So here I am at 60 years old and I’m still skiing. Of course, it wasn’t until I reached 60 that I had the experience of galloping a horse through snow…and let’s just say that I was going faster on Miss Mocha (her idea!) than I usually ski (well, except for going down the Magic Mile but the Mile is its own thing). I thought oldsters were supposed to slow down, but…maybe it’s time to scheme on a way to rig up a means to do skijoring with Mocha without a rider. PVC pipe and surcingle, I think…and lots of ground practice during the dry season.
Anyway.
Yesterday hubby and I finally took advantage of the sweet late-season skiing and went up to Timberline. Unlike last year, I could visualize my moves when watching ski movie clips. I felt stronger and had this suspicion that it was going to work out just fine….
….which it did.
It was a stormy day, with temperatures running right about freezing. The snow was a crisp mix of snow and ice, not that nasty can’t-get-a-grip ice but just enough to give the footing a crunch. It was wintry-mixing all the way through to our last run, where things changed from tolerable to full-scale misery with sharp icy drops cutting into the face and coating the glasses.
Glasses. Sigh. I cannot wear goggles with my current lenses. The lovely (NOT) opticians at Kaiser decided that despite my requests and the optometrist’s specific instructions to lower the bifocal line that we were both full of it and jammed the line into the usual spot (no, I do not wear progressives, progressives are NOT an option for me, they do not work so don’t waste your time advising me to try them out!!). As a result, I can’t wear any goggles because according to the opticians, I wear my glasses too low on my nose so that when I DO wear my goggles the lovely fucking bifocal line is halfway through my line of sight and I can’t see a damn thing clearly for my complete lower field of vision. Which is NOT acceptable for ski life and depth perception in an already-sketchy situation.
Oh well. Maybe I need yet another pair of glasses that are just single-vision distance glasses. Grrr.
On the other hand, my feet worked very nicely. I have spent the last year working a combination of massage/chiropractic/foot and back massagers/acupuncture to try to get my feet back in shape and minimize my lower back pain issues. Yesterday proved that I’m on the right path. My stiff Dalbellos went on my feet securely and while I had the usual “ouch ouch ouch” while starting up, I worked through them and was able to control what my feet were doing…which meant I could control my skis, and my hips, and yes. Lovely, lovely glides and turns. No fighting and struggling.
It also helped that I took the skis in for a professional tune. They desperately needed edging. My wax skills are pretty decent for the level of skiing we do, but edging…um…not ready to go there.
We made five runs on Stormin’ Norman. Between skiing out there and the runs, that was close to about five miles skied. Five runs that were gorgeous, wonderful, and…yeah.
A lovely late beginning to the ski year. Going back up tomorrow, and then maybe Friday on our way back to Enterprise, depending on how sore my back is after two days of clam digging and surf fishing. Yay.
