Conquering the cold

When most Lakers make plans for New Year’s Day activities, swim suits and water skis aren’t among the required gear.
    But for hard-core members of the Smith Mountain Lake Water Ski Club, Jan. 1 isn’t just the first day of the year. It’s the first ski day of the year
    The SML Water Ski Club will hold its 19th Polar Bear Ski Day on Jan. 1, 2012.     Conceived by charter members Todd Rowland, Tom Tanner and Luis Sanchez in 1994, the event has been embraced by club skiers and a smattering of guests over the years. Rowland has been on the wet end of the towline on all 18 previous Polar Ski outings and plans to be there for the next one.  
    “The first year we did it, the air temperature was in the 60s and the water was mid-50s,” Rowland said. “We had 15 or 16 skiers that day, and the weather was so pleasant that we ended up skiing most of the afternoon.”
    But SML’s early January conditions aren’t always that hospitable, and that affects the turnout.
    “There were two years that only Sara Roach [now Sara Lemley, who lives in Florida but often makes the trip for Polar Ski] and I skied the event,” Rowland said. “We have yet to ski in the middle of a genuine winter storm, but there’s been snow on the ground for several occasions. One year, the towboat wouldn’t start because water was frozen solid in the exhausts. We ended up skiing behind a bass boat. That was humiliating, to say the least.”
    Dress for participants varies according to weather conditions. Ginger Tanner, who often hosts the event with husband Tom at their sheltered dock in Baywood, wears a dry suit over long johns or sweats. Tom Tanner usually opts for a short wet suit, counting on a successful dock start and a finishing coast back to the ladder to keep him from spending significant time immersed. Rowland and a few other brave souls gut it out in summer attire.
    “About three years into the event, Sara [Lemley] dared me to ski without a wet suit,” he said. “I accepted the challenge and have done it that way ever since.”
    Over the past few years, participation has been running close to a dozen skiers in a wide range of ages. In 2006, 4-year-old Emma Barber, daughter of Boardwalk residents Don and Cindy Barber, was the first skier off the dock, setting the record for the youngest participant in the event’s history. Teenage slalom-skiing champions Randolph and Caroline Cooper regularly participate. Last year, ski club members Gene and Jo Grimley of Elon, N.C., took honors as the event’s oldest participants. Now 70, both said they plan to participate again this year.      
    “We enjoy the exercise and being with friends on the lake,” said Gene Grimley, who spends in-season weekends at SML fine-tuning his slalom-course skills. “We look forward to being part of the Polar Ski as long as we’re physically able.”  
    Skiers who aren’t club members are welcome to take a Polar Ski run with the group but are asked to make a small donation to help cover the cost of gasoline. Participants also bring food to share at the post-ski lunch, which Ginger Tanner lays out in the warmth of her lake-level recreation room.
    A number of supportive onlookers – relatives and friends of the participants suitably bundled up in winter hats and coats — also crowd the dock “to encourage the crazies,” Ginger Tanner said. Next-door neighbors Terry and Dee Chisholm have expanded the spectator-sport aspect of the event by hosting a Polar Ski-watching party from their deck.
     “A couple years ago, we were at a New Year’s Eve gathering,” Terry Chisholm said. “When we mentioned that the Polar Skiers would be at our neighbors’ dock the next day, people were really interested, and we had about 20 of them over the next afternoon. They loved watching ski club members braving the cold.”
    Now it’s become the entertainment for an annual Jan. 1 party, with guests flocking out on the deck to toast the participants, yell encouragement and cringe when someone flubs a dock start, takes a fall or misjudges a return to dock and ends up submerged in the frigid waters.
     “Last year, there were over 30 of us,” Chisholm said. “It’s become an annual highlight, and we’re looking forward to Polar Ski 2012.”
    So is Rowland.
    “It’s an SML tradition,” he said, “like jumping off the Cliffs on July 4th weekend used to be, only a whole lot chillier.”

WANT TO GO?

SML Water Ski Club Polar Bear Ski Day

What: New Year’s Day event open to anyone who wants to ski or just watch. Potluck lunch follows. RSVP to Tom Tanner, 540.721.3582 or tvtanner@aol.com by Dec. 30.

When: Noon on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012

Where:  Tom and Ginger Tanner’s home, 425 Baywood Dr., Moneta

Cost:  No charge for members; donations accepted for non-members to cover gasoline  charges.

More info: smlwaterski.org