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February 07, 2005
slushy skiing
Good times this weekend. It had the potential to be great, but there were just a few minor set backs. But all in all, an enjoyable weekend.
Dave, my old roommate from college and one of his friend from back home, Seth, and myself left early Saturday morning to head up north to Boyne Mountain for some skiing this weekend. We made it up there just before noon and met up with a couple people who drove up separately. The line to rent skis was extremely long, which only made me more anxious to get on the slopes and try this skiing thing out one more time.
With skis in hand, er, underfoot, we set out to warm up on a few greens. One of the guys that went hadn’t been snowboarding in several years, and it was the first time on skis for another one. Now I wasn’t exactly expecting Colorado type runs, but the trail map online looked promising. The major downside was that it was a balmy 50 degrees outside. While it’s cool that you can ski in a t-shirt if you wanted, the drawback is that it made the snow very wet and slushy. Slushy snow doesn’t make for good skiing. It’s heavy and hard to push around with your skis. It also tends to knock you off your line a lot easier too.
With a few hours left Dave and I set out to try some tougher terrain. Unfortunately, they had over half the runs shut down. Some were due to a youth slalom race they had going on, and I’m not quite sure why the other runs were down. Either way, there was only a few green runs open and a single black and a single blue. After a successful run down the blue, we headed for the black. The black was a pretty steep run, but it was also void of any harsh terrain. The first time down we tried the right side, which turned out to be very slick. Half way down I couldn’t make any turns and built up speed very quickly. Luckily I didn’t crash, or else it would have been a total yard sale with skis, poles and maybe even body parts heading off in all directions. We tried the left side a few times and I was a bit more successful in traversing the hill. I think we ended up running that black five or six times, and not once did I take a spill. I don’t know how though.
After eight hours of skiing, we were are beat and decided to make the 45 minute trip down to Traverse City to our hotel. A lukewarm shower and clean clothes have rarely felt that good. Our party didn’t leave the hotel in search of food until 10:50. It was a stroke of luck that we were only a block away from this cool Argentinean/Mexican/Brazilian restaurant. A few pork chops and beers later, I was happy as a pig in slop, and ready to fall asleep.
Things started to break down in the morning. At the beginning of this weekend, we had intentions of hitting Crystal Mountain on the way back south for some more skiing. Due to the lingering soreness and the prospect of a lengthy drive after a half day skiing, people started bailing out left and right. I though that there might be a possibility of a few of us hitting it anyway, but kind of faded. Although I would have rather skied, it turned out to be okay. I wouldn’t have had any fun if the people I was with weren’t having fun. On the up side I was able to watch the superbowl in its entirety, bad commercials and all. And hey, at least I have an excuse to go back up there later on this winter.
To make up for the lack of skiing on Sunday, I ran about four and a half miles once we got back. It wasn’t anything too fast, about 30 seconds per mile quicker than my usual recovery run pace. Plus, that put me at seven consecutive days of doing something physical. Despite my athletic tendencies, I don’t think I’ve ever done that.
Posted by ksmith at February 7, 2005 10:56 PM