In which snow features heavily
Feb. 25th, 2007 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philenaAfter learning how to ski last month, I decided that I was ready for more, so Daniel and I went back to Tahoe this weekend to give it to me. After having scouted out various weather conditions, we decided that North Lake Tahoe looked more snowy than South Lake Tahoe (which had been fine for learning to ski on, but not so great for much else), and booked a little studio-cabin online, which turned out to be perfect. Franciscan Lakeside Village, I believe it was called, for those of you who are interested. They sold us discount lift tickets and recommended an independent ski shop, unaffiliated with the resort, where the entire fitting and rental procedure was cheaper and friendlier and less crowded and thus more competent-seeming than it would have been at the resort. And so we arrived at Northstar on Saturday morning with our equipment in the trunk and nine inches of fresh snow on the slopes.
At first I started off pretty slowly, just trying a few of the easier looking greens (green circles being the designation for the easiest runs). Then Daniel and I parted ways, he to scout out some of the easier looking blues (the more difficult ones; the hardest are black diamonds and double black diamonds, which Daniel does not feel comfortable doing, and which would be suicide for me). While he was gone, I did the rest of the greens a few more times and tried one very short blue, which I wiped out on the first time, but did perfectly the next few times. Thus emboldened, I asked someone who was somehow affiliated with the resort what he recommend I try out next, and I did those perfectly too! (Well, there might have been a wipe-out or two here and there, but they were silly ones*, not genuine ones**.)
After meeting for lunch, Daniel took me on the other easier blues he had scouted out. (We also tried a run that I suggested, but a combination of runs being closed, my following the wrong sign, and lots of ice made that trip into something of a disaster.) One was just lovely, full of powdery snow, and extremely wide, with lots of different channels going in and out of the trees that surrounded it. The first few times I played it safe, but by the end of the day I was ducking between the trees and going quite a bit faster than I would have felt comfortable with earlier in the day. It wasn't recklessness, though--I genuinely did feel in control, and at the end of the run did a beautiful hockey stop that threw up a nice plume of snow.
By 4:00 the lifts were closed and we went back to the car and started driving home, but got caught in a blizzard that turned the nominally 3.5-hour drive into a 6.5-hour one. The chains had to be put on again (ugh), and then taken off again (ugh ugh), and the snow turned into rain, and then Daniel got hungry for Chevy's, the sign for which he kept insisting would be on the left, probably a good thirty miles before we got there***. (To be fair to him, the salsa before the meal was good, and there was a tortilla maker which we could have seen making tortillas if there had been any tortillas in there being made.) By 11:20 we were home, and by 11:40 we were in bed, and that was a very good night's sleep last night.
*What I consider silly wipe-outs happen when I am turning, which is the easiest way to reduce speed. When turning, one must keep most or all of one's weight on the downhill leg, which causes good slowing friction and a jolly plume of snow, assuming conditions are powdery. If one concentrates one's weight on the uphill leg, one shortly thereafter usually finds that the weight has become involuntarily concentrated on the backside. These sorts of wipeouts happen to me every so often, and they are silly, because I know better than to let them happen.
**Genuine wipeouts are when you lose control completely, have no idea what's happening, and somehow end up on your stomach or back, not moving (this part is optional), and a little bit confused. Covered in snow, too. These also happen to me every so often.
***So great was his faith that the exit would appear shortly that he kept cruising in the right lane, prepared to get off, which caused moments of confusion when the highway split into seven lanes, the rightermost few of which ended up going to Los Angeles.
At first I started off pretty slowly, just trying a few of the easier looking greens (green circles being the designation for the easiest runs). Then Daniel and I parted ways, he to scout out some of the easier looking blues (the more difficult ones; the hardest are black diamonds and double black diamonds, which Daniel does not feel comfortable doing, and which would be suicide for me). While he was gone, I did the rest of the greens a few more times and tried one very short blue, which I wiped out on the first time, but did perfectly the next few times. Thus emboldened, I asked someone who was somehow affiliated with the resort what he recommend I try out next, and I did those perfectly too! (Well, there might have been a wipe-out or two here and there, but they were silly ones*, not genuine ones**.)
After meeting for lunch, Daniel took me on the other easier blues he had scouted out. (We also tried a run that I suggested, but a combination of runs being closed, my following the wrong sign, and lots of ice made that trip into something of a disaster.) One was just lovely, full of powdery snow, and extremely wide, with lots of different channels going in and out of the trees that surrounded it. The first few times I played it safe, but by the end of the day I was ducking between the trees and going quite a bit faster than I would have felt comfortable with earlier in the day. It wasn't recklessness, though--I genuinely did feel in control, and at the end of the run did a beautiful hockey stop that threw up a nice plume of snow.
By 4:00 the lifts were closed and we went back to the car and started driving home, but got caught in a blizzard that turned the nominally 3.5-hour drive into a 6.5-hour one. The chains had to be put on again (ugh), and then taken off again (ugh ugh), and the snow turned into rain, and then Daniel got hungry for Chevy's, the sign for which he kept insisting would be on the left, probably a good thirty miles before we got there***. (To be fair to him, the salsa before the meal was good, and there was a tortilla maker which we could have seen making tortillas if there had been any tortillas in there being made.) By 11:20 we were home, and by 11:40 we were in bed, and that was a very good night's sleep last night.
*What I consider silly wipe-outs happen when I am turning, which is the easiest way to reduce speed. When turning, one must keep most or all of one's weight on the downhill leg, which causes good slowing friction and a jolly plume of snow, assuming conditions are powdery. If one concentrates one's weight on the uphill leg, one shortly thereafter usually finds that the weight has become involuntarily concentrated on the backside. These sorts of wipeouts happen to me every so often, and they are silly, because I know better than to let them happen.
**Genuine wipeouts are when you lose control completely, have no idea what's happening, and somehow end up on your stomach or back, not moving (this part is optional), and a little bit confused. Covered in snow, too. These also happen to me every so often.
***So great was his faith that the exit would appear shortly that he kept cruising in the right lane, prepared to get off, which caused moments of confusion when the highway split into seven lanes, the rightermost few of which ended up going to Los Angeles.