1 month ago today....

Well today it has officially been a month since "the fall." Today I was greeted with a lovely 12 inches of fresh snow. Finally some new snow on top of all that crust! Since my mom's flight got canceled for a second time I elected to go skiing after work. At the shop the pickings were slim for skis so I was left with very few choices. I settled on the K2 Lotta Luv in a 149. I took the gondola up and decided to really face my fears and head down the trail I got hurt on on a nice powdery bump trail. What a great run, the skis performed beautifully, playful, responsive and really built my courage back up. I was able to cruise down through the bumps and also make nice strong turns. I will be putting my mom on them when she finally gets in to Jackson tonight! It was a wonderful day, I only did 2 runs, but after a painful day on Thursday and a fever and flu over the weekend I was very pleased.

Since I was sick over the weekend, I was a little hat making machine. Alex, one of the guys I work with at the shop, was impressed with my hats, so I told him that if he bought yarn I would gladly make him a hat. I finished on Saturday, and then later in the evening Kerry was complaining that I never made him hats anymore, so I felt compelled to whip another one out in about 3 hours. The pictures are below, both are designs I came up with from my own noggin, feel free to use them as inspriation, but I crochet as I go so there are no patterns.

Hat for Alex, he chose the color scheme and requested mountain ranges.

Hat for Kerry, he just handed me the blue yarn, which I ran out of, so I had to rip it out and add the orange designs.

Back at it

I made it through my first 2 days of skiing. The first day was on Tuesday, I went out with a big crew of friends from back home and also the rental shop. We lapped the bunny slope for a while and everyone went through the little terrian park that we were calling park-a-sorous. I took out our basic rental skis from the shop, the Rossingol Voodoo 74 in a 146. They were an interesting ski, certainly built back my confidence, they were light and easy to move around, but really didn't hold edges well. After a few laps on the bunny slope Sean, Eric and I went up to Apres Vous (the intermediate area). We did a few runs and then went in for lunch. On the bunny slope there was no pain at all, but it is also flat. The intermediate area caused my knee to be a bit achy, but nothing major. After lunch I took the gondola up. I got to the top though and had a moment of panic when I realized I had no idea how to get down since I had never paid any attention to the signs I didn't know what was rated blue and also was groomed. I ended up facing my fears and went on the trail I got hurt on. I really had no concept of how far I had gone on one leg. After working until 6:15 we went home and went to the WORT for bluegrass Tuesday.

First run on Tee-Wee.

Riding AV.

First real run with the brace, notice how huge my knee is.

Riding the rope tow!!

Top of the gondola.

Another Tuesday at the Wort (great expressions here).

The engineers.

PBR.

Wednesday I worked from 7:45 until 2 so I elected to take the day off from skiing. Our boss in the rental shop told us that at the top of the Tram (the highest point at Jackson ~10000ft) in the cabin they serve waffles and that with our employee pass it is only 2.50 (a bargin for food at the resort). Alex, Jacki and Kerry and I all rode up the tram to get waffles. We got there at 2:35 only to find out that they turn off the waffle irons at 2:30, but because we were so excited they turned them back on for us. The clerk asked us all how we wanted to pay, and I guess he must have assumed we were 2 couples because he asked if we wanted to pay couple by couple, we laughed and all said "no singles..." Alex, Kerry and I got Nutella on ours and Jacki got brown sugar buteer. They slightly overcooked Kerry's so we got one for free with strawberry presevers and whipped cream. It was a good time with awesome friends. Afterward the rest skiied down and I took the tram down.

Our new 100 person tram.

Today was day 2 post MCL. Kerry and Jacki were trying out snowboarding so I hung out on the bunny slope for a few runs. Jacki was snowboarding for the first time ever and Kerry for the first time in 6 years. Somehow, despite the fact that I was on skis I managed to give Jacki some of my limited snowboarding advice even though I haven't snowboarded in 2 years and have gone a total of 8 times. She did really well, especially after AJ gave her a mini-lesson. After a few runs I went up to Apres Vous and did a few blue runs, my knee felt really good and my biggest complaint of the day was that my ears were cold. After the other day on the performance skis from the shop (Rossignol Voodo 74's) I decided to take out some demos (Rossingol Scratch BC Girl). The Scratch BC were so much more responsive and lively. When I first rented them out I noticed that the edge was compressed in, which seemed like a big problem, but the guys in the repair shop told me to give it a try and just to keep the damaged ski on my non-injured leg. They also told me to bring them back in if they felt funny, but they felt great. I managed do 12 min laps of Apres Vous lift (liftline to liftline) which is pretty respectable (pre-injury record was 10 mins). My knee is feeling really good. Tonight Caroline, Melanie and Els (they all stayed at our house for 2 weeks while they were homeless) came over and made us all dinner. It was great. Now we are down to 5 in our house, Kerry, Mike and me and then Sean and Eric (friends from UVM). It is much quieter these days.

Ski count at 19.

Some random other photos....

