I am up before 7:00 am, making a pod (not pot) of coffee that the Airbnb owner put out for the guests, then brewing up a batch of oatmeal for anyone who wants it. While D & Allison sleep in, Utah watches TV and I read some of my book, Vietnam: A View From the Front Lines. I’ve had this book kicking around for a while, but finally picked it up this past week. I’m only 60 pages into it, but so far it is better than expected. I have an odd fascination with the Vietnam War, for reasons I cannot put a finger on. I still don’t understand it, like at all.
At 8:00 am I head out to Ruff Life to get a better cup of coffee and to give the espresso one more shot (pun…intended? IDK). It’s on this visit I realize they don’t even have an espresso machine, just some spout they fit the pod into, that produces a sub-standard shot of espresso-like beverage. Ok, lesson learned on this one. The regular coffee is good, Nicaraguan today I believe. On the way back to the apartment I count the steps, and we are 86 steps from the apartment to the coffee shop.
Eventually we’re all up, dressed, fed, and packed, so we head off to the ski hill, Pico Mountain, which will be a new ski hill for both D and myself. Drive is less than 20 minutes and while we’re not early, we’re early enough to get a parking spot in the main lot. We walk for a few minutes to the lodge, and just like that we’re right there. I’m somewhat surprised to see so many New Jersey plates in the lot, being that we’re well into Vermont now. Usually, once you get up past the Lake George area, you generally see very few NJ plates.
We’d been sent an RFID card that served as our tickets for the weekend, but Utah & Allison never got theirs. So they get in line to work that out while I hit the bathroom, stow our bag in the locker area, then check out the map with D to get a lay of the hill. The view from here looks decent but you never know what you’ll get based on trail colors. Just like biking, blue is not the same everywhere. So you need to check it out and see what that mountain is like in real life.
Today will be the 5th time I ski this season, and the 11th time in my life. So, as I have come to expect, I have no idea what to expect. I assume for the sake of my own sanity that I’ll have forgotten everything I knew 2 weeks ago. It’s simply safer this way. None of the lifts go all the way to the top, so we get in line where all the other people are getting in line, then we start the day by taking a green trail down to the bottom again. Following that, we do a blue and I feel pretty good on the second run.
After the break-in period, we take the lift all the way to the top and dabble around up there for a bit. In all we do 4 big runs down the mountain, and on the last one we head to the lodge for lunch. We threw in a black diamond this morning, which was a new type of black diamond for me. This was a pretty narrow run, Upper Ka, which is something that pushes the bounds of my comfort zone. I survived it.
First half of the day is a solid success for me. I feel more “on” than 2 weeks ago, and by the end of it, I feel more in control than ever before. At the end of one of the runs I declare that it may have been the best run I’ve ever skied. In all, solid opening half of the day.
Random side note. As we’re getting on the lift to go to the top, someone yells to us from the chair pulling away. Turns out it’s Payman, who recognized D when he looked back as he was getting on the lift. Payman is a biker we know from Jersey who, incidentally, was in Tremblant at the same time we were this past winter. We got to talk a bit at the top before we went our separate ways.
We meet up with Allison for lunch, who was in the lodge because she decided she didn’t feel good enough to partake in the festivities today. We eat some sandwiches & strawberries and hang out talking for a half hour, probably more. Packing a lunch is not only more convenient, it’s healthier, and most of all, it’s considerably cheaper. I do succumb and buy a hot chocolate for D and some M&Ms that I split with Utah.
The second half of the day starts on an entirely different lift on the right side of the base of the mountain, which takes us to the top of a smaller peak off to the side. We figure we can give it a try to see how it is over there. We jump on Sidewinder, which is a total & complete shit show, well beyond anything I can do at this stage, perhaps more than anything I will ever be able to do. It was ungroomed, and 100% unenjoyable. From there, we get in some better runs when we get the lay of the land from a local.
After that sidebar of nonsense, we go all the way to the top again, then all the way back down, then half-up-half-down and all the way up again for 2 more runs to close out the day. We do the black diamond first, which is no longer as good, since most of the snow has been skied off at this point, so it’s more icy this run. We finish the day up with a blue from top top bottom, which is just shy of 2000 vertical feet down. It’s hard to believe that in just a few years I’ve gone from non-skier to being able to knock that out in a single run at the end of a 6 hour day.
Even though today was a really solid day, by the end I was getting tired and sloppy. When I get tired I start to do dumb things, make mistakes, and subsequently I crash. The snow had been blowing all day, and by the late afternoon there were areas which were a mix of snow mounds and ice. I didn’t do so well on these when we did the last run, so it was a good time to call it a day.
Strava link of the day can be found here. 3:54:13 moving time, 30.76 miles, and 16,842 feet of elevation (mechanically enhanced, of course).
In all we got in 15 runs, listed here for historical accuracy:
1. Gold Rush/Swinger
2. Expressway/Swinger
3. Fools Gold (to the big lift)
4. Forty Niner/Middle Pike
5. Forty Niner/Lower Sunset 71/Forty Niner/Middle Pike
6. Upper Ka/Middle Ka/Middle Pike/Lower Pike
7. Forty Niner/Middle Pike/Lower Ka (to lunch)
8. Sidewinder
9. Bronco
10. That A Way/Panhandler/Swinger
11. Fools Gold (to the big lift)
12. Forty Niner/Middle Pike/Lower Ka (to lodge)
13. Fools Gold (to the big lift)
14. Upper Ka/Middle Ka/Middle Pike
15. Forty Niner/Easy Street/Middle Pike/Lower Pike
On top of that, Allison scored us a magnet!
While D and I took a pit stop to visit the bathroom in the afternoon, Utah went off and did some rogue stuff with some teenagers he ran into. This is far above my pay grade so I’ll just show the pics here.
We wrap up the day around 3:30 and drive back to Rutland to the Airbnb. Utah and I drop the girls off and go to the market to grab a few things to help make dinner complete, though most of what we needed for the meal had made the journey with us. Another bonus with the Airbnb is having a kitchen which allows you to make your breakfast/lunch/dinner which saves on the total money you spend. These trips become far more economical when you cut out a few high-priced meals.
Before dinner, D made some guacamole while we watched Silence of the Lambs. I’d never seen it before, which surprised everyone. The movie came out in 1991 which was college for me. So, from 1990-2000, I watched pretty much zero television, other than Tetris & Techmo Bowl.
When the film ended we ate dinner, which was chicken curry and some baked potatoes, plus salad. Salad isn’t as exciting to show, so I’ll stick with pictures of the good stuff. We also grabbed some chocolate ice cream for dessert, which we would eat later in the evening. You know what that looks like, so no pictures needed.
Finished up the night by watching, Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife. This stand-up routine is nothing short of fabulous, if maybe a little not-family friendly, and highly recommended. This was also a great evening of relaxing after a full day out on the slopes. This is such a great way to spend a day. Wake up and take your time, go ski for 6 hours, then come home and eat good food and watch a movie or 2.
Awesome day in Vermont. As is often the case, this state delivers the goods yet again.
Traveling Normandy 