Day 62: Speak softly, and ski on big sticks
Today was Ski Utah's annual Local Media Day, held this year at Park City. I arrived with The Kid at 8:30 and headed to breakfast at Legacy Lodge, bumping into Rex, a local radio guy. After eating, we headed out at close to 9 am.
Things were still frozen firm on the north-facing terrain, so we immediately headed for the south-facing runs off Bonanza that were just starting to soften. The lure of my new Movement Goliaths, though, sitting in the truck was getting too strong to ignore after only three runs, and I talked Rex into heading back to the base so that I could swap out skis.
They intimidated me, however. Those who read last Sunday's post from Alta may recall that I bought these things after skiing. 135/108/124 in a 191 cm length, yielding a colossal 32m turning radius. I wasn't sure if I could really ski them, or if they'd ski me.
We headed back to Bonanza and the first run was a tentative green cruiser. I could actually turn them in big, honking GS arcs, but they still felt heavy and clumsy. With each successive run I upped the ante a bit, hitting stuff that was slightly steeper each time with increasing speed. After 4 or 5 runs I was beginning to feel the love.
It was only after we went over to Silverlode and I opened things up full throttle, though, that I fell head over heels...figuratively, not literally. These things are the nuts! The snow softened increasingly with each run to the point where, by the end of the day, it was deep, wet heavy slush. At least, that's what my eyes saw, not what these skis felt. The skis asked, "Slush? What slush?" I just carved big, high-speed arcs with abandon, completely ignoring what slush was piled where. They plowed through it like a Hummer.
While on Silverlode we bumped into many of the others -- reps from Alta, Solitude, Snowbird, some of Alta's sponsored athletes, etc. We tooled around a while on Silverlode before heading down so that they could play in the Pick 'n Shovel terrain park and superpipe.
After lunch Rex and I hooked up with The Kid for a few more runs before we called it a day at 3 pm. The Kid broke yet another pair of bindings landing his first corked 1080, so we had to head to REI for an emergency binding mount.
Video of The Kid's first 1080:
http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l191/ ... rk1080.flv
Day 62 today ties last season's total. Everything else is gravy.
Today was Ski Utah's annual Local Media Day, held this year at Park City. I arrived with The Kid at 8:30 and headed to breakfast at Legacy Lodge, bumping into Rex, a local radio guy. After eating, we headed out at close to 9 am.
Things were still frozen firm on the north-facing terrain, so we immediately headed for the south-facing runs off Bonanza that were just starting to soften. The lure of my new Movement Goliaths, though, sitting in the truck was getting too strong to ignore after only three runs, and I talked Rex into heading back to the base so that I could swap out skis.
They intimidated me, however. Those who read last Sunday's post from Alta may recall that I bought these things after skiing. 135/108/124 in a 191 cm length, yielding a colossal 32m turning radius. I wasn't sure if I could really ski them, or if they'd ski me.
We headed back to Bonanza and the first run was a tentative green cruiser. I could actually turn them in big, honking GS arcs, but they still felt heavy and clumsy. With each successive run I upped the ante a bit, hitting stuff that was slightly steeper each time with increasing speed. After 4 or 5 runs I was beginning to feel the love.
It was only after we went over to Silverlode and I opened things up full throttle, though, that I fell head over heels...figuratively, not literally. These things are the nuts! The snow softened increasingly with each run to the point where, by the end of the day, it was deep, wet heavy slush. At least, that's what my eyes saw, not what these skis felt. The skis asked, "Slush? What slush?" I just carved big, high-speed arcs with abandon, completely ignoring what slush was piled where. They plowed through it like a Hummer.
While on Silverlode we bumped into many of the others -- reps from Alta, Solitude, Snowbird, some of Alta's sponsored athletes, etc. We tooled around a while on Silverlode before heading down so that they could play in the Pick 'n Shovel terrain park and superpipe.
After lunch Rex and I hooked up with The Kid for a few more runs before we called it a day at 3 pm. The Kid broke yet another pair of bindings landing his first corked 1080, so we had to head to REI for an emergency binding mount.
Video of The Kid's first 1080:
http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l191/ ... rk1080.flv
Day 62 today ties last season's total. Everything else is gravy.
