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.

A discouraging day

I awoke this morning, after a long night of vivid dreams, to a very cloudy and overcast morning, I laid there confused (since I had heard that we were going to have nothing but sunshine for the next week), then the weather report came on the radio (country of course since those are the ONLY stations we have here). The weather report said we were going to have another partly sunny day here in town, something certainly wasn't adding up. Eric, Sean, Kerry and I headed up to the hill despite the cloudy weather. After a stop in the rental shop, me to get skis, Kerry for snowboard boots and Sean and Eric for lift tickets, we headed up the hill. We got to the top of Apres Vous to realize we were having a classic Jackson inversion (cold and cloudy at the base and warm and sunny up top). After the funky weather we have been having though the snow on AV was bad (east coast crunch with quite a lot of death cookies). I took one run down and realized I either needed to find something better or just go home. The death cookies (imagine lots of little rocks of snow, lumpy and crunchy) caused a lot of vibration in my knee and caused intense pain. We headed up to Casper where it was more sunny for more of the runs. I did a few more runs, but instead of the ache I had been expierencing in my knee the past few days, there was intense searing pain. After 2 runs I went into the Casper lodge and sat on the couches by the fire, if I had had a book I think I would have hung out there all day. After a little break I elected to try again on my knee. The pain was still happening and I noticed my left ski was wavering more than I was comfortable with. I told the boys I needed to call the day before I did any damage to my knee. On my way down the trail we call the gully Kerry noticed a rainbow right on the cloud line. After stopping to admire the rainbow we noticed there was an awesome sundog. I dobut we would have seen either if I hadn't been going slow because of my knee. I am going to take a few days off of skiing and see how my knee feels, but I fear this is going to be an uphill battle between my brain and my body.

Sundog.

Ski day count 20 (already at 1/2 of last year).

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.....

1st ski day tomorrow!!!

Well tomorrow is the big day! My first day back on skis since my MCL tear. I am feeling pretty excited, but also very nervous. I am borrowing a pair of skis from work in a 146. They are our very classy performance skis (ie. the cheapest skis we have). A bunch of people from work are going to come out and do a few laps with me. We will see how it goes..... fingers crossed!.

I am still alive

Well family and friends I am still alive despite my disappearance on my blog posting. On Dec 30th I went to a wonderful orthopedic practice here in Jackson called Teton Orthopedics and they have been nothing but wonderful. Turns out I only have a partial tear of my MCL (learn more about knee ligaments here) which means that I will recover very quickly. As far as knee injuries go the MCL is a good one (looking on the positive side here, haha) because unlike the ACL it has its own blood supply and can repair on its own without surgery. This means that on January 13th I am clear to try skiing again. Although, the first day I will only be on the bunny slope, it will be nice to be out there again. The really nice part is that everyone at work is super supportive and they are all going to come out there with me and support me. I really enjoy the people I work with and they have been nothing but amazing. Today I went back to my doctor to get fitted with a new brace because I realized on Thursday that my brace had gotten really big since my knee is no longer so swollen so the brace wasn't supporting at all. My brace was also too long and was down into my ski boot which simply wouldn't do. They were really nice about it and just traded out my brace for a new smaller size. Here is the brace I have been wearing, it is meant for the most support in the highest impact situations. I guess it ought to be since it is a $700 brace.

All braced up and ready to go.

So this brace I have the joy of wearing 24/7 until the end of January, then for the month of February I will wear it any time I am out of bed, for March any time I leave the house, and beyond April any time I am doing any type of weight bearing sports until December 30th 2009.

I am really looking forward to Tuesday though, especially since all of my roommates (Kerry, Mike, Caroline and Melanie) all went skiing today. It sucked to see them all leaving, but it has been nice to have some time to bum around the house and do some napping which I am in desperate need of. Soon Caroline, Melanie and Els (our other house guest) will be moving into their apartment and we will go back to having just three of us here in the house, that is until the next visitors arrive, haha. I guess that is the plague of living in a ski town. Over the past week there have also been a bunch of UVM folks in town because the annual UVM Ski and Snowboard trip was here. Some of my friends were in town so I spent a fair amount of time visiting with them. Tomorrow I am thinking about driving to Idaho Falls, ID which is about 2 hours away. Idaho Falls is the nearest city that has normal chain stores and the like. Here in Jackson we only have one store that sells yarn and they run about $8 for a small ball of yarn, so being poor we have to drive to Idaho to buy some yarn we can afford, thank god gas is only $1.61. Well that is all for now, I will try and do a better job keeping this updated, but my apologies I tend to slack on this.

Epic Day!

