Retro skiing

Last week I had a chance to go skiing in Australia for the first time in nearly twenty-five years. I figured if I was going back to the early nineties, I'd wear one of my old ski suits from that era.

Chez retro? Chez chic? Nah. I can ski well enough that I carried it off, but in retrospect, perhaps not such a good idea. The suit is now permanently retired.

I got very lucky with the snow, with one of the best seasons Australia has had in years, and magnificent spring weather, and I thoroughly enjoyed skiing with my best mate Michael and hanging out apres ski with my old army buddies Peter and John.

All the runs I used to think were super hard are now dead easy. But I'm still counting the three days at Perisher Blue as a head start on my 2014-15 season tally. Bring on day 4 at Steamboat!

As bad as I've seen it

I skied yesterday, mostly because I wanted to ski with some friends who were heading out. Parts of it were OK, but with the below average snow pack and the ridiculously warm temperatures we've had throughout March (15-20 F above average) it's getting very patchy. And one run in particular - Westside - was about as bad as it gets.

Let's pray for snow or the season will not last until April 15.

Here's the GPS data.

St. Louis Friends

i skied last week with my friends Rob and Elizabeth from St. Louis. Just some easy cruising with some slush bumps on the side, in ridiculously warm conditions (so warm that we had a BBQ on the deck on Friday afternoon).

Here's the GPS data.

Monday:


Wednesday:


Friday:

Bad break

The 5 am report said five inches but it was snowing hard when I got out of bed so I waited until noon to head out. Did you see how I made that sound like a plan rather than just laziness on my part? Actually I also wanted to get down some ideas for the novel I am writing - more about that in a later post.

By the time I got out there was at least six inches - making it officially a powder day - and in some places nearly a foot. I managed in an hour and a half to hit the classic tree runs: Shadows (good but a little shrubby below Duster), 3.30 trees, 2.30 trees which were the best, and Closet. I saw a grand total of three other people on these runs.

I came off the mountain when I heard that my Aussie friend Amanda (one of the Canberra girls) fell and fractured her tibia. She is scheduled for surgery later today, but she's going to be OK.

Update, 6 pm: I just discovered that California Dave and his wife Cesli were skiing with David and Amanda today and Cesli also broke her leg (fibula), about half an hour before Amanda. Today's conditions were diabolical for intermediate skiers - heavy push piles which grab your skis like Hulk Hogan if you push the tails rather than guiding the skis through the turn - but it's still hard to believe that two of my friends broke their legs this morning!

Here's the GPS data.


And here's that run through the 2.30 trees (actually more like 2.45).

From all over the place

I skied with a whole bunch of people today.

First up is Big Al. He's 77. If I can ski like that when I'm 77 (if I can ski at all then) I'll be very happy.

The others in the group were Ben, one of the Aussie pilots I skied with a couple of years ago, his dad Ian and uncle Graham from England, and finally Neils from Sydney.

Here's the GPS data.

California Dave

I skied today with my friend Dave from Santa Barbara, California, and then later with my Aussie friends as well, so in the end there were seven of us tearing down the mountain. It was pretty good until about 11 am when it started to get busy, making tearing down the mountain a little harder.

Here's the GPS data. Still waiting for snow.

Canberra boys (and girl)

I skied again today with one of my Canberra friends Therese and some guys from Canberra she knows, Grey, Paul and another Dan.

Today we really ripped up the groomers, lower Rainbow in particular which was nearly perfect for going fast.

Here's the GPS data.

Canberra girls (and boy)

I skied with my friends from Canberra today - David, Amanda and Therese.

I called today's post "Canberra girls (and boy)" for two reasons. First, I'd already used "Canberra friends" on my previous post, and second, Amanda and Therese were unhappy that I hadn't called it "Canberra girls" after seeing a post called "Brisbane boys". It's hard to keep your audience happy.

Here's today's GPS data. It was a beautiful bluebird day, the groomers weren't bad for the first hour or so and the bumps had just enough wind blown snow in the troughs to make them nice.

Canberra friends

Today I skied with Aussie friends from Canberra, Amanda and Therese.

Here's the GPS data.

Skiing with Pete

I skied today with an Aussie friend Pete McMahon. We got out early while the tourists were still in bed and the first hour was awesome tearing up the groomers even if there was the occasional icy death trap to be avoided. It got a little busier later in the morning but the sun was out and the snow was better than I expected it to be especially on Buddy's Run, so all in all just another day in paradise!

