It's been mostly ice and crust up until now and it hasn't been easy to put in a full day on the mountain... but today was pretty different.... I managed to stay out there from 9am-3pm and got worked!! A snow storm came through this week and softened things up a bit, almost everywhere... and then today, it snowed nonstop and heavily enough to cover up tracks on every run... most of the day was spent making fresh tracks ^-^
With grey skies all around the mood was bright and uplifting... and despite extremely long lines on the backside of the mountain, the wait felt well worth it. This is really one of the few days where a wide skill range of riders are able to get out on very steep terrain and experience very low consequences. I saw people laying out backflips and others working on spinning or jumping... often times falling and tumbling down a steep hill for a bit... but always getting back up in good spirits and continuing to rip it!
I took to the woods and head out into sections that were previously pretty sketchy to be in but were now knee+ deep with snow. The only downside was that a certain amount of speed had to be kept in order to stay afloat, which can be tricky in dense woods. I managed not to have any major collisions today but did have about 5 run-ins with the trees... because I didn't take a proper break once I got tired and tried to ride through it (which is highly unadvisable regardless of your skill level).
I took a short lunch break in the car and head back out with a different board, the Gnu Money, to see how it faired in the powder... it was pretty good for a twin-shaped board and something I could definitely rely on to get through a powder day as my only board. Despite being tired from riding regular all day, I found it difficult to ride switch because my right leg had been biased to take most of my weight for most of the day... but I still gave it a go and tried to ride switch as much as possible for the rest of the day.
As the day went on the storm picked up and forced several parts of the mountain to close early for the day. It was to the point where the lift was moving at a crawling pace because the winds at the top made it hard to unmount... the resort crew kept it going as long as they could while keeping everyone safe... well played. I tried to ride a bit more over on the front side but it was pretty crowded, even in the trees. On my last run I ended up detouring while in a small patch of trees to avoid a couple that were slowly working their way through it and lost traction on the slope... slamming my board into a tree and jamming my ankle in the process... it was clearly time to go home. -_-
Overall it was a magical day and I hope we get blessed with some more of this snow and a little less wind (since the wind blows much of the soft snow off the steep slopes and turns them back to icy crust). Today was a much needed uplifting of spirit given the past few weeks of trying to get back into my riding style on crust... what a day!!!!
My rib hasn't stopped hurting since last weekend and I have been managing it throughout the week as best I could... thankfully it didn't really bother me much today. I've decided to drop down to just one weekend day rather than two back to back days to get in a better recovery... I still may do a lighter day midweek to stay sharp. This season will be at a slower pace for sure because the rib probably won't be 100% until at least the summer time.
No comments:
Post a Comment