Well today was one for the Jackson record books. In 12 hours we got 25 inches of snow and we were under the 3rd ever EXTREME avalanche danger (in all the year of assessing the danger only the 3rd time!) We (Mike, Kerry, AJ, Brandon and Erik) all got up at 5:45 so we could open presents together and then have a big family breakfast before we went skiing. By 7 we were sitting down to a great breakfast which included egg scramble, bacon, sausage, fruit, pancakes and of course mimosas!

The rubble after opening presents!

AJ and Eric cooking up some tasty food.

It's all in the presentation!

Brandon and Kerry pretty excited!

Kerry's car is now entombed in snow.

We left the house and headed to the mountain, by 8:45 we were in line for the gondola. There were tons of avalanche blasts and ski patrol was working as hard as they could, but it took until 12:50 for them to finally get the terrian off the gondola safe to open. Because the snow was coming down so fast and so much it was very prone to sliding so they had to be really cautious on what they opened. When we finally got up it was more snow than I have ever seen! I started skiing and it was about halfway up my chest which made it very hard to keep moving. The snow was so light though we all kept choking on it as it sprayed up in our faces. During our second run we happened to be at the right place at the right time and got first tracks on a trail that was just being opened. By our third run there were a lot of soft bumps and when I was about 3/4 of the way down the trail my ski tip buryed into one and I fell and did, from what I understand from the man who saw it, quite a big tumble. During the tumble I had the pleasure of a full chiropractic adjustment couresty of the Gros Ventre trail. As I layed there I wasn't sure if I should even move because my back was in a lot of pain. A nice man came down and took off my other ski and stood there while I decided if I needed help. I told him after a minute or so I was okay. Then I stood up and realized I was entirely not okay. I couldn't put any weight on my left leg. Somehow by a miracle I skied down on my one good leg. I got down to the bottom where Kerry, Mike and Erik were waiting and started bawling. I hobbled to the locker room, got changed and then decided I did really need to go to the clinic. Turns out I may have ripped my MCL in half. I will need to get it checked out by and orthapaedic and probably get an MRI. Let the fun times begin. I am trying to stay really positive and optimistic about it though. We will see how it all goes and I will try and keep you all posted as I know more! Merry Christmas everyone!

All of us waiting for the gondola to open!

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.

POWDER!!!!

Today started with another early morning, as I woke up at 6am I was greeted with an unfortunate message, "Teton Pass is closed this morning" but also a very welcomed 12" of fresh snow! Now to you all Teton Pass means nothing, but what it means is that the road that takes people from Jackson to some nearby Idaho towns was closed, like bars that cross the road closed. This meant that none of the managers could get to work to open the shop, which meant it was me and three others left to hold down the fort until reinforcements arrived at 9am. It was a crazy morning, even once everyone arrived. In the course of the morning, I helped a couple from Austria that made me pull out at least 6 pairs of skis apiece so that they could check the edges. They insisted that we did not take good care of our skis and that I should get them sharpened right away for them, I told them that wasn't going to happen and they continued to rant about how it was icy (again there was 12" of fresh snow, so I don't know what they were smoking) and how in Europe they keep all skis perfectly tuned at all times. After getting rid of them I heard a little boy wailing while trying to put his boot on. I ended up setting up the families skis and I finally got the little kid settled by giving him orange skis and writing his name on the skis (oh the simple things). By the time I finished with the families skis the little kid was soundly asleep in his fathers arms. The little boys older sister was adorable and kept calling her skis "ski boards". Fun times.

At 2 I finally escaped the shop, an hour late, and Kerry and I headed out to the mountain. We thought all the powder would be gone, but we found a great stash. The first run I found knee to thigh deep stuff. By the third run I had found a few spots of waist deep stuff. We ran into our boss Jamal on the lift and brought him to our secret stash and he was stoked on it and said it was the run of the day for him. We skied all the way until close because the skiing was so great!

On another note, family I am sorry for the sporadic blog entries, I will try to be more consistent.

Ski count now at 15, but I might be losing count!

Stubborn

Being stubborn thinking my very sore foot (remember the ski boot incident) was just fine I tried to ski after my shift at work. Jackson had opened another new lift (Sublette Quad, as well as the Tram) so I headed out to see what was left of the snow. The snow was mostly skied out, and it was bitter bitter cold out. While I was on the Sublette lift it stopped, in full wind, for a good 5 mins, I was very chilled by the time I got off the lift. In the end I was very cold and my foot ended up hurting so much that I was almost in tears. I gave up after only a few runs. Saddness...

In the evening, Mike, Brandon, AJ and I ended up playing Canasta. Brandon and I lost horribly, but it was still a fun time. I know you are laughing, we really are a bunch of old folks.

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).

