Wow. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve been back on the slope. Not that uncommon in December or January, really, even when I have times other than the weekend that I can go up. Between weather and health, I’ve not gone up skiing. Hopefully this will change. I’ve got stuff planned between now and the end of May, but with any luck the weather and health will cooperate so that I can get in multiple days a week, dang it!
I wasn’t sure about going skiing today just last night because I had another bout of the yucky gut, plus still being tired out from the cold virus. Still, the weather report was crisp, cold and snowing, plus there’d been 7 inches of fresh snow so…yeah. Time to go up.
Apparently half of Portland had the same notion as well. With snow sticking on the road from Sandy on up, chains required at Rhododendron, that could have been an issue. Fortunately it looked like most folks were being sane and chaining up as needed. Still, we had the major ski bum rush hour through Welches, and the parking lot at Timberline was filling up fast even at 8:30. One idiot sped past me (already in the fast lane) at Govy, taking up a third lane because I wasn’t going fast enough for him (going was slick enough that I was pacing a car in the slow lane because I wasn’t sure about them….and didn’t want to climb up the back of the car in front of me).
But once we got up there and started pulling on our ski boots, all was good. Chatted with the folks around us while we all put on ski boots and unpacked our gear. Ambled up to the lodge, did our last minute inside stuff, and pushed off a little bit before nine. The snow squeaked and moaned under my skis and it was all I could do to stifle a giggle (too cold to whoop). Lovely, lovely dry powder snow. Not something we get on a regular basis up on Hood.
Most of the snow had fallen since the slopes had been groomed, so for the first few runs, there was lovely soft powder on top of a groom. DH and I tackled a couple of pitches that hadn’t been groomed and ran silently through up to knee-high mounds of powder. I don’t have the confidence to fly through the stuff at speed like you see in the ski videos, but a little bit of the silent running through snow over my knees is fun.
It’s also a major thigh-buster.
Still, there’s nothing like skiing in the midst of a storm. It would have been cool to venture above the trees, but not today. Not the first day back after being off skis due to weather and health. We skied conservatively today but still, five runs in an hour and a half. And then that was it. I can remember a time when that was a Big Ski Day for both of us, especially if we hadn’t been skiing for a month or so. It was pretty much like we hadn’t been off skis.
Gotta love a sport where experience, conditioning and practice overcome the aging effect.
