Gone Skiing

Yesterday, while Punsutawney Phil (Pennsilvania's famous ground hog) was predicting the coming of an early spring, Steve and I were up at Crystal enjoying a gorgeous day on the mountain.  It felt a little like Spring up there.  Pretty brisk, but not a cloud in the sky and visibility for as far as the eye could see. The sun shinning on almost 2 feet of fresh snow from earlier in the week made for a perfect ski day. Of course, every other skier and snowboarder within a 100 mile radius must have had the same idea.  We waited in some tedious lift lines and were forced to share the hill with more than a few packs of barely- in-control ski-schoolers, but it was worth it.  We had a fun time and got some great runs in.

We spent most of our time on the slopes around the Forest Queen Express and Rainier Express Lifts.  With a few pit stops into the lodge at the base of Cambell's Basin.  I stick mostly to the intermediate/blue square slopes - Mr. Magoo and  Downhill were my favorites from yesterday.   Kelly's Gap Road is a pretty fun little cat track that slices back and forth through a few black diamond routes that Steve would peel down and meet me back where Kelly's intersected.  I can make it down harder slopes and Steve definitely pushes me at least a few times a day, but my comfort zone isn't quite fully set into black diamond yet.

Steve tried unsuccessfully to push me up the High Campbell Lift, but even with a little liquid courage I couldn't muster up the gumption to take on the double diamond. So I sent him up solo and sat at the base of the lift and watched the show.  Steve later would tell me that he was SO glad that he hadn't talked me in to going up.

From the High Campbell lift drop off, he veered left.  He scaled across the peak to the upper left boundary of Campbell Basin via a narrow track with both slides of the mountain dropping off on each side.  He said the view was absolutely incredible up there.  When he reached about parallel with the base of the High Campbell lift, he said he had to take a deep breath and psyche himself up before dropping in and slicing down the mountain.  From my vantage point, he made it look easy! Traversing back and forth, looking like a bunny jumping down the snow.  But it definitely wasn't as easy as it looked. His face was bright red and his heart was pumping hard as he skied up to me at the bottom and plopped on his back in the snow in complete exhaustion/amazement. Classic.

 

Unfortunately, we didn't bring our phones or a camera up with us to capture the day, for fear of getting them wet or broken.  Steve's mantra is "if you don't fall, you aren't skiing hard enough."  Next time we go up, we're going to try and bring a Contour.  It's a wearable camera that my firm has invested in.  It was good to see a few up on the mountain yesterday.  I still saw a lot more of their gorilla competitor, GoPro. Though I have to say (even though I'm biased), the Contour is so much more attractive looking and according to the few people I spoke with, more user friendly too.  At any rate, hopefully next time I'll have a few videos and photos to share.  It was a really fun day.  

PS:  I have a pretty good family and friend's discount through March 31st for 40% off any of Contour's products. If anyone is interested, let me know.