December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas.

We got everything we wanted for Christmas. In town we got several inches of snow that freshened the appearance of our white Christmas. At the top of our ski mountain, 26” fell in 24 hours, most of it overnight. The mountain didn’t open until 1:00. The anticipation made me feel like a kid at Christmas. We were standing in line at 12:45.

The skiing was excellent. It was knee deep almost the whole day. There were lift lines, but so many people can’t ski powder, especially if it is a little heavy. They left the good lines for us all day. The snow was spraying up about chest high on every turn. Our legs couldn’t hold out long, but it was a short day anyway.

We came home and had the dinner we had planned for Christmas Eve. We didn’t eat our dinner last night because a friend invited us over for appetizers and wine. It was really a nice Christmas Eve. It was just the three of us misfits, enjoying a pleasant evening, even if her dog bit me.

The weekend was also great. Saturday was a perfect ski day. It didn’t have the epic conditions that we enjoyed today, but it was just nice all around. We spent most of the day skiing with the friend who invited us for Christmas Eve. She skis similar terrain at close to the same skill level as Kris and I.

We did have one challenging incident. Our friend crashed on a really steep slope. The problem was that she was behind us and lost one of her skis when she fell. Then she rolled down the hill about 50 feet, leaving her ski high on the hill above her. She couldn’t climb back up the hill because the snow was too soft. Her ski-less leg sunk deep into the snow. Kris and I were well below her when this happened. I tried to climb back up, but it was too steep. The situation was made worse by the fact that we had taken an unpopular chute, probably unpopular because it is so steep. We take it because it always holds softer snow. We waited, hoping someone would come by. After a few minutes, we decided to split up. We sent Kris back around for a lap so that she could retrieve the ski with the understanding that if we extricated ourselves, we would wait further down the hill for her. Shortly after Kris’ departure, a group came through and brought the ski down to our friend. Kris caught up to us shortly thereafter.

Our friend tired out early and we skied to the bottom of the mountain with her. While riding the lift back up, I dropped part of the flask that I use for water. We had to ski back to the bottom to retrieve it. I challenged Kris to do it non-stop and she met the challenge. After retrieving my equipment, we ran into another couple of friends. We rode the lift up, skied together to the next lift, and rode that to the top of the mountain. He is a relative beginner and she is in ski patrol, so they had things to do and the day was coming to a close. As the lift neared the top, another friend of all four of us skied below us and we yelled out to him. Kris and I left the other couple at the top and followed the same line that our other friend had taken. He was waiting for us at the bottom of the first pitch.

The lifts were closing, so we skied fast to catch the last ride back to the top. We talked our friend into one more run. It was a great day of skiing, but it was also nice to have so many acquaintances to ski with in one day. It almost makes us feel popular.

Sunday was also a ski day. The conditions were OK, but our legs were tired from the previous day. We had fun, but it wasn’t the best day. It turns out that we made the right choice. The Governor gave us half a day off for Christmas Eve, but we decided not to waste leave on the other half since we didn’t think we were really in shape to ski all four days in a row. I am really glad we gave our legs a chance to recover for today.

So our Christmas was everything we wanted. We enjoyed our experience of skiing together . Now we are pleasantly exhausted.