Thursday, December 11, 2008

Bridger Bowl Hands Kate Her *ss in a Basket on Day one!


What a BEAUTIFUL day! Holy moly! Okay, so falling is kind of contra-indicated for me right now, and aside from a few spin outs at Hood, I haven't had a really good wreck since I went tomahawking down the Gardner Headwall in the Beartooths in June...

Riding the chair lift this morning in our new spiffy uniform coats, I was just totally struck with what an incredible mountain it is that I am so fortunate to work at! Riding up Pierre's Knob lift, I was looking up at the ridge and realizing once again what a SUPER STEEP and incredible challenging place I get to ski at every day.

The snow was deep, and fairly skied out, and I took my first run, as is tradition, on the "instructor highway" or "funnel of death" called Thunder Road. I'd tuned my skis up pretty well the day before, and I was happy to ski it well, even though it was fairly firm. I ventured off onto the Deer Park and Bridger chairs, and ran into Neil Lande!

Neil has worked at Bridger for years, and is moving to Aspen this winter to teach at Snowmass, driving up to work this morning, I was thinking about how I'd miss him at Bridger, and there he was! The one day he was going to get in, and we got to ski a couple of fun runs together!

I also got out with one of my training buddies from last year, Alex Sweeny, and we hit the off piste hard. The snow was like setting up cream cheese, and I was trying to make stuff HAPPEN, I've been skiing fairly firm snow since August, and I guess I've gotten used to pushing on my skis a bit. Well...

After a HUGE faceplant that buried me up to my shoulders, two summer-saults and booting out twice, I figured out what the heck was going on and lightened up a bit on my feet... I had been thinking retraction, soften the inside foot to make the turn happen, but I'd been working it too hard and after five or six good turns just getting SPANKED.

Finally, the skiing clicked and even though I booted out once more at the end of the day (geeze, now I'm afraid to move forward on my ski!), we skied some nice steep cruddy stuff and had a blast.

Smaller moves, closer stance, more two footed, lighter touch, for heaven's sake!! What a great day!

And now for some pain meds... ow...

3 comments:

Liat said...

Cool! Good job!

SingletrackM1nd said...

Nice to hear that even the pro's are having to think a little more in the early season. I skinned up to PK a week ago, and I wondered if I maybe forgot how to ski on the way down.

a said...

HA! You are hilarious. I wonder if I know how to ski every time the season starts, now. Better than wondering at the top of a new pitch, like it used to be!!

Thanks for reading, guys!