Monday night at the Caddy.

Sean and Kerry riding geese ($24,000 geese).

$42,000 cowboy, now we have to ask why these are sitting outside.....

Skill

This just takes skill. After running over many many rocks this season on Monday I finally put a good ding in my skis. Surprisingly not in the bases, but instead in the metal tip! I was coming down out of some trees and down onto a traverse (going from steep to flat), and my ski tip just went straight down into the snow and crunch. I of course fell flat on my face and ended up choking on the snow (I was mid-scream so I got a mouthful of snow). Both tips took a pretty good hit, but the picture below shows the worst of the two..... Still ski-able, just a little battle scar....

Notice the lichen from the rock now ground into my ski tip.

On Tuesday I took a pair of demo skis out. It was the same kind as last time (Dynastar Legend Exclusive Powder), but this time in a 165 instead. The skis were up over my head, and they definitely gave me a run for my money. In the end I learned 165 is just a little too much ski for me, they can go much faster than I want to go, and were hard for me to control in the packed bumps. This was by far the longest ski I have ever skied and was just too much ski for someone my size. This makes ski day 16 though.

Tram Opens!

Kerry and I were both scheduled to work from 9-1, after a very busy morning we elected to take out some demos. I took out the Dynastar Legend Exclusive Powder in a 158, a mouthful of a name I know. I think I would enjoy them a lot if I had remembered how to ski. I was just generally a mess and the light was pretty flat. I am going to give them another try another day.

I now agree that bad things happen in threes. In the course of 40 mins I managed to do a cartwheel on my skis, landing the cartwheel on my head (ouch!). After calling it a day on my skis, I went back to the shop to return my skis, only to find out my boots were totally iced over so I slipped and fell on the floor (whoops). Then, worse still, I went down to the locker room to take off my boots and ended up dropping my ski boot while putting it on the rack, Kerry and I both jumped out of the way to save our toes, but somehow my boot bounced off the floor and ended up slitting open the bottom of my foot, right on the ball of my foot. It was a bloody mess and made it very painful to walk.

We headed home and ran to the post office to pick up my Christmas package then we made a quick dinner and met up with our neighbors to go to Tram Grand Opening Party. It was really cold out, but everyone was there with PBR in hand. The tram made its grand entrance, and what an event it was! Santa even repelled out of the tram. After the ceremony we headed Nick Wilson's (a bar/cafe at the base of the mountain) for a pitcher of beer with Corinna and Nikki, then we headed along to the Mangy Moose (another bar at the mountain) for the after party. It was a fun evening and I met a ton of new people that I will never remember the names of. :) Here is a video of the ceremony!



And some of my not so good photos (excuse me it was puking snow!)....

Brandon, me and Kerry.

The new tram!

Kerry warming up his hands while enjoying a beer (yes, those are my mittens).

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

So today was my 22nd birthday and what wonderful day it was. I had to get up early to go to work from 7:45 to 1. At work I spent a solid 2 hours just peeling old stickers off skis, weirdly enough it was quite relaxing and I liked it much better than sitting behind a desk. Around 10 the traffic in the shop picked up a bit and we had a steady flow of people right up until 1. I had some pretty entertaining folks that had no idea about skiing, including one girl from New Zealand who didn't know what the elastic portion at the bottom of your snow pants was for (she had it around her knees constricting all the blood flow to her feet).

Once we were released from work Kerry and I decided to go demo some equipment for the afternoon (which we can borrow for free because we work in the shop). I tried a pair of Atomic Seventh Heavens. They were a much different sort of ski than I normally use, but boy were they able to carve and charge through just about everything. I would certainly agree with this review from US Outdoor, they definitely gave me a big kick in the butt if I got into the backseat (leaning too far back for those who don't know) and got me right into the right form. I felt like just an afternoon on the skis made me realize all the bad habits having center-mounted twin tips have gotten me into. The weather was warm (about 45) and perfectly blue bird. The sky was the bluest I have ever seen, and the snow was like you would find it in mid-April. Towards the end of the afternoon I took my demos into some softened bumps on the side of the trail and they were super fun and made short turns a breeze.

Kerry taking a little break on the new trail that was opened. Notice the brown on the valley floor.

Perfect blue bird day.

Kerry and I, I have no idea how many of these we will have by the end of the season.
Notice my new mirrored goggle I was given on my first day of work!

After an afternoon of skiing Kerry suggested that we go to the Mangy Moose for a drink. This is a really cool pub at the base of the mountain that actually has a real stuffed moose that hangs from the ceiling. There was a family in their getting a post-skiing snack and I saw one of the kids point to the moose (that is attached to a sleigh) say "But mommy Santa is missing!" It was very cute. Since it was Pearl Harbor day we had Kamikaze shots (on special that day) and also got my first Corona ever! Our roommate Mike also came by as well once he got out of snowboard instructor training. After that we all took the bus home and I had a tasty dinner and relaxed on the couch. It was a very nice day.