rest day

Due to my jacked up blisters we decided to have a rest day yesterday. We went for a walk on the aquaduct.

cold, but beautiful

hooray for winter!

Then we went to the free skating rink. FH found some hockey sticks and we had an impromptu hockey game (my first). I scored 3 goals. Of course, there was no one on the other team.

menace on the ice

When we got home FH did surgery on my ski boots for my foot warmers so the cable wouldn't rub against my blisters.

don't worry, I'm going to put duct tape on it when we get home

skiing Jackson

Yesterday we skied Taggart Lake. It was my first experience with swix wax. I did really good skinning up but on the way down I took my skins off and FH put on the swix. Unfortunately, he didn't realize my ski has a greater camber than his so it didn't work as well on my skis.

Swix looks like snot, but it's for skis

 It was really scenic and the snow was in good shape even though it hasn't snowed here since Monday night.

I actually look like I know what I'm doing.

Here I seem confused by my poles.

Ski through the trees - and I made it down a similar narrow trail without hitting a tree.

Heading down to the car was going great until I hit a two foot steep section. I tried to walk up it but I didn't have enough swix on my skis so I kept sliding backwards. Then I decided to walk up the hill sideways but forgot my heels were not locked in. I got half way up the hill and suddenly pitched forward, doing a face plant right between my skis. As if that weren't bad enough, I tried to push myself to a standing position with my poles and the skis took off from under me. I ended up in a pool of water (it was 5 degrees outside).

I flailed around in the water for a few seconds and tried to lock my heels into my skis, but I couldn't see the bindings. I wallowed around like a beached whale and then realized there were two people coming. I managed to get out of the pool, get my bindings locked, and get over the hill before they saw me acting like an idiot.

Today we skied Phelps Lake.

The ski was fun except that I had gotten a blister on my left foot from skiing in wet socks yesterday (and I NEVER get blisters because I walk around barefoot all the time). The blister got a lot worse, and then I ended up getting another blister on my right foot. By the time we got back to the car I was in so much pain I couldn't get my boots off (they were stuck with blood on the sides of the boot linings). FH and his sister finally managed to yank my boots off but it ripped the skin off my feet.

Ech. Ouch.

So tomorrow we may take the day off from skiing to go ice skating or do something else that doesn't involve me ripping the skin off my feet.

jackson hole christmas

FH and I drove up to Jackson Hole for some back country skiing. The trip was pretty epic. Jake sustained an injury to his passenger side headlight.

Why is it always the shit that's hard to fix that breaks? Think this was caused by a piece of ice that flew off a truck traveling in the opposite direction.

The trip started out with blue skies and no traffic. Then we hit the snowy range on I-80.

Visibility was so low we didn't think it could get any worse.

Then it got a lot worse.

...so we stopped to get some alcohol. Wind River Brewing Company beer is awesome!

Today we're going skiing as soon as the temperature gets above -5 degrees.

a christmas carol that I could sing

FH loves christmas carols (frankly, I could do without them) and he sent me a link to Brenda Lee singing Rockin Around the Christmas Tree. Then he said "it's my favorite christmas carol, especially when she sings "then we'll eat some fucking pie".

I was like, um, what, a christmas carol with the f-word in it????

He played it for me, and in the second verse, I did hear something that at first sounded like "fucking pie". Then I realized she was singing "pumpkin pie" but pronouncing it "punkin pie".

FH says I'm wrong and that she's saying "fucking pie". Listen for yourself...

berthoud pass

Yesterday FH and I went skiing at Berthoud Pass. We got a late start which ended up being good because there was no traffic and hardly any people out.

Skins on the bottom of my skis. I actually managed to get them on by myself, in a snow storm, without getting them stuck to everything.

 As we approached the first run (1.5 mile hike up, 1.5 mile ski down) a guy with an inflatable orange stick figure stopped us. He said he was working with a company called Team Spinhead and he thought we looked "colorful and fun". He asked if it was okay to take a picture of us to use on the company Christmas card. I said "is it okay if I'm jewish?" He looked a little nervous and said "well, we aren't going to put any religious stuff on the card". Then I was like "kidding!" but he might have been too busy falling into a snow hole to have heard me.

He had FH and I ski toward him and the inflatable stick figure. Then he had us ski away (I was told not to ski too close to FH because I was screwing up the spacing). At some point a husky ran up and joined us (we never did find out who the owner was but the dog followed us on our run up and down the mountain). The guy was like "fantastic! this is great! perfect!" Supposedly he's going to email us a copy of the picture.

FH took this pic at the top of the first run we did. This shows my ski with the binding loose in case you found my earlier explanation confusing.

I haven't gotten fat. It was really fucking cold out. The red arrow shows where the binding is loose (it gets fixed to the ski for down hill skiing). You can also see the skin on my ski. It peels off like a sticker for down hill skiing.

Then we crossed the road and did another 3 mile run. That run was harder and it was obvious that avalanche conditions were bad. There were air pockets in the snow around trees and when I fell into a hole taking my skis off I could see the layers of sublimated snow. But, the run was okay and we made it back to the truck without injury.

Taking my boots off in the snow storm. Best. Boots. Ever. They're Black Diamond and even an idiot like me can get them on and off with no problems.