Dan Barron
New member
<I>(Note from the 1/2/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>J Thurs was a juicy treat. Drive there was surprisingly and unexpectedly white-knuckled, through ugly wet snain, being the stuff that falls from the sky when temp hovers between 32 and 33. Up the hill from Montgomery Center, of course, it all turned to snow. Arrived in a heavy squall, which quickly ended (too bad), but not before making the woods quite skiable. Did several runs down Canyon Land and either Bonaventure or its twin, Showoff Glades. Freshies were hard to find but there was plenty of chowder for far and away the nicest conditions of my 99/00 season. Also some of Laura's best glade boarding ever. Great to watch. <BR> <BR>Unfortunately, though, her feet were blistered and causing her pain. She quit early. I roamed around seeking various glades. North Glades had less cover than the Stateside trails and Everglade and Staircase were some combination of closed and unrecognizable to me. In any case, that side of the mountain seemed pretty windblown to me. Did one run up the Green chair and Susan's comparison to the windy top of the Stowe quad was right on target. The last 1/5 of the ride was frigid and it seemed that nothing to the right of the chair (going up) was open <BR>anyway. Saw two distant figures on Ullrs (Matt & Jerm? Turned out probably not) but didn't want to duck the rope to get to what I <BR>thought--mistakenly I later learned--would be an almost unskiable Beaver Pond Glade. Tram was on wind hold. <BR> <BR>So back towards the Stateside area. Timbuktu was sweet. Stateside Glade, for some reason, a tiny bit less so. Buckaroo Bonzai was in great shape, but still I kept gravitating to Canyon Land/Show Off. Met into a birch tree there and heard someone on the lift sarcastically comment "guess he was trying to show off." Ouch (tree) and ouch (verbal slam). Oh well. Snow and trail were too much fun to let either tree or slam slow me down. <BR> <BR>Fatigue, though, was taking its toll. I was nearing my limit when I heard a big ruckus from the lift above me. No idea who it was or what <BR>they were saying, but I figured someone was just over-impressed by my stunningly elegant turns. <BR> <BR>Wrong. <BR> <BR>Waiting for me at the top of the triple were Matt and Jerm, and the day I impress either one of them skiers will be the day aliens from the <BR>planet pinhead have taken over my body. I still can't figure out how they even *saw* me, let alone why they waited for a sorry-ass skier like <BR>moi. Call me lucky. <BR> <BR>Look. It's not like I'm trying to be hard on myself but those guys are in some way other league from me. It's a kick, though, to play <BR>Washington Generals to their Globetrotters. <BR>Timbuktu was suggested and I say to myself, Hey, I been down that today. Cake. <BR> <BR>Wrong. Again. <BR> <BR>They meant some over the line part of Timbuktu and I'm thrashing along behind trying desperately to keep up. Funny thing is, I've heard Matt talk about how Jerm is always outskiing him, only this time I'm standing next to Jerm as Matt goes flying--and I mean flying in both the velocity and the altitude sense of the word--through some tight, tight woods and Jerm mutters something "amazing, how he finds <BR>those lines through this stuff." <BR> <BR>Anyway, me, I'm picking my way down, making a few sweet turns, falling on my face, making a few sweet turns, getting tangled, on my back like a bug, in snow and underbrush, making a few sweet turns, poking my ribs on an upturned and unfortunately placed stick (got a lovely black and blue to show for that one), and I'm thinking, Yowza! This is skiing! I'm having the most fun of what was already a great day. Next run we're picking through more tight woods somewhere above Kitzbuehel--which we soon reach and they then proceed to zip down at Mach speeds. I'm trying a pace I am totally unaccustomed to. Next lift ride I'm saying to them things like, you guys are crazy, and thank god I didn't run into you earlier in the day. Another blast like that and I could be a dead man. It was 3:45 or so when we got off the chair, at the point where we weren't sure if we'd catch another one. Their stuff was at Tram, mine at Stateside, so with reluctant relief I broke off at the top of the red chair for one more leisurely run down CanyonLand /Showoff which now seemed inexplicably tame.