Bring on the winter

I am a skier.  I haven't skied much in the past 2 years.  I miss it.  I miss it a lot.  I guess I stopped skiing for a couple of reasons.  I got sick of the drive on I-70 for one.  And as I got more serious about Xterra racing, I found myself training earlier in the winter on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Before I started mountain biking, skiing was my favorite thing to do.  I would still say that a perfect day skiing beats a perfect day mountain biking.  There is something about being out in nature on the mountain on a bluebird day that is unbeatable.  The silence when you are way back in the backcountry on a bluebird day combined with the massive mountains surrounding you and the feeling of just being, for lack of a better word, insignificant, in that grand scene is soul quenching.  it just feels "right".  I've missed this feeling.  I could stand at the top of a ridge immersed in that feeling for quite some time without moving and it is perfect.  I honestly can't wait to get back to that.  I'm sure that my triathlon fitness will be delayed until later in the year.  Well, it can wait.  I'll get there when the time is right.  For now, I need the mountains.  So, I've plunked down the schillings for the epic pass and now I'm waiting for some serious snow.  I know it is only mid-November, but I'm ready. 

I'm going to get some fat powder planks this year so I can really rip some big lines, play more in the trees, hit some bigger cliffs and maybe do some touring.  I'm going to push myself on the mountain this year and try to get back to being the skier I used to be.  I'm not going to venture into the park because I'm over that, and I don't think my body can handle a big fall on the hardpack anyways.  I'm older than my 31 years in that regard.  This body has taken a lot of abuse from my days as a park rat.  That isn't going to keep me from finding my limit again on cliffs and steeps.  Hopefully it won't take too long to recapture what I used to know and be able to do comfortably. 

With that in mind, here is the last decent sized cliff I hit before I hung up the skis 2 years ago.  I'm 90% certain this is the cliff that is as far skiers left as you can go before you get out of bounds off of chair 37 or 38 in Blue Sky Basin at Vail.  For the record, I cleanly dropped this cliff, unlike the joker in this video.  Honestly, get your weight back man!  Nice over the bars though!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been really into Gregory Alan Isakov.  The song 3 a.m. kinda sums up my thoughts about clearing my head, answering some questions and getting back into nature.  Love it right now.

Keep the tips up!

NS