Another day in the life

Last week I ran into a fellow UVM engineer and TBP memeber at a bar that I graduated with named Corinna. Corinna and her twin sister Nikki are both living in Jackson. Funny thing about Nikki, upon meeting her she was sure that she knew me. Turns out she had all of her accounting classes in college with my best friend Jess and had been to my apartment to work on various projects during senior year. It has been really nice getting to get to know both of them especially since they are my only female friends here in Jackson (I live with 3 guys right now and our neighbors are 3 more guys that we have made friends with). My life has become a bit of a sitcom really.

Anyhow, today Kerry and I went skiing with one of our neighbors AJ and Corinna. The resort opened a new lift so there was a bunch of fresh snow off of the Thunder Quad since it had been closed before that. It was great to get to ski fresh snow with some new friends. We all had our fair share of graceful falls and it was a day full of good hearty laughs and screams. Corinna was a bit hesitant about the powder, but ended up doing a great job. After being out so late the night before it was an early night in our house.

Tuesday is the new Friday night

After a hard day at Targhee I decided to sleep in, but I guess the world conspired against that, Jon ended up calling me at 1 am on Tuesday morning, and then I got another call at 7:30 am so my sleep was very broken. I ended up getting up at 8 and doing some random stuff around the house, then I decided 10 mins before the bus came that I wanted to go skiing. I hurried to get ready and headed out. The bus to the mountain ended up never showing up, so we got the town shuttle to call and find out what was wrong. Turns out the driver, who had been doing the route for several years forgot to go to the stop and pick us up. The supervisor felt very bad so he ended up driving out to pick two of us up and drove us all the way to the mountain with no other stops. Once I got there my phone died so I couldn't meet up with anyone, so I ended up exploring around by myself. It was very peaceful.

Tuesday night we went to see a bluegrass band that plays every week at the Silver Dollar Bar. We found a table next to a group of women out for a Christmas party. They were all wearing festive hats and the boys (Brandon, Kerry and Mike) started chatting with them and convinced them to give them the extra hats. The boys wore them around the bar for a while until I refused to be seen with them anymore. By the time the band started playing the bar was packed and it ended up turning into a great dance party. We all had a great time and will for sure be going back!

The boys stoked on their hats!

Day at Targhee

Kerry and I went on a big adventure today. Since we are Jackson employees we can go to Grand Targhee for free. They are 100% open and they have gotten crazy amounts of snow in the last few days. The drive over there was quite interesting. We came across a pair of elk running right in front of my car and went through some very small little towns in Wyoming and Idaho. The pass that takes you into Idaho was a bit slippery and the access road to Targhee was crazy slippery. We made it there safely thank to my sweet new snow tires.


View Larger Map

Roadtrip to Targhee.

The pass with huge rocks, sharp corners and 10% grade.

Elk.

Targhee access road.

Welcome to Targhee.

When we got there we ran into another guy from the retail shop that I run into all the time named Andrew in the ticket line. We jumped on the first lift and we were amazed with the wide open nature of the mountain. Once you are above the tree line it is literally a wide open snow field, you can only imagine what that is like in the wind... brrr. When we got off the lift there was a million choices of ways to go and beautiful blue skies. We headed off to the right and we were greeted with windblown powder, but after a few hundred yard the snow softened right up and we were in soft powder about shin to knee deep. Once we got near the bottom I was cruising along a traverse and I recognized our friend Jake from the rental shop. He was there with his roommate Adam. We ended up skiing with them until lunch. We all had our fair share of graceful falls, but it was a great time.

Not a bad view of the Tetons.

Perfect blue bird and snow trees.

Loving it.

Reflection.

We ran into Adam (left) and Jake (right).

Me skiing in the pow.

Action shot.

After a lunch break and warming up our toes, Kerry and I went out for a few more runs, but during lunch the clouds rolled in and the light turned totally flat. We ripped down a groomer and when we hit the bottom we both agreed we were feeling pretty tired and sloppy so we decided to head home before the snow in the pass got too bad. We stopped on the way home for a little snack and because I was feeling sleepy and needed to get out of the car. As we came over the pass on the way home a guy in a 2 ton pickup decided to pass another car, which meant he was barrelling down the hill while fishtailing heading straight at me in my lane. It was super scary, I don't know why some people have to drive like idoits in the snow. Overall a great day, I can't get over how amazing things are right now. I wake up every day and I think I must be dreaming. It is nice to be surrounded with so many nice people and to live in such a beautiful place.

Classic.

In the evening we watched a movie and then me and the boys (Kerry, Mike and Brandon) went on an adventure to Subway for dinner. Meatball subs were thoroughly enjoyed and we learned that here in Jackson they put way more meat on your sandwich than a normal Subway would, good deal.

