Saturday, February 13, 2010

One million vertical feet

Today I cracked one million vertical ft for the 2009-10 ski season in 80 consecutive days of skiing.

I set out once before to ski one million vertical ft in a season (back at the beginning of the 2006-07 season) but due to work and travel until now I couldn't do better than 60 days and 730,000 vertical ft way back in 2005-06.

What a day for such a milestone. The 5 am report said seven inches, but as always it was much deeper in places. It wasn't super light Champagne Powder (too warm overnight for that) but in some ways that was good given the lack of a solid base underneath.

We started out with freshies on BC Liftline to Four Points Chair, followed by slightly wind blown but hugely fun freshies on Hurricane. Up Storm Peak Express and then Shadows, Kuus' Cruise / Twilight and then Two O'Clock. At that stage my friend had to leave in order not to miss her flight out and I hit Closet. Without having to worry about leaving her behind (the saying that there are no friends on powder days is false, it's actually when you find out who your true friends are) I was able to hit it really hard. It was sweet, but the best run of the day (and maximum heart rate of 168) was Vertigo on the way home which I had all to myself.

Here's today's track. 12,584 vertical ft (season total 1,001,481 ft) in 3:00 (including 25 minutes in the gondola line, but it was absolutely worth if for fresh tracks today).

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