Killer Ski Day

Today was one of the best ski days ever, I took a few laps on Baldy, found some cool new lines, and then hit the Baldy Chutes which were soooo good. After that I found some of my friends up there and took some laps with them. The snow was still soft from Sunday's storm so all the landings were money. So yeah, good snow+good friends+good lines=good day

If this is global warming.......

I'm sitting in my room where I should be studying for my finance presentation next week but I really really don't want to be here. I wish I were in Squaw Valley for the US Freeskiing comp, I went out there last year for it and had a blast even though I didn't do very well in it. I have a couple of friends out there competing in it so I hope they do well. We had another storm today, which was great because the skiing started out pretty crappy and icy and turned into creamy soft snow. I got in one tram lap as they opened it at 2:30 and had all of upper Silver Fox to myself, I was the first one in there in a few days. But this storm turned out to be pretty treacherous for people driving, lots of people sliding all over and crashing. And people complaining about how much snow we're getting. Maybe they forget that we went an entire MONTH last year with no new snow at all, and that it was 60 degrees in November so i think everyone should stop complaining. So if there really is a global warming crisis and we're getting this much snow (470" to date) then I'm all for it. It looks like the only inconvenient truth is that Al Gore is still on his soapbox preaching. And that I wish I were in Squaw.

Telluride

I went out to Telluride for the freeskiing comp this week which turned out to be super frustrating for me. I picked a line that I was comfortable with and would score well but I was dead last in the start order, so 96 people went before me. I thought that my line would still be doable but when I dropped in the top chute I was going to go down was completely bare and the rocks at Telluride aren't smooth enough to slide on. The only way I could see to get back to my line was to back up but that would have cost me alot of fluidity and agressiveness points, so I decided to continue the way I was going. I ended up finishing the bottom 3/4 of the course in 2 huge turns but it wasn't enough to get me into the finals. The thing that frustrates me most isn't that the chute was bare, its that I didn't look around enough or plan ahead for an alternate way to get to my line, or have a back up line. Thinking back I could have gotten to it or made up something else other than just turns. But thats how it goes, live and learn.