Ski Season 05-06, Day 1

This last Saturday I had the opportunity to go on my first ski trip of the season. Amazingly the northwest has been getting pounded by snow over the last few weeks. Now this posed a problem, because, as some of you may recall at the end of last season I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and had to be rescued by the ski patrol. In the process, my skis from last year were completely destroyed. Well with the snow starting to fall, this made me extremely nervous. Would, after nearly twenty years of skiing I finally be forced to actually rent skis again? The horror! Well I went to rent skis at a local shop, and well, you know how it is. You see the nice pretty new skis and you just can’t resist. So I’m now the proud owner of a pair of 2005 Rossignol Bandit B2 182cm skis. And a helmet.
Anyway, we made the two and half hour drive from Seattle to Mt. Baker. The snow was good. They had a bit over a foot of new snow. The first runs were very nice and at the end of the day, when I’d remembered how to ski again, it began snowing again and so was again very nice. Mt. Baker is a very flakey ski resort. They have like one trail map sign for the entire resort. There were a couple of place I would have liked to ski, but they need another few feet of snow before I take my new skis on those runs.
Two highlights from the trip. One was early in the day. I hit a jump, not realizing that there was another jump immediately after it. I ended up nearly eating my ski tips, but somehow managed to stay upright over the second jump. I’m not sure what happened to my friend Bill who was following me over these two bumps. All I know is that we were under the chair lift and the most amazing groans and shouts of awe came from the lift. It must have been pretty good to illicit such a vocal response. The other highlight came at the end of the day. It was snowing and the conditions were such that you couldn’t see ANYTHING. I mean I had absolutely no depth perception. So I skied by following one of my fellow travels, a fellow by the name of Brendan. He’s a boarder and he was flying down the hill with me close on his heals. Turn. Turn. Turn. Tur….whooops that turn was in the middle of the air. Brendan had hit a dropoff mid turn. I was able to stop, but I can tell you there is nothing funnier than watching the increasing panic in someone who is midair and wondering, “where the heck is the ground.” Priceless.