Birthday 2013

4 days of skiing (3 work, 1 pleasure) 

 I worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on the mountain. Snow, snow, snow and more snow is how those days went. Powder, powder, and more powder is what I skied. Cold? VERY. Windy? VERY. Fun? VERY. I've seriously lost track of the powder days of skiing I've had this year. I've been keeping a tally of my ski days (18 so far), but powder days? Nope. I never dreamed we'd have so many. This season is so superior to last season I can't even describe... The entire mountain is open. Every trail. That never happened last year. Not officially anyway - we did have two big dumps that let us unofficially open everything for like - a day. As a result of so much skiing and such phenomenal conditions this season, my telemarking skill is really taking off. My comfort with it increases daily. Flowing through telemark turns is so much fun. I always end up making zoomy noises as I float through them. Beyond telemark, my ski skills overall are growing and becoming better daily, too. Best perk of ski patrol is the free lessons all the time.  

 

Conditions for the whole weekend were so, so awesome though. We were busy with many incidents due to the holiday weekend. I ran my fastest sled to-date off the mountain to the aid room. Its always a good feeling to know that the time and training I've been through can be applied so effortlessly when things get crucial and need to be done in a quick, effective way.

Day of pleasure skiing on my actual birthday was quite a good time. It was a blue-bird sky day with temps in the upper 30s-lower 40s. I enjoyed not having to wear my aid belt for patrol or my patrol jacket. Its fun to feel so light and flexible in non-GoreTex clothing. Robb and I did some backcountry skiing up Bald Knob - something I'd wanted to do forever. We only got halfway though as the snow was clumping up in a ridiculous way on my skis for some unknown reason, and the resulting effort I had to put into moving up the mountain was causing increasing pain in my hip flexor area. I made the decision to turn back a little over halfway. I'm glad I did as I'm tender today. We went across the road to the main resort and skied the rest of the day over there with patrol friends. Conditions were phenomenal.  

My resort is in the background

2 awesome evenings out

Two of the nights over there we all grouped together to go out post-work for drinks. Its always so much fun to sit around and goof off with that group. The second night we had the place privately rented. The barkeep kept me well hydrated (ha) as soon as midnight of my birthday tolled. It was enjoyable to share it with the folks that were there.

1 happy girl

Lots of skiing. Lots of laughter. Lots of time spent outside combined with exercise and good friends. All of this was the recipe for one happy girl. I don't need some huge party on my birthday to be happy. Birthday 2013 was a really good one. I'm optimistic for a pretty kickass 24th year of life.