Here's the GPS data.

And here's some nice bumps I found to skiers' right of Buddy's Run.

Two seasons

My friend Byron who is a contractor / rancher likes to say there are only two seasons in Steamboat: "winter's coming" and "winter's here".

I prefer to express it as "wishing I was skiing" and "I am skiing!"

It's still 78 days until skiing, which is just about the right time to switch from my general fitness program to my skiing specific program.

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).

Day 75

Today was my 75th consecutive day on the mountain.

There was an inch or two of new snow this morning but not enough to really make a difference. It was also a lot colder at the top than I expected.

I've been feeling a bit flat the last few days so I set out to take it easy. Despite the fact that I ended up skiing the trees of Closet and Twilight it seems that's what I did because my heart rate didn't get above 125 (my resting rate is about 50 and I have to ski really hard to get it to 145 or 85% of maximum, so that's not quite as slack as it first appears). I was skiing with an Aussie friend who hasn't done a heap of tree skiing so the pace was slow with lots of stops to make sure I didn't lose her.

Here's today's track. 14,042 vertical ft (season total 925,777 ft) in 2:25.

Stick a fork in him...

...he's done. Michael is heading back to Australia on Sunday and unless it's a powder day tomorrow, today is his last day. He skied fairly hard this week with me and then stayed out a couple of afternoons whilst I was working and trashed his legs. So we took it easy today, mostly cruising. Although we did a run through Closet which was still quite nice. Here's Michael in Closet.


Here's today's track. 15,226 vertical ft (884,447 season total ft) in 3:04.

Lifts

Today Michael and I set out to ride every open lift (that means everything except Priest Creek and the Christie triple which both operate very rarely). It also excludes the magic carpets on the beginner hill since we have to preserve what little dignity we have left!

The route was as follows. Gondola via upper Vagabond and Surprise (just to throw some bumps into the mix) to Pony Express, via Longhorn (horrible today) to Bar UE Chair, via Cowboy Coffee to Morningside, via The Ridge, Buddy's and Tornado Lane to Four Points Chair, via Tornado (very nice) to Storm Peak Express, via Closet (sweet), Sunset and Moonlight to Sundown Express, via Flintlock to Sunshine Express, via Tomahawk to South Peak Chair, via Westside (also horrible today) to Elkhead Chair, via lower Rainbow to Burgess Creek Chair.

We had to bail at that point because my sinuses were giving me hell and my head was about to explode. We figured out that picking up the remaining chairs on the lower mountain (Thunderhead Express, Christie Express, Bashor and Preview) would take at least another 45 minutes making this a four hour challenge unless I can think of a more efficient route before I try again next week.

Here's the track. 14,541 vertical ft (season total 869,221 ft) in 3:02.

Half way

Today is day 68. With 137 days in the 2009-10 ski season, half way through tomorrow will be the mid-point of the season.

It's been a thin season with only three full on powder days so far, but there's still 69 days to go. And there's been quite a few days like today where the report said only three or four inches but it seemed like more and made for some great skiing. Today Michael and I had some awesome tree runs on Closet, Shadows and Kuus' Cruise.

Here's today's track. 13,196 vertical ft (season total 826,326 ft) in 2:22.

More Aussies

I skied today with my friend Michael, his sister Amanda and her friends Therese and Vicky all from Australia.

It was a funny sort of day in terms of the weather. It was reasonably warm so we sat on the deck at Rendezvous for lunch and then it started snowing so heavily our lunch got covered in snow and then the sun came out again.

Here's today's track. 21,355 vertical ft (season total 813,130 ft) in 4:40.

Texans in town

In addition to my sister-in-law who lives in Beirut, friends from Texas are visiting this weekend, so today was like the opening line of a joke: A guy from Australia, a guy from Texas and a girl from Beirut get on a ski lift...for a total vertical of 11,262 ft.

Day 13

The weather today wasn't nearly as nice as yesterday, but Michael and I still had a great time on the mountain skiing a mix of bumps, trees and groomers for a total of 11,469 vertical ft.


Now we're just waiting for more snow. Bring on the powder days!

2008 Finale

What a fantastic day to finish 2008. The weather was glorious and the snow was perfect.

Michael and I spent much of the day refining his bump technique.


We also went looking for leftover powder in the trees.




With skiing lots of bumps and trees and stopping to take photos, not to mention hiking to the top to ski Wake Up Call, we only managed 12,045 vertical ft, but every foot counted.