Skiing

[dagibbs]

I just spent an awesome three days skiing at Smuggler's Notch in Vermont. elizilla and M and I drove down on Monday after my dance lesson with gabriel_le -- we had rented a condo for three nights and had lift tickets for 3 days. Tuesday was our first day out -- it was quite cold, but very calm and bright and sunny. The snow was in good shape, and I mostly warmed up and got my ski legs back -- mostly blues and the occasional black diamond. On Wednesday, we woke up it was snowing and blowing, but quite a bit warmer. We had fresh snow, and it continued to snow all day except for about an hour around lunch when it turned to rain on the lower mountain. After lunch, the wind had dropped too, and it was just snowing. In the morning M and I skied a mixture of blue and black. Then, after we stopped for lunch, I went back out alone and skied a few more runs, choosing mostly black diamond runs and being pretty happy with how I skied them. Thursday morning was bright and sunny again, not too cold, and with fresh snow almost everywhere. Actually, the lower mountain areas were a bit chunky/crusty because of the rain and wet snow the day before, but the upper mountain areas (down about 2/3s of the way) was still nice and beautiful and soft. I skied black diamond runs all day (skiing alone, M was with elizilla today), venturing onto some double-black terrain for one run. (And, I will say, they're pretty serious in their ratings, some of the blues were quite steep and not a single black diamond was groomed the entire time we were there.) I think, in total, I skied almost all of their black diamond terrain at least once, though not most of their double-black and above.

Overall, I was really happy with how well I skied, despite not skiing very much at all in the last decade (or so). And, I think the weather we had was really awesome -- it would be hard to ask for better skiing weather and conditions for the trip. (Some locals were saying Thursday that this was the best cover they'd seen all season on the steepest stuff.)

Also, my knees didn't bother me nearly as much as I was worried they would, despite three days of skiing, much of it on moguls. We'll see how I feel in a couple days, but I think the increased muscle strength from climbing has really helped for supporting the joints and reducing knee pain and stress. (Though, my upper thigh muscles [quadriceps?] are really feeling the lurv.)