The wind has picked up while the fresh powder snow is blowing into us.

The pattern with Kate is pizza as she crosses the hill and begins her turn, then she can't quite make it around and winds up in French fries, pointing straight downhill. She flies for a while until she splatters. I ski behind her and pick up the skis, poles, hat, gloves, and whatever else falls off her.

I find her usually with a face full of snow, blinking and laughing. It takes a while to get her back up, knock all the snow off the bottom of her boots, and get her back on her skis, pointing in the right direction. I try to show her how to turn, and I'm certain she understands and has full intention to copy what I showed her, but just can't get her body to do it. Still, she proved tough and hardy despite her girly girl persona.

We made pretty good headway, but I honestly didn't know how long this run actually was or where to go. There were no other skiers to follow, and I wondered about bears eating us, but I just kept going downhill, hoping the bottom would come soon. I also wondered about Dafni and Nathaniel since they were somewhere behind us, out of sight.

It is now bona fide nighttime. Thick clouds hide the moon, snow is falling heavily, and the wind makes me wonder if this could be my first blizzard. Kate's giggling turned to irritation and growls after she spills for the 15th time. I'm sure she was sore, frustrated, cold, and probably not going to ever try skiing again.

I tried to keep encouraging her and telling her she was tough and doing a great job, but I was pretty worried. I didn't know how these foreign Ukrainian slopes work. Were we skiing off into oblivion? Did I miss a path somewhere? Would we die from bears, avalanches, or some freaky snow leopard? I realized I was in a very precarious situation. Although it was difficult, dark, and dangerous, we had no choice but to just keep going.

Worst Mother Ever

Finally, we turned a corner as the hill turned into a flatter path, and I could see far in the distance the chair lift! Hallelujah!!! I managed to contain my excitement like I knew it was there all along, and by now Kate could ski pretty straight in her French fry position while it was more flat. So we sailed right along to the chair lift.

Just as we get to it, I hear from above as if heaven was speaking, "YOU. ARE. THE. WORST. MOTHER. EVER!!!" I look up and see Dalia and Dimitra riding the chair lift down, swinging from side to side in the wind, clutching to the rails with angry faces.

"Hey! Girls! There you are! I'm so glad to see you! I'll meet you at the bottom."

Dalia is right. I think I might be the worst mother ever.

Who drags their kids to a mountain in the middle of Ukraine, buys a ski lift ticket, and gets on a chair lift without even reading reviews or knowing where she is to tell authorities if need be. John and Dino are waiting for us at the "lodge," and I am sure I will be met with a mix of relief and "I told you so."

Finally, Kate and I can see the bottom. I see Volodya walking up the hill towards us with his arms open, yelling, "Elli, Elli, Elli, I found you!" He found me? What? He's the one who got us into this mess, and he most certainly did not find me. He was at the bottom of the hill while I had been in a dark blizzard with bears, lions, and dragons for an hour and a half, picking up the pieces of Kate.

I skied right past Volodya and thought about spraying him with snow as I passed. I went to Dimitra and Dalia, who were shouting in unison all kinds of nonsense that I couldn't understand. I told them to wait and tell me after we find Dafni.

John was there with Dino and said he had Volodya call the ski rescue to go up with a snowmobile and find Dafni and Nathaniel. Although they were both super angry with me, I grabbed the girls, hugged them, and told them I was sorry. I didn't know it wasn't for beginners until we were already riding up in the chair.

Volodya made his way back to us and told us that they found Dafni and Nathaniel, and they were coming. "Thank God!" I felt so relieved and thought I wouldn't kill Volodya anymore, just injure him.

Within a few minutes, the snowmobile arrived, with Nathaniel looking pretty angry and Dafni softly crying but not hurt. The ski patrol got off his vehicle and started yelling at Volodya in some pretty fierce Russian. Volodya just kept his hands up, trying to explain something.

After the altercation, Volodya said, "It's okay. Don't worry. He is upset because you are first Americans to come to ski slope and I lose you in blizzard." He patted my back as if to say, "Ha! What fun we had!"

Dimitra and Dalia's Side of the Story

Once in the car facing our 4.5-hour drive home partially in a snowstorm, Dimitra and Dalia start talking over each other, trying to tell the rest of us how they almost died and how awful I am to bring them there. It took a while to understand what happened, but here is the story:

They hike back up the hill and ask the chair lift operator at the top to stop the chair lift and let them on to go back down. He doesn't speak English. He's telling them no and pointing downhill. They say they can't ski, they can't go downhill, and they have to ride the chair. He just keeps telling them no. So he gets out of his little operation booth and motions for them to go with him to the nearby cabin.

