If you listen to GeekNights, you probably know that I’ve been skiing basically my whole life. It is easily my favorite sport hobby, and is possibly my favorite hobby (tied with tabletop gaming).
But my whole life, I’d never skied outside of the East. Killington, Loon, and Bretton Woods were the “best” places I’d ever been.
But now, having skied for just one week at Vail… It’s like a wholly different sport out there.
This was the first trip I’d ever skied a “bowl” instead of developed trails or glades. Imagine a giant expanse of snow with widely varied terrain that funnels to a single point at the base of the incline.
The “trails” are little more than recommended paths to take with indications of their relative difficulty. It’s real easy to get “lost” en route, but you’ll always end up at a safe destination no matter what direction you ski.
I’ve never experienced anything like it and I’m kind of hooked. I even tried “powder skis” which were a trip.
My girlfriend took a personal ski trip over the weekend as well. I forget the name of the Mountain but it was located in Massachusetts. Went down the slope a few times after finishing up work in the area to refresh her batteries.
Emily and I both leveled up significantly. I took on some of the spicier back bowls despite very “East Coast” conditions.
Because I’m a nut who is on the first chair and the last chair of the day (despite everyone else heading in earlier), I was able to get 96 runs in! 129k vertical feet covering 146 miles with a top speed of 44.7 MPH.
27.5 hours. I was on one of the first gondolas up every morning and took the last possible chair as high as possible right at the close.
My average speed while skiing (as opposed to taking breaks or riding lifts was 19.8MPH. I spent about half of every day doing runs with friends, and then the rest of the day alone doing as much as possible as hard as possible.
