March 31, 2010

I am getting spring fever. The taste of spring is exciting, but not really energizing. It isn’t here yet and we can’t begin warm weather activities yet. I am feeling low energy.

My sister spent the weekend with us.  She came up on Thursday and left on the red-eye on Sunday night.  We had a nice visit and did some skiing.  I think I gained a couple pounds so we must have had some food, as well.

Friday was a nice day for her to get back into skiing.  It wasn’t too crowded and the conditions were pretty decent.  Kris and I enjoyed a casual day of skiing, sticking to moderate terrain.  We finished the day with dinner at our favorite restaurant in Girdwood.

Saturday was a little more challenging.  Precipitation of various forms fell from the sky.  We were getting pretty wet after only a short time.  The accumulating snow added to the skiing challenge.  We quit rather early.  Kris had a boot failure so we went to REI to shop.  Kris was able to replace her boots with a pair marked down for the end of the season.  I had a gift certificate left from Chevron and we just got our dividends from REI so her boots didn’t cost us anything.  I think we still have $24 of credit. I think that means we spent too much at REI last year.

Two feet of wet heavy snow fell at the resort in the 24 hours ending Sunday morning.  I was concerned that the conditions were going to be nearly impossible for my sister.  I warned her that it could be difficult.  I was pleasantly surprised that one of the groomed runs up top was in pretty good condition.  We made laps on it.  Kris is still recovering so she was happy to just follow along.  I took a few alternative routes through the heavy stuff and down some steep stuff for some challenge.  We all took one run through the deep snow, in spite of my recommendation against it.  It was fun, especially since I couldn’t be blamed. It was deep and heavy.

Monday was a rest day. We contemplated cross country skiing, but elected to take an easy walk instead. It was the right choice since someone came through with a snow blower and cleared most of the snow off the greenbelt trail. It will allow bicycling to start earlier, but it didn’t seem necessary to me to end cross country skiing. The machine had cut through about a foot of well packed snow. We could have cross country skied for a few more weeks on that. Oh well, we did twice as much cross country skiing this year as last, and last year included November and December.

This time of year can be difficult skiing. If it is clear, the temperatures soar during the day and plummet at night. The snow softens and then refreezes. If stuff falls from the sky, it is usually wet and heavy. And it doesn’t necessarily bury the frozen stuff. That pretty much describes this week.

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, but it didn’t warm up as quickly as I guessed. We got there too early and the mountain was frozen solid. We tried high and low, looking for the soft snow. We found a small sunny spot down low, but it wasn’t enough. Kris suggested an early lunch so we stopped for nachos. After lunch, things were softening a little and we enjoyed a few more runs in the bright sunshine. We made two top to bottom nonstop runs. Incredible visibility on the firm fast surface allowed me to get to the bottom in 3:24, more than half a minute faster than my previous best.

Today was heavy snow and low visibility. Kris struggled to make graceful turns. I didn’t even try to be graceful. It was fun, but tiring. Kris quit early to protect her back. I went back up top for a few more runs. Oddly, the sun started to burn through. Gusting winds still hampered visibility at the very top, but suddenly I could see what no one had been able to see all day. I explored a little, but the dense windblown snow was not deep enough to cover the icy moguls underneath. The groomed runs, though, were covered with boot deep smooth snow. Since no one could see earlier, Silvertip had very little traffic all day and no one else seemed to be figuring this out. I had it all to myself for three great runs.

We have a good start on our essays. They aren’t too difficult to write, but it is tough to edit down to the word limit. The hardest part is choosing a good example to write about. We have to write five essays, providing examples from our life experience of intellect, communications, interpersonal, managerial, and leadership. For each of these, we need to provide the name of someone who can verify our example. This is somewhat limiting since I thought of a couple examples that no one I currently know can verify. That’s OK, it is probably better to use recent examples.