They walk inside and see two other men. Dimitra and Dalia figure that one of them must speak English, and that's why the other man told them to go there. So they explain again how they don't know how to ski, and they can't go down the mountain, so they need to take the chair back down. But the men don't speak English.

They point to the kitchen and pot on the stove, then point to the bed and say, "Spats, spats." Dimitra and Dalia yell, "No! No way," and point outside yelling, "Chair, chair." The men shake their heads no and point to the pot and the bed, saying, "Spats." One of the men walks over to the bed, points to the girls, and pats the bed, saying, "Spats." The girls start to freak out and cry. They run to the door, push it open, and leave.

At this point in the story, Volodya breaks in laughing, "No, girls. They are fathers. You are safe. He says "spats" for sleep. He tells you to sleep there. He give you food and you sleep. Nothing bad." Volodya is amused. The girls say they don't care. It was so scary, and they thought everything was weird. There was no way they were staying in some cabin with three men and eating soup.

"My God! I don't blame you! That's terrifying," I say. "How did you get on the chair lift?"

"He saw how upset we were and how much we were crying, so he gave in and let us get on," Dalia says.

"Look, guys, I'm so sorry this happened. I hated every minute of it myself. Poor Kate splattered the whole way down the mountain and ate 100 pounds of snow. Dafni was stuck and couldn't even ski. You guys thought you would…God knows what. On top of all of that, it was dark and during a snowstorm. I mean, we couldn't imagine a worse thing. Sometimes, weird things like this happen, but what's important is how you handle it. We have to have grit, tough it out, and fight through those things."

That last part really got me in trouble.

"Fight through? Have grit? Are you crazy?!!" Dalia yells. "We could have died, or been lost and frozen, or raped, or eaten by wild animals, or broken our bones falling off the mountain. You don't just bring your kids up to some mountain somewhere in a blizzard at night and tell them to have more grit!" That was the last word. A very angry last word. And then there was silence.

Navigating the Dark and Snowy Mountain

After reeling through piles of wretched guilt and remorse, I came through the other side and thought about it more. Maybe what Dalia said is true.

But maybe it's not.

Kate had never skied before in her entire life. She didn't freak out or refuse to try. She didn't give up after one fall. She picked herself up, reorganized, and tried again. She fell too many times to count and got back up one more time than she fell until she found the bottom of the mountain. I told her to slide down on her butt after every time she fell, but she wanted to keep trying. She didn't cry or yell at me or blame me for what was happening.

She did her best with her circumstances, even though she got frustrated and was surely tired of falling and eating snow. Yes, she was cold and had had enough, but she still found grit and pushed through.

Why is there such a difference between Kate and the other girls? Maybe her parents taught her better.

I have tried my best to make my kids finish what they start. Push through when things get tough. Don't ever give up. Hold the line, and so on. But Ukrainians have a culture of suffering and grit. Just for Kate to go to the store in winter, she has to walk far through the cold snow, carrying heavy bags home. Endurance is a way of life. Her parents lived as children and teenagers through the Soviet Union, food rationing, and ungodly fear. Grit wasn't even a choice for them; it was mandatory.

I realized, there in that car, in the silence of my kid's anger and frustration toward me, that they don't really know suffering. My parents did everything in their power so that I would never ever suffer, and I did the same. I shielded and cushioned my kids from difficulties and hardship. I made every effort to protect them from ever having it rough or being in danger.

Their perception of danger, threat, and difficulty is very skewed compared to others in the world. They have not known war, starvation, or true danger. They have not been left wanting; they have always had a warm bed and good food to eat. They don't walk miles in the snow to get groceries. Of course a steep slope at dusk with some snow falling makes them feel like they're moments from death.

What if there are times ahead when my kids might know war and starvation and ungodly fear? Then what? Will they have grit? Will they have the determination to live on and survive the mountain?

I don't know what is right. I don't know if I am the worst mother ever. What do you do? Throw your kids down the mountain and tell them to suck it up; here's your chance to exercise some grit? Or maybe Dalia is right—you just don't bring your kids up an unknown mountain in the dark, where they could get hurt, and tell them to have grit.

What I do know is that most mothers (including me) do our very best to prepare our kids for the future. Every mother has made mistakes. Every mother has probably felt like the worst mother ever at one time or another. Every mother carries perceptions that are altered by her own experience and the experiences of previous generations.

Maybe parenting is a mountain all its own, and we are thrown into the snowy darkness with a choice to make: Do we approach it with desperation or with defiance? Do we run, or do we take our falls with a sense of humor and keep inching down the mountain until we make it to the end?

What lessons do you think are most crucial for children to learn about facing challenges?

Share your thoughts in the comments below!