March 14, 2008

Life has gone into a period of overdrive. It is quite exhilarating, but I doubt that I can keep this pace up for too long.

Work has been fun, exciting, and frustrating. It is tough when you get going on something and then get stalled because you need software, or your computer crashes, or you don’t have a travel credit card yet. The good news is that I know I can contribute in this environment. I just need to be more patient.

I did solve my work hours issue a little bit. Once I got my computer set up properly, I realized that it is quite an impressive system. Through any web connection, I can access all my data in a manner that is exactly like being at work. So all I need to do is remove my laptop from its docking station on my desk and bring it home with me. If I leave on time, I can still wrap up the little loose ends that seem to tie me up at the end of the day. I can also go out on a platform, take my computer with me, and still be productive while out in the field. Some things are a little slow when accessed remotely, but it does still work. This helped me get to dinner on time last night and still be able to enjoy my first Friday off. I just had to log on for a few minutes this morning.

Our social life has been pretty busy too. We run into people we know at the ski resort. We went out to dinner with different groups of people twice in the last week. Another friend stopped over on Sunday evening.

Skiing has been great. We have had incredible snow at the top of the mountain over the last month. The bottom of the mountain has been rainy and it is getting thin. If we don’t have a cold streak, we could lose the lower mountain in the next couple weeks. We have grass showing in town.

Last weekend was amazing. It wasn’t crowded and we enjoyed numerous memorable runs. We found untracked knee deep snow on some steep sections of North Face. We found smooth snow along a rope boundary for hundreds of feet. We found slushy smooth spring snow as we neared the bottom.

I skied today with a former coworker. He is an aggressive skier on the groomed runs and I could not keep up. It was just too fast for my comfort, especially with the unusual crowds for a weekday. I got my revenge when I found his point of fear, steepness. We decided to try the rarely open Monies run. This involves climbing up past Christmas and New Years chutes. I contemplated dropping into New Years since I have never skied that, but our target was the rarely available furthest reaches of the resort. A ski patroller was stationed just beyond the entrance to New Years with a sign that said 18 and older only, experts only. Then the climb got steep. We climbed a short, but exhausting distance up a frightful looking ridgeline. Since the run drops off the other side, it was really intimidating climbing up not knowing what to expect. New Years chute dropped off precariously far below us as we reached a small platform area of packed snow at the top of the climb. A few skiers were preparing to drop in. We set our skis down and peered over the edge.

A steep but wide slope dropped away for literally thousands of feet. The steepness was visually intimidating because it was so sustained, but I quickly acclimated to that. The bigger problem was the entrance. We watched as a couple skiers jumped sideways over an exposed rock and dropped to a flat area a couple feet below before skiing away over some smaller exposed rocks. Another group was considerably less graceful, just skiing right over the exposed rocks without the first avoidance move. Soon it was our turn and my friend was getting nervous, asking if I really wanted to do this. I said as long as I could get through the entrance, I was good. I snapped into my skis and headed to the first rock. I stood on top of the snow on top of the rock and slowly worked my way backward around the rock. No one else had really taken this route because backing up toward the huge drop off into New Years chute was intimidating, but there was a lot of room there. Confident in my skills, I slid back until my tips could drop below the rock and then sideslipped down to the ledge that others had jumped onto. This left me with a small rock band to clear so I just jumped over it and made a right turn onto the steep slope and waited for my friend. He skillfully executed the same basic maneuver I had, but he was clearly bordering on terror.

Once onto the slope we could see that most everyone had headed way to the right on a well traveled traverse line, heading toward the furthest end of the resort area. I looked down at the smooth white surface directly below us and suggested it couldn‘t be any better than this. My friend was unsure. I skied up a little further and he decided I was right. Unfortunately, I was already beyond a large rock and couldn’t loop back. Fortunately, I found another wide area of smooth snow on my side of the rock and shouted back to him that I had a line. I saw him drop below the traverse so I did too. It turned out to be a good thing that we were on opposite sides of the rock. The snow was soft, smooth, and dense. I made smooth, flowing turns. Huge amounts of snow let go on every turn, raining down the slope. Each turn was made in the midst of this flowing snow. The snow that was flowing down was actually quite light and had no impact on my turns. It was fantastic skiing, but visually strange.

Below the rock, we merged paths. Now we had to ski considerately, waiting for each other, finding separate corridors, and avoiding pushing snow down on each other. The one time I got below him, the snow was really flowing and bouncing up high enough to hit me in the head. No big chunks were rolling so it was just an annoyance. The lower portions of the run got more skied up and heavier, but those smooth turns up high will stick in my memory for a long time.