Tuesday, December 11, 2007

First turns of the new ski season



In a blink of an eye, the ski areas went from being brown and barren to having plentiful white powder. Several feet of snow (yes I mean feet) have fallen in the high country in the last two weeks, and Sunday Sarah & I headed for Winter Park to shake the rust out of our ski legs.

The first day out is always a bit of an adventure, and with another 6"+ of fresh powder Sunday was no exception. Feeling a bit like Bambi on the ice, we hit up a couple of steeper blues. Sarah's newly reconstructed knee didn't seem to keen to be skiing, so after a couple of runs she headed for the comfort of some hot chocolate.

I took the opportunity to power out some runs while the crowds were nonexistent. I was hitting the lift up, hopping off, powering down the long blues and skiing straight up to the chair and hopping on again. No lines at all meant I could carry speed off the base of the slopes straight through the lift lines with zero wait. Nice.

45 minutes later I had pounded out 5 runs and stopped by the restaurant at the top. Sarah was ready to give it another go, so we hit up a couple more runs before skiing back to the car with pretty burned up legs. The rutted powder and first day out combined to work me over pretty quickly despite all my trainer time the past couple of months.

Of course the first day out wouldn't be complete without a good crash and a pic of the aftermath. I caught an edge in the deep powder and went head over heels, sinking almost to my waist while trying to recover my lost ski.

No comments: