Day Forty Eight- 2/17/11 Skiing with New (to me) Skis!!

Day Forty Eight: 2/17/11
New Thing: Skiing with New (to me) Skis!!     
Inspiration: Ali, Dad & Doug 
Cost: $14 in tolls (and nothing else to that wonderful little sis!)  
Time: All day.  
Bottom Line: Awesome day!

The Motley Crew on the top of Elk Mt.--Doug, Ali, Me, Dad.

Sisters in Crime.

 Reflection: Today was really, really great. My father is in from Kentucky which would be treat enough. But we celebrated his brief return with a ski trip to Elk Mountain which made it even better.You may not know this, but one of my favorite things to do on this earth is to go skiing. In my opinion, it is the nearest thing to flying you can do without leaving the ground...much.

The day started with a gift from my sister, her hand-me-up skis! Now, I have had exactly two other pairs of skis in my life, and I have been skiing since I was in 4th grade. The first pair was a set of PRECISIONS ("Pres" for short.) The Pres were already obsolete, outmoded, and outdated when I received them. In fact, they were probable about 10 years old BEFORE I skied on them for another three years. At one point in their existence, they had a bright neon yellow, pink, and purple motif. But they had had much of that paint chipped off by the previous owners poles and thus had more of a "pot-marked" motif. One of the poles was also bent, although not originally. That damage was obtained when I was trying to get onto the chair-lift with my father early on in my skiing career and I mistakenly stuck the pole into the ground in front of the chair. As it swung around, it got caught under the lift, hit me in the face, chipped my tooth, and bent. I remember my father crying out, "Oh no! THE POLE! Don't drop it!" I didn't and neither the pole or the chip was ever replaced. I believe that my father's rational for strapping his eldest daughter onto these deathtraps was that he, "wanted to make sure I was going to like skiing before he spent too much money on me." Well, I did somehow managed to grow to love skiing and he also managed not to spend to much money. Two birds, one dangerous stone.

This family is lucky to be alive.

The second pair of skis came later when I joined the middle school ski club (that is also the time that my father joined the ski club, and bought himself "new" skis for the occasions. He never missed a single bus for his free chaperon ticket...even if I was too sick to go myself.) These were a set of Elans and were more patriotic in nature, sporing a red, white, and blue speckled motif. They had been rentals for a season and were now discounted, and my father smelled blood in the waters of a good deal. I have been skiing on these skis for fourteen years. They have been with me for so many great moments in Hillary skiing--the famous "Mt. Tone Incident" in which we almost lost both my sister AND my mother to the ice (That was the one and only time I have ever seen my mother ski and it took 3 instructors to get her down off the mountain while my father and I continued to ski right past her on the only trail that was opened. Meanwhile, it was my sister's first time skiing and the "bunny-slope "was covered in ice and was actually just the bottom half of the expert slope which my mother was caught on. Ali was in tears trying to get down that slope only to have to use the extremely treacherous rope tow which claimed at least one pairs of my gloves to get back up.) , the time I almost saw my friend Dan die (he literally broke his board in two), ONE of the times I almost saw my father die (he was cut off and flew off the trail and was almost impaled on a snow gun), several trips to Vermont, several New Years Eves being frozen on the lifts, and hundreds of ski club trips to Elk.  I have literally skied these babies down to their rusty edges. My sister has taken pity on me and given me her old skis which are being replaced by her brand new shinny ones. I am very grateful to have them, even if it means that my old ones are being turned into (I can barely believe I am about to type this) "shot-skis."

The fire-pit at the "half-way house" lodge.

On our first run of the day, we headed down a black diamond called the "Wissahickon." Now, some might call it hubris to try to race down a mountain, after not skiing for a year, on a new pair of skis. It seems that they might have been correct because both Dad and I took a spectacular fall off of the second head-wall which took us both by surprise.  As per usual, Dad went into a tuck about three second into the run, and I followed. (I am not sure why we feel the need to race on every trail, but we do...we really do.) When we hit the second head-wall we both left the ground, which was unexpected. He fell, and I followed suit as I tried to miss him. Ali came up behind us and said we looked like a shipwreck. They we skied for the rest of the day, cooking our lunch over the fire-pit in the little know "half-way house" lodge that only the locals know about. The weather was also perfect and there was hardly anyone there. We finished it all up with dinner at "Chet's Place" for pizza. Awesome day!