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Adventure’s Out There!

Colorful moments that added a little excitement to our season

Devin and Rachel near Hallelujah Hut in Breckenridge

The time I Nordic skied without knowing how to ski

You may recall our Nordic skiing outing with friends at Breckenridge. While it was fabulously fun, I do have a few recommendations based on my experience. Start by asking yourself these questions:

  1. Did you know that Nordic skis (at least the ones we rented) have no metal edges, which can mean that people inexperienced with shifting their weight on skis might have trouble controlling their direction?
  2. Did you know that Nordic ski trails have difficulty ratings, similar to Alpine trails?
  3. Did you know that harder Nordic trails can have some moderate inclines and no tracks?

I did not know any of those things and still managed to have a fantastic time. However, if you are not okay with the possibility of careening off the trail into a creek, you may want to do some research on the above items first.

The time my contact ripped in half in my eye mid-day

We sure ended our trip to Steamboat with a bang! Overall, the conditions that day were not great: mostly low light, some fresh snow with a constant emergence of icy patches, and always wind. Add to all that the inability to see clearly due to a contact that tore apart in my eye and things get messy.

I took my goggles off while on the chair, rubbed my right eye, and had a chunk of contact come away with my glove. (The other chunk remained in my eye until we got back to the car.)

Fun fact: I can only wink my left eye. No, seriously. It’s a thing.

Obviously it was not ideal to suddenly lose vision in the one eye I couldn’t close, but it was our last day in Steamboat. So…I just kept riding for another couple hours until we had a full day in. Insisting on being able to see where you’re going is for the weak.

Lesson: Learn to wink both eyes. Get Lasik.

The time my binding broke at the top of the mountain

Before our lunch break at Beaver Creek, we decided to do a few laps in the Larkspur Bowl. Devin, Alex, and Jonathan like the runs off to the side of the mountain, while I usually entertain myself playing in the bumps along the edges of the main run.

Just a few turns in, I suddenly tumbled head over heels with a foot free from the board. Apparently, the screw holding my binding together suddenly decided to work itself loose. I climbed back up to where I fell and found two of the three parts that came off, but couldn’t reassemble the binding by myself; I was left to navigate my way down the mountain without a way to solidly anchor my front foot to my board.

My turns were slow, but I made it down to Red Tail Camp. I was lucky to find an employee who helped me zip tie my binding back together until I got to the base of the mountain. Once there, the lovely people at One Track Mind reassembled my board for free and we were able to continue the afternoon.

We now carry zip ties in the ski backpack.

T-Bar at Breckenridge

The time I decided that I wanted to switch from snowboarding to skiing

I once advocated that falling on T Bar is fine as long as you get out the way, but sometimes life doesn’t afford us the luxury of following our own advice.

There was a spectacular occasion this season where I caught a bump with my board, fell and got tangled up with Devin, and couldn’t get untangled in time to clear out of the way of the people behind us. The old man behind me proceeded to fall directly on top of me, which then lead to a pileup with the people behind him.

All told, I took out six people. (Though I allege the man who just laid on top of me shares some responsibility in those final two.)

Luckily we were near the top and still managed to have a nice run. But it was exactly that moment that I decided I want to ski.

I have a few bunny hills and green runs under my belt this season, so we will be sure to provide more updates on the transition from snowboarding to skiing as I progress. Sometimes it can be hard to start all over when there is immediate fun to be had on my snowboard, but I think it’s going to be the right choice in the long run.

Everything doesn’t have to go perfectly for you have a great day: embrace the chaos and remember that adventure’s out there!

6 replies on “Adventure’s Out There!”

Well said. It’s an adventure if you are still walking when you get home. Otherwise, it’s an incident 😉

This reminded me of my first year sking with plate bindings and I broke it in half. The ski went off the trail into the woods. After digging arouns in 5 feet of snow, I retrieved it and tried one ski, sking …. and then walking to the bottom.

Keep up the adventures.

I started skiing this year, after eight or so years of snowboarding. I love them both so much. I finally went up the T-Bar (on skis). I’m faster on skis, but last Sunday, I took the board out in that powder!

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