So I got this opportunity to go on a ski trip to Utah as well as attend some of the SlamDance Independant Film
All I had to do was get there, rent the car and GO! whooho! I'm going skiing!
There was some trepidation, as always, since i'm not a big fan of travelling alone, but I had Juli, that wild bicycling thrasher snowboarding chick (which is another story on its own) who had told me to come along.
Thursday morning, I wake up late, get out on the road, get Juli in Park City and head for the Park City Ski area. I take her to Jakes, my favorite ski rental place, get her set up, get me set up, say hi to the guys who remember me and then we go in search of lunch.
Mexican! of course! I'm with Juli, wild bicycling thrasher chick! (She loves mexican). Our waitress is from Hungary. A little incongurous, but the food is good. After splurging on getting inserts made for my boots, Juli heads to her class, and I head up the hill to see what I can see...
Park City was as much fun as I remember. In old and fond tradition, I took Hidden Splendour down from the top, testing out my new boots, inserts and rental skis. (the skis were too short. I was going too slow and they chattered way too much... make sure I get 185's next time) I spent the rest of the afternon reminding myself how to ski. I'm still terrible, but hey, I have fun.
I'm supposed to meet Juli at 4 15 after her lesson is over, so my last run for the day is down ol' Crescent - I could take the easier way down, but its always so scraped up and icy, so I head for the mogul hill.
One good thing about the film festival, is that there are NO PEOPLE on the slopes. I head down and see no one around me... which is fine until I fall. One of those great falls that has be sliding backwards down the hill on my butt, feet straight up in the air. I finally complete the somersault and drive one ski straight into a mogul, and slide down, so my head is still lower then my feet, but I'm held in place by the skiboot in the binding.
I struggle to get myself up, good thing the snow is soft, but damn, it makes it hard to move around. I pop my ski out, get myself up, (laughing a lot, I must have looked pretty funny sliding down on my butt) and get myself settled to head back down the hill. FINALLY, another skiier comes by to see me, covered in snow and asks, "are you ok?" "SURE!" I say, "Why couldnt you have come 5 minutes ago when I needed help?" He laughs, waves and heads on down. I get my ski back on, and head down, trying to see if I can make turns around every other mogul...
I get back to the bottom, excited to tell Juli about my afternoon and the silly fall, but she isnt at the meeting place. I go and return my skis and get longer ones, and overhear a telephone call to the front desk saying, "No, she's not here" and I ask, "Who are they looking for?" a weird sense of premonition says that its Juli looking for me. Just my luck, she's at the Ski Patrol. I get my stuff together, get the car and drive over there to see her laying on her back her arm all bound up.
"its broken," she said, looking very green.She'd broken her wrist falling down the steepest part of the beginner slope. They'd given her a shot for the pain, but she was waiting for someone to come and set it. Ow. ow ow ow. Poor Juli. I get her key, go back to get her boots, return her snowboard and boots and tell the folks at Jakes she'd broken her wrist.
"ow ow ow," They all say. "Tell her to come back when she's better!"
Friday, I pick up juli in the morning and take her back to the ski patrol place. She's still a little woozy, and I tell her its ok, the shock of a bone breaking will do that. I hang out with the ski patrol guys and talk to the dog, and talk to them about what they do. She comes out feeling better. We've got to get meds into her, so the morning is spent shopping for pharmaceuticals and then lunch at Jambalaya. I've been wanting to go to this resturant for a few years since it had opened, and NO one would ever go with me. Juli and I have a wonderful lunch, head back to Park City and spend the afternoon watching movies on the couch at the viewing room for SlamDance.
We see the Atrocity Exhibition and then I was really honored to be able to watch Akira Kurosawa's last film, MADADAYO, meaning "Not Yet". I've seen a few of his other films, "Hidden Fortress" and "Seven Samurai" - but this was just so wonderful - a really really sweet film. It made me miss Steve, since I think he would have really really enjoyed it a lot.
Actually, Atrocity Exhibition was way over my head in terms of its intellectual messages, but it evoked such STRONG feelings, about events like Kennedy's assassination, and the Challenger explosion. I went to the SlamDance awards, and then due to a recurring headache, decided to go home. (My relationships with some of my friends have recently become very stressful, and resulted in my getting headaches way too easily when I'm tired - and work has been a factor, but I get paid for that.)
