A Winter to Remember

This winter has been the snowiest in recent memory. Many of my fellow New Englanders are suffering doldrums from the constant coating of the white stuff but not me. With Mandy buying a new Snowmobile and my time at the mountain this snow has made for the best winter ever. The weather has been very kind to me in particular every Saturday has been clear and bright, there is nothing worse than teaching ski lessons in the rain. This past weekend the snow conditions were insanely good, hard packed tight corduroy (what can I say I'm a New England skier). The rain then cold snap has also been great for the snow mobile trails, smooth and easy riding (minus the rock hard snow banks).

This being the first time either Mandy or I have driven a sled we're still getting the hang of it. It does take some of the fun out of your ride when you have to pick yourself up out of the road and flip your sled over before the distant headlights become a looming disaster. Trudging out into the woods in the dark to help you sweet little wife get her sled unstuck from whatever new pitfall she has found and inevitably gotten herself stuck in. It's all good though with each painful mistake that doesn't kill us we get that much closer to being good with the sled. We have even started making our own modifications, just like real sled owners (no yuppies here). Just before Valentines Day we installed a second seat from a kit, disregarding the signs all over the box that said "Product must be installed by a Licensed Ski-Doo Dealer". I'm please to say that we managed just fine and didn't even have any "spare parts".

Hopefully the weather will hold out and we'll have "date nights" on the sled through the end of March. Then it's 9 months of anticipation until we can start looking for snow again.

Taking the Occasional Fall

When I learned to ski I did it by falling. I stayed on the bunny slope for about twenty seconds before throwing myself on the lift to the top of now defunct Temple Mountain. From the top to the bottom I'm sure I fell quite a few time but each time I got up dusted myself off and went again. For the first few years I actually measured the quality of my skiing by the number of times I fell, In fact I still remember my first no falls day.

In the adaptive ski program young men with strong backs are in short supply, so there is some pressure to train myself and one other new volunteer Matt on how to do some of the more physically demanding functions. Tethering a sit ski is very physically demanding, besides the skiing the load and unload also requires some muscle and coordination. A few weekends ago I started learning how to tether (sorry Nancy see above) and this weekend I thumb tethered my first student from the top of the lift to the bottom (sorry Paige image unavailable). Once again I find myself measuring my ski aptitude by the number of times I fall in a day. Maybe that is why my hips are killing me.