Firsts

And a glorious weekend it was.  Updates on the team penning, which was more along the lines of chase-the-cattle-as-you-please penning, will come when I pull together some of the video footage (since videos make everything more fun).  Yesterday, though, I skied.

Day two on my telemark skis.  A very talented friend held a free tele clinic.  I picked up some more tips and things started to click a little better.  My turns to the left are pretty solid, my turns to the right tend to fail semi-epicly.  But I’m getting there!  Definitely not bad for only two days!!

My butt was seriously kicked again yesterday.  My quads were absolutely killing me at the end of it all. Kill-ing me.  But such is the price of being ripped – I kid, I kid.  But really, my legs better be shredded at the end of the season!  I enjoy the pain to some extent.

Yesterday I had two firsts: My first accident and my first climb up a mountain on my tele skis.

-          The accident: After 6 months of training and “We’ll practice this, but you’re never going to see it on the mountain,” I’m presented with ‘what I’ll never see’.  Lovely.  Nothing gory or gruesome, no worries, but interesting all the same.  Training paid off as I kicked into gear, a rhythm of getting ‘er done that only comes about from hours of practice.  Working the accident with two others from my candidate class led for smooth operations, as well.  Oh, and in case you were worried, the patient ended up being just fine in the end.

-          My first climb: Slogging through sun melted heavy snow is not something I have too large a desire to do again soon, at least not in as many layers as I was wearing!  But oh, it was enjoyable.  I love the woods up there, thick with red spruce and birch.  The wind whistling softly through the snow and ice covered branches.  The view on top was brilliant to both sides of the pipeline tree cut.  Out one, Bald Knob and the valley, the other, Dolly Sods wilderness and the foothills and farms at it’s base.  Curtis was a great guide, even if I did miss some of his story telling due to my huffing and puffing. The draw of more potential adventures reached with skis encourages me to keep it up and work hard.  I lamented not having a camera for our little adventure.  The skies were blue, with low hanging grey clouds moving in with the weather front.  Snow clung to the spruce and hardwood trees and to the ground, creating a white carpet rolled out between the tree cover.  Early dusk lighting cast beautifully over the mountains in the distance.  I just love what trees bare of leaves look like in that light.  My two companions, far ahead of me at the peak of the hill looking into the distance really would have made for quite the photo, but some things, I reckon, are meant to be held only in the mind and described only with words.  Such was this experience.

While my legs are grieving my pursuits yesterday, I’m eager for some more adventures.  Perhaps with some moving and still pictures to tell more of the story next time.  We will see.