FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2002 — Utah is a war zone this morning. As Salt Lake City gears up for today’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony, F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters prowl the skies, 15,000 gun-toting guards patrol the streets (including 5000 US soldiers — more than are currently on the ground in Afghanistan), and a million-plus visitors shrink from every piece of trash lest it bear the deadly brush of anthrax. Over $300 million has been spent on security for this year’s games, and yet a very real danger remains. Because, while such unprecedented security measures may indeed prevent a terrorist attack, terror exists in many forms, and smacking into a tree at 90 miles an hour is definitely one of them.

War might be hell, but at least it has a certain logic to it. Skiing, on the other hand, is an unfathomably irrational pursuit. Not only does it involve numbing temperatures, extravagant expense, and the strapping-on of absurdly cumbersome footwear, it’s horrific. For starters, there can be few activities more unpleasant than climbing aboard a moving ski lift (almost half of all skiing fatalities involve ski-lift bloopers). And it gets worse. Surviving the lift means confronting the grim prospect of the slope itself. But, short of faking a lift-related injury, you have no choice. You have to ski. You’ve come hundreds of miles, spent hundreds of dollars, and so ... whoosh.

The first thing a beginning skier learns is that snow isn’t as soft as it looks. You learn this as you cartwheel down the slope, your skis soaring gracefully overhead. The second thing you learn is that standing up with skis on is an exhausting, agonizing, and humiliating exercise. The harshest lesson of all, though, is that you will have to do all this — falling, standing up, falling, standing up — scores of times before you finally reach the bottom of the slope. And, in the unlikely event you do make it down in one piece, your ordeal is far from over. The dreaded lift, as ever, awaits.

Despite the inherently disagreeable nature of the activity, Americans love to ski. About 54 million people a year hit the slopes in the US. And sometimes the slopes hit back. Each year, roughly 165,000 people suffer serious skiing-related injuries. Last year, 39 skiers were paralyzed. According to the National Ski Areas Association, there were 35 skiing deaths in 2001 (and 12 snowboarding deaths). Sonny Bono came a cropper on the slopes a few years back, as did Michael Kennedy. Skiing-related injuries cost the US hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Knees are twisted. Skulls are cracked. Arms are snapped. So why do we do it?

This question may be impossible to answer. It could be that we harbor a deep-seated need to confront our mortality from time to time. It could be that we have been brainwashed into thinking that skiing is fun. Or it could be that we are just incredibly stupid. One thing, however, is certain: while visitors to Salt Lake City may be feeling a little edgy this morning, they are in infinitely better shape than the few brave souls who will be hurtling, sans brakes, down Utah’s wind-bitten mountainsides.