Gondola and Casper Open

Jackson finally opened the gondola and casper lifts today. Kerry and I were on different shifts on Saturday so I ended up tooling around on my own after I got out of work at 1:30. On Sunday Kerry and I got sent home at 11:30 so we skied for a few hours. Many rocks were hit, skis survived okay though. The coverage was a bit better on Sunday because they worked out some of the rockier spots, but the unpleasant sound of rocks on your bases was still a common one. No pictures for these 2 days, really how many pictures of big mountains do we need.

Ski day count at 9.

It's a rough life

So Kerry and I have had off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (really we never work). An average day off right now consists of getting up at 7:30, getting to the bus around 8:30, skiing until about 10:30, then coming home for lunch. We spend the remainder of the day pretty much cooking and eating. Today to switch up the routine we went to work. We got there at 9 and by 9:30 they had sent us out on a ski break until 11:30. You can really feel the trouble the weather is causing throughout the village. In almost 2 weeks we have only gotten 8 inches. Everyone is hoping it will start snowing soon and that the weather picks up the holiday season bookings.

Today I thought it might be fun to try a demo ski, so I followed my friend Jackie's suggestion and tried out the Salomon Lady in a 158. In the death cookie and hard packed conditions, it was a bit like skiing on a floppy noodle. I am sure on soft snow conditions they would be really fun since they were very responsive and wanted to really made nice turns when you would be going much slower. On a rather big hill I tried to stop because there was an obstruction in the trail and the noodle-like skis nearly killed me. I tried to push hard on my edges and I started bouncing off the surface of the snow. A fun ski, but I just took them on the wrong stuff and skied a bit too fast for it. I think this has convinced me that I could try a stiffer men's ski.

After skiing, we headed back to work for a thrilling afternoon of learning how to be a cashier. After an afternoon of that, I am very convinced I want to stay a binding tech, it is just way easier and more fun. We got sent home from work about an hour and half early and then feasted on some delicious chili and cornbread, all made from scratch. Yum Yum!!

Tomorrow I think we are going to switch it up a bit and skip skiing and go cut a Christmas tree instead. Here in Wyoming you just have to buy a permit from the forest service for $5 and you can go out to the public lands and cut one down.

Ski day count now at 7.

A nice view waiting for the bus.

Kerry looking very unimpressed about going to work.

Snow guns working hard.

Me and Kerry, I know another picture that looks the same....

Riding home on the bus.

Fun times from the 80's

Came across this funny video called Ski Dance from a rare 1986 German ski movie called "Fire and Ice." Enjoy!

Birthday wishes do come true

So yesterday as my birthday wish I asked for snow, although there was no snow in the forecast I wanted some anyway. But Mother Nature came to the rescue, at 6:25 this morning I awoke to what I though was someone dragging a metal trash can around outside, but then it continued for a few minutes. It was early so it took a few minutues for the gears in my brain to start turning but then I excitedly realized that it was a snow plow!!!!! I got out of bed and looked outside and everything was white. Kerry woke me up 40 mins later, the plow had woken him too, and we decided it was a day for skiing, not sleeping. So we threw on our gear and headed up to the Village. We got there and it was still dumping snow and there was about 6-8 inches on the ground. Unfortunately the lack of snow over the past few weeks led the entire town of Jackson to think the same as us, and as a result the mountain was packed. My first 2 runs were a mess. Within 30 seconds of the top of the run I hit a patch of ice then a pile of fluff and I fell head first into the ground, my helmet comes in hand again and I slid head and hands first down the hill. As a result I had snow all over my belly and arms due to inproper tucking and I also recieved a buise on my hand from falling on my pole. Later the same run, I fell again on a patch of ice which I am sure will lead to another good bruise this time on my hip. Kerry and I then had to go in to fix some footbed and boot issues. After working out the kinks in our boots we I met up with another UVM'er named Sarah and we skied a bunch of runs with her. The boot-fixing break served me well and after that I remembered how to ski what we might call 'varied terrian.' Due to the lack to snow and then the sudden dump conditions ranged from fresh powder, to ice, to hardpack to death cookies, which made for some fun times. There were some beautiful soft bumps toward the bottom of the trail that I really enjoyed hitting up. In Kerry's words "You ripped them up," I guess all those miserable East Coast bump runs with the boys served me well. By lunch time Kerry's feet were killing him because of new boot and footbed issues, so we decided to head home for some lunch. The rest of the afternoon comprised of napping, eating and a big grocery store adventure. Today makes the ski day count a grand total of 4, and I bet there are some East Coasters who are beating that, but I will catch up soon.

Snow day!!! We got several more inches after this photo was taken.

Mike celebrating the snow by running barefoot into it. Needless to say his feet were a bit chilly...

What a difference a day makes.

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.