The less about this the better, but Grant's gf works late on Saturdays, so we waited for her, and then ended up having to wait for Grant to finish a fone call - so by the time we get to the resturant, we're all HUNGRY! really really badly hungry.
There is a convention in SLC that weekend, and we end up not getting out of this place until about 12 30 am. (I think we got in at about 9 30 pm) The food was mediocre, but at that point, we were all so hungry, we just ate, went home and passed out.
I had a free ticket to Deer Valley, courtesy of the too expensive car I had rented, so I decided to go there for my last day of skiing. Unfortunately, this was also the last day of the Sundance Film Festival, so everyone was at deer valley. watching movies. and there were NO parking spaces! anywhere! I drove around for about 20 minutes trying to find something, finally gave up in disgust, and headed for the Canyons.
Trust me when I say that the Canyons is not a good place to ski alone. Its gotten bigger, more spread out, more tree / mostly unpatrolled areas, and its a lot harder then the Wolf Mountain I was used to. I loved it. I just kept checking to make sure my cell phone worked in case... in case I went the wrong way.
The scariest part of my trip happened to me - I got on a lift, and ended up on the far right side of the mountain, no easy way down. No problem, right? Except that the sun goes behind the clouds, and the world goes FLAT. I've got to get good sunglasses - something that can handle this kind of light, becuase of course, I'm in a hUGE mogul field and I cant see ANYTHING.
*slowly I go.. inch by inch, slide by slide.. PLANT that pole, TURN real quick, slowly I go some more, PLANT that pole, turn real quick!*
I was getting into a rythmn on this, until I hit one of those quick turns a little too quickly, and ended up banking it like a berm shot and ended up landing on my back. Good thing the snow is soft. (ow) One of my skis popped gently off and slid to a stop about 5 feet away and I just lay there for a bit, stunned. The sun was starting to come out so I got up, get the ski back on and skiied as fast as I could down the rest of the hill while there was sunlight.
Finally, I decide to go into the new area they've opened up called Tombstone, but its late, and I dont do more then a couple of runs. Like an Idiot, I forget my usual rule of NOT taking the Easiest Way Down, and take it. Its a scraped off, icy icky steep hill. The only snow is on either edge. I take the whole trail to ski and turn. Further down the hill I see a very tired looking girl and her bf, who's encouraging her down the hill. She is not doing well. Finally, she falls in the middle of the trail and starts screaming her knee hurts. (I think it was more that she was tired and frustrated rather then seriously hurt, but I dont know for sure.)
I skiied down, told the guy I'd get the ski patrol, to put her skis in that X above her, and to tell everyone who came by to get the ski patrol, in case (most likely) someone was faster then li'l ol' me, they'd find out.
I found the ski patrol, but I dont know what happened to the girl, since that lift had now closed. I again make the same mistake, and isntead of taking the gondola down, decide to ski down and again, end up on the 'easiest way down'. One part of which involved a looong straight narrow slope that had one going UPHILL at the end. You had to pick up a good amount of speed to make it. urgh.
I do it. It sucks on the curved skis, because its so much easier to lose control.
My last fall of the weekend was a doozy - a short icy slope, I catch my tips and next thing I know, I've managed to spin around, and land on the tails of my skis, going backwards down the hill. WhoA! I force myself to tumble to the right, but end up rolling over and over, and finally, like a cartoon character rolling off a cliff, I BOUNCE off the edge of the trail. I have just enough time to think "Gee, maybe I ought to wear a helmet? oh, thank goodness no TREES around here!" when I go WUMPF into the soft and fluffy snow.
One ski falls off and slides to a rest a few feet away. The snow is too soft and powdery for me to get on top of it, so I grab my ski, take off the other one and hike back onto the hardpack. eww. I'm exhausted. All this time, I'm floundering in the snow and skiier are whaling past me - about 8 feet above me. Not a one asks if I'm ok, tho I must be pretty obvious - I guess the SuperBowl waits for no one.
All in all, a great weekend of skiing, tho I'm sorry about Juli. I hope we can go again next season and have some fun... I think I'm going to plan to do this again, same bat time, same bat place. :)