Morning all,<br><br>
I'm back, at work, at my desk. I wasn't around here much lately. I was adding it up in the shower this morning, I've been away from my office for the past 9 biz days! That's a lot. Last week, I was in Cali for a convention all week. Then, the week before Baltimore/Chicago (two days each).<br><br>
It's good to be home, for a bit.<br><br>
Fort Hose that are interested in this kinda stuff, here's my mini ski report:<br><br>
Friday: Squaw Valley, USA - I arrived at Sqauw, early, I had a lot of running around to do before I could ski. I had contacted the demo shop at the top of the Funitel, and arranged to purchase a pair of skis. They were going to sell all of their demos since it was the end of the season, and I talked them into selling me a pair about a week early. So, I needed to rent boots and poles in the village, and get a lift ticket and get dressed, then ride up to the top, and get my skis. Anyway, that all worked out and by 9:20 or so, I was in the lift chair going to the top top. I met a guy in the demo center who was picking up some skis, so we loaded onto the chair together. We chatted about skis, and I aksed about a secition of the mtn. that I hadn't skiied yet. He agreed to take me over there to the Shirley lake area. We skiied 3 groomed single black diamonds. He was a good skiier, and he was 82! I hope I'm still out there when I'm 82. There had been no new snow since Feb 26th (the day we flew home from there two weeks ago). I've never really skiied in the spring, so this was a whole new experience for me. I way over dressed and went back to the car to ditch a layer and take the liner out of my jacket. I put on my baseball hat, sunglasses, sunblock (paid 6 bucks in the store in the village for something the size of travel tooth paste) and my iPod and went cruising. With no new snow, it was best to stay on the groomed runs and not venture off-piste into the trees. I worked my way across the mtn from west to east, and then came back to KT-22 (one of the chairs used for the olympic downhill). From the east side, I could see the east face of KT-22 and thought, I could get down that. So, I went to give it a try before grabbing lunch. Wow! It was super steep, but awesome. Once down the fast, I followed some fast guys down into the valley, we hit a trail merge, they hit the flat and jumped, I thought, I can do that, and I did, but landing was a different story, I lost balance and spun around. No harm done though.<br><br>
After a lunch bowl of Clam chowder, I signed up for a lesson. I was by myself, so why not. No one else showed up at my level, so my 2 hour group lesson turned into a one hour private lesson for the price of a group lesson ($49). Sweet. The instructor was great and we just worked on my form and technique. Good stuff. Towards the end of the day, I rode the olympic tram up to the high camp. Walked through the olympic museum, then made one run down from top to bottom under the lights on the freshly groomed MTN Run. It was a pretty good day.<br><br>
Saturday: Alpine Meadows - As good as the day was before, I was a little bummed out when driving to the resort. I realized that skiing by yourself is not as fun as skiing with my buddies. Little did I know that fate would deal me some new buddies. I got there, got geared up and was deciding between two chairs to go up. I had never been there and hadn't looked at the map yet. Since, I can pretty much get down anything on the mtn, I decided just to go up, look around and pick a way down. So, I picked a lift, and got in line. It was a quad and I was a single, so I got on with 3 other people, a man, a woman, and a child. I had know idea what their relationship was to each other, if any. We chatted on the way up and I asked about where to start off since I'd never been here. The man was a quasi-local and was familiar with the mtn. The kid was his son. The woman turned out to be a co-worker of his. Right near the top, she offered my me to just follow them. I let them go off the top, then decided to follow them to whatever lift they went on next. Anyway, long story short, they adopted me for the day. The woman, Kinga, from Romania, was an awesome skiier. Stacy (the man) was slowed down by his son, so Kinga and I skiied the shit outa the mountain. She's an awesome skiier, with damn near perfect form, and she's a downhill maniac! She grew up on a mtn in Romania. She's been here about 3 years and her english is very good. We had a blast. One of my best days ever. We skiied at a pace that I rarely get to with my own buddies. Some of my ski friends are less skilled and therefore, we do a lot of stopping to put the group back together. Not today. Kinga and I were never more that 20 yards apart and she hated waiting and stopping. So we went like maniacs from the time we got off the lift to the next lift line. It was awesome. I bet we made 25 runs from the top all the way to the bottom. The top two bowls there are really fun.<br><br>
So, at the end of the day, I exchanged email addresses with both Kinga and Stacy. They wanted me to ski with them again yesterday, but I needed to leave to come home. I'd been gone for a week.<br><br>
Well, that's my trip story. That's probably the end of my ski season. <img alt="sad.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/sad.gif"> But, when I look back on it, this year was a pretty good one: 2 days @ Squaw, 1 day at each of these places: Heavenly, Alpine, Sierra, Snowshoe. 4 Powder days. I'll take it.<br><br>
Ok, I gotta mtn of work to get to!