2 March 2010

Don't we look spiffy? Almost like we're standing there, knowing exactly what we're about to do, and thinking we have it freaking nailed.

It didn't work out quite that way.

I mean, it started well. I snapped my boot into the ski binding like I'd done it a thousand times, but then it all went downhill from there.

Or more accurately, it didn't go downhill.

I had issues from the start. First, I am so damned out of shape that just getting up the tiny hill was hard work and I had a hard time catching my breath. Then while everyone else was doing that wedge down the little hill, I was stuck. One ski wanted to move, the other was plastered to the snow. So I fell. First person of the day to go down like a sack of potatoes. It wasn't embarrassing, just frustrating.

So because everyone else had wedged their way down the tiny hill successfully, we were pointed toward the lift chairs.

You know, the chairs that take you up a freaking mountain.

Getting on the chair was a snap. Getting off, not so much. Almost everyone got off that lift and fell flat on their asses. Since it was the lift to the top of the bunny slope, the attendant at the top was prepared, practically ripped skis off left and right and moved them out of the way, so that we could easily scramble, lest we trip up the more experienced skiers.

And then my day got worse.

My right ski, it wanted to slide. My left ski refused to budge. We were supposed to wedge our way across the hill, but the snow was sticking to the bottom of that left ski, and I was going nowhere fast. Well, other than the right side of my body, which wanted to take off.

I finally took the skis off, wiped all the snow off the bottom, and got back on, but by then the damage was done. I'd had a little too much time of my right side moving and my left side not, which does not favor old knees.

Forty minutes in, I was done, lest I rip my knee to shreds. I took my skis off and walked down the rest of the way.

You know how hard it is to walk down a mountain in ski boots, carrying skis?

It's not that freaking easy.

The Spouse Thingy went on another run, and he didn't do half bad. But by then the winds had whipped up, snow was falling hard, and we were worried about the worse weather that was headed our way. We'd already checked out of the hotel when we learned that tomorrow called for baby-blizzard conditions, deciding to forgo a second day in the snow on order to get out of the mountains.

We still have lift tickets, though. We may try it again next week, but with skis rented from the pro shop and not the ski school...I got screwed on my unwaxed sticks, and feel like I'm damned lucky I didn't really do some damage.

Still...it was pretty, and we had a killer view from the hotel.