When I see it I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But there are so many wrong ways to carry your skis, it's scary.

Carrying your skis correctly is all about confidence and poise, not to
mention comfort. Most of the time, when you see someone carrying their
skis incorrectly, they have an unpleasant look on their face.
Coincidence? I think not.

Consider this column a public service. This is a ski town and people
should know how to carry their skis. The problem is, most people don't.
In a study conducted on a sunny afternoon at the Aspen Mountain Gondola
Plaza, maybe one in 10 came close to carrying their skis correctly.

It should also be stated that carrying your skis incorrectly is one of
the deadest-dead giveaways of being a gaper, along with earmuffs, lift
tickets attached near the neck of the ski parka and pulling the
foot-rest bar down on the chairlift with no warning. What exactly is a
gaper you might ask? All I can say is that if you don't know the answer
to that question, you probably are one.

Carrying your skis correctly is easy. Simply stand them up with the
bindings interlocked, throw an arm around the back of the tips and
hoist up onto your shoulder so that the tips face forward and down,
tails back and up. With this method, your shoulder acts as a fulcrum
that rests just above the binding while your arm stabilizes the little
teeter-totter you have just made.

There are a couple of ways to carry your skis that are on the far end of the spectrum from this beautifully efficient way.

Let's start with the Bear Hug. This might be the most painful to watch.
The Bear Hug occurs when the ski carrier has so completely given up on
trying to hold their skis correctly that they wrap their arms around
their sticks like they are holding on for dear life. And typically they
are. A common result of the Bear Hug is skis that have come apart to
form an X-like shape that is being held to the body. The people who do
this know it is wrong, but don't care. Don't be a statistic. Don't do
the bear hug.

In the realm of pure entertainment, no method of incorrectly carrying
your skis is more intriguing than the Waiter's Tray Method. This when a
ski carrier holds the skis palm-up near the middle and hoists them into
the air with the elbow near a 90-degree angle. Some people take this
even further and do the Atlas method, where the arm is extended even
higher into the air.

The there is the Scoop. This is closely related to the Bear Hug,
although not quite as bad. But it still falls in the dead giveaway
category. This is where the ski carrier grabs the skis in a cup-like
fashion from the bottom of the binding and lifts slightly off the
ground. This usually results in the top portion of the ski resting on
the upper body, forcing the carrier into an awkward posture where the
chest area is in a fight to be in line with the rest of the body.

But if there was one incorrect way to carry your skis that Where's
Wacko might consider, you know, if I had somehow forgot how badass I
was, it would be the Texas Suitcase. This is accomplished by looping
the pole straps through opposite ends of the skis in such a way that
the poles act as a handle for the ski suitcase you just made. Leave it
to those Texans to figure out a way to make something bigger, easier
and goofier.

I hope this lesson has been valuable to you all. Maybe if carrying your
skis incorrectly is your thing, you have discovered a new method. Or
maybe the light has just flashed on and you, at this very moment, are
promising yourself that you will no longer be an amateur when it comes
to carrying your skis. Either way, I think we have all learned
something. I have to go because I am running off to Utah for a few days
of skiing at Alta where, at the very least, no one is carrying their
snowboard incorrectly. But something about the pioneer history of the
Mormons leads me to suspect that they would know how to carry their
skis correctly, since their ancestors had to carry all that they owned
across the prairie when they migrated west. But we'll see.

Where's Wacko realizes that if everyone carried their skis correctly,
he'd have nothing to write about this week. Send him your rainy day
column ideas at curtis@aspendailynews.com