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| Moss on trees near entrance of Wild Katz |
It hasn't snowed for a few days at Stevens but that's no excuse to stay home... half way to the mountain I realized that I left my jacket (and lift pass) at home and had to turn back... my sweetheart girlfriend volunteered to drive out towards me and met me half way, cutting about 40-50 minutes off of my mistake <3 ... I still got to the resort pretty early and didn't have trouble parking.
I was expecting a pretty icy and crusty day, which it eventually became but this morning started out with a decent amount of snowfall over most parts of the mountain; providing just enough (~3 inches) freshness to soften up the morning runs.
Since I tend to be distracted by the GoPro when it's recording, I decided to leave it in my pocket for most of the day in order to better focus on my riding... since it definitely uses up brain cycles when it's on: starting, stopping, checking battery, wiping off snow, etc.
Although I thought I had warmed up enough on the first run, I tweaked my back on the second one after about 5 minutes of nonstop aggressive riding down a challenging line though the trees... this setback left me managing the pain for the rest of the day and directing much more focus into using my abs and legs to turn.... mostly disconnecting lower and upper body movements unless absolutely necessary.
Despite the somewhat sketchy crusted conditions, I found myself going pretty quickly down the mountain and built up a solid leg burn... even an occasional quads cramp here and there. I mostly stuck to familiar runs but did manage to veer out into a couple paths that I normally don't travel... it was a pretty fun day to be out at Stevens.
I finished the day off with a small hike up to Wild Katz...turned on the GoPro... and challenged myself with the steep, gladed, and mostly crusty terrain... the video captures start to finish including the several times I had to stop to catch my breath... what a great workout!!
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