Im no longer a TAY'er

Hold on there and before the bells start pealing and the rejoicing begins, let me explain.

For the last 81 months I have skied every month, a verifiable turns-all -yearer. I have struggled through the months of August and September with long hiking approaches to ski sun-cupped snow.
I have identified myself as a TAY'er, bragged to my skiing and non-skiing friends about my obsession to hear them tell me that I am extreme in my obsession. I have watched the marketing and glamorization of skiing "all year" become  mainstream and people on the interweb congratulate the more extreme  tuns-all year'ers who self-promote their feats with long streaks in some truly terrible conditions. I have seen t-shirts and CD's for sale glamorizing this phenomenon.

But I have also seen the toll that this extreme manifestation of the sport of skiing has inflicted and have come to believe that "turning all year" has a moral element to it that I can no longer condone as a result.
I have snuck out the door on a Sunday and lied to my wife.. " I'm just going for a hike" to come back wasted and so tired that no further family socializing or discourse was possible until my  recovery.
I have told my child I couldn't play catch with him today as he stood there with his baseball mitt and wide innocent eyes looking up at me as I loaded the truck for another September hike to keep my streak alive.
But worst of all is the damage I have done to my ski gear. I return from this extreme turns all yearing with my skis coated in dirt, the edges torn and rent asunder by my coarse indifference to their well being. My bases gouged and grooved and and my boots, my boots. Covered in dirt, mud encrusted into their vibram soles( yes, boots have soles). Scuffed from rocks and their heels worn by my obsession. If they could talk they would say" I may be made for touring but not for this ."
It's taken me a while to come to this conclusion, but I think there is a moral element to extreme turns all yearing and as a result I am no longer going to try and ski ALL year. My god, even Rainer Burgdorfer's book "Ski and Snowboard Routes in Washington" doesn't envisage "turning all year" it not giving any recommendation for September in the  Appendix C.

Having made this decision on moral grounds I now feel vastly superior to those that will continue to extreme turn all year but will still read their posts but with a certain smugness that my personal decision is morally right and theirs not.

Edit to Add: Oh BTW , I'm also going to start a web based journal called Extreme Turning All Year Journal ( EXTAYJ) so can you that are still going to extreme turn all year despite being morally inferior, please send me your submissions so I can judge which are worthy for inclusion. I shall be the editor.

I'm pretty much with you.

I probably wouldn't do the TAY thing it it was not so convenient for me. Living in Oregon with Mt Hood so close, I just head up after work mid week and get a quick lap in on the Palmer. The hike to snow is typically only 5-10 minutes in the summer and I'll get a nice long run on perfect corduroy. This saves weekends for mt biking, hiking and time with my wife.

If it were much more work than this, I'd probably give up on the whole thing.

I still TAY, just not every month.

I still TAY, just not every month.

Interesting
Can one still TAY without TAYing???
To be TAY ... is it a tribe, a philosophy, a lifestyle?
Does your decision to remain TAY without succumbing to the moral dilemma of actually TAYing make you feel morally superior like I do now?

TAYing is just something I read about in a magazine and I thought it sounded cool... well, it didn't really sound cool, but there was a picture of a hot girl doing it. I didn't really get the appeal of summer skiing until I seen that.. I wanted to be cool of course, so I gave it a shot. It was kind of tough, so I just decided to change how I define TAY. It's all relative, right?

TAYing is just something I read about in a  magazine and I thought it sounded cool... well, it didn't really sound cool, but there was a picture of a hot girl doing it. I didn't really get the appeal of summer skiing until I seen that.. I wanted to be cool of course, so I gave it a shot. It was kind of tough, so I just decided to change how I define TAY. It's all relative, right?

It's all relative. Yes I agree. amen to that.