Matt Duffy
New member
Walking the dog <BR> <BR> I brought the puppy and my snowshoes for a romp in the woods around noon today. We ascended some chutes toward a ski trail at Smuggs in a full-on blast of winter weather, complete with biting wind, accumilating snow and low visibility. About two inches had piled up at that point, with more on the way. We got very near the entrance from the trail when I decided not to risk letting Winter see anyone to chase. We stopped, she had some treats, chased down and pounced on some snowballs when suddenly a skier came our way into the woods. It was my friend Brian Woods, all excited about every flake falling from the sky. We hatched a plan to meet in the parking lot after I brought Winter home - "So I'll just take a couple more runs and you should be there, right?" "Yep" <BR> <BR> When he took off, Winter went berzerk. She'd never seen a skier before. She bolted as fast as she could, a good hundred feet or so before giving up the chase; grinding to a halt and skidding down the hill to my amusement. She was getting face shots. Then she came screaming back at me. Mouth open, ears back and flapping every stride, she was loving every minute of it. She started running circles around me, then zig-zagging in front with her nose in the snow; panting loudly all the while. She was caked with snow, especially the face. I believe Chromer coined the term last season; add one more to the list of spastic Powdersluts. <BR> <BR> Riding the snake <BR> <BR> I met Brian as planned and our first run was a cool running sprint down Smugglers Alley. There were about three inches of powder now, and we bombed it. The Alley had been groomed the day prior, leaving it perfectly smooth under the new fallen snow. What a rush. Fast, fast fast. Smoke flying everywhere. At that speed, 3 inches of snow is bottomless. CMH phatties didn't hurt either... <BR> <BR> Brian & I headed over to Madonna, big fluffy flakes still piling, and made three runs down a trail completely reserved just for us. It was so good, we did it again, and again. Our tracks were totally buried each time. Wind and puking clouds were our friends. So was seeing only the top third of Brian as he wisked back and forth in silence, a swirling cold dust cloud enveloped his lower body. He said the same of me after a high five. <BR> <BR> Rev it up <BR> <BR> Back to Sterling for a liftline run. Bombers. Those skis are bombers. I did straightline quite a bit of this one, at speeds that would have scared me silly on any other pair of skis. But these don't have a speed limit in soft snow. Sky's the limit. Got about 40 feet of distance while only about a foot above the snow a couple times. Landed in a pillow, no sound, just phloat. Then there was sound, coming from my vocal chords. <BR> <BR> This is the end <BR> <BR> After more of the similar, we capped it off with with a long run through the powdery woods. When we were finally done, there was a good five inches of honest-to-goodness powder on the ground. We cracked a couple of cold ones in the parking lot afterwards, got covered by the falling snow and hatched another plan to meet first thing in the morning. Head for the hills folks, tomorrow's gonna be way better than today!