December 6 was to be my first day back on the boards for the 2019-2020 season. 236 days had passed since I took my ski’s off the last time at the same place – Wildcat Mountain in Pinkham notch NH.
This year it was different skis I was stepping into and different boots as well. I have at long last decided to get off the all mountain Black Diamond convert 180’s I had been using for everything for the past five years.
It’s been five years (starting season six) since a return to downhill skiing for me. My Salomon X Force ski kit is the first all new park ski I have purchased ever. Back in the day when I was living and working in Mount Washington Valley I was either on demo’s or rentals ( I was after all working in a rental shop). Also as much as I can recall – I never used to ski like I ski now. I never used to do a lot of things like I do now and I think that is all due to the perspective that age provides. At some point you realize that time is a finite resource and start to go deeper than ever because you know that you never know when the last time will be the last time. When you are young – forever seems to stretch on into the distance landing on some infinite shore. Now with that shore in sight my wisdom and experience has me sopping up every possible drop of life with a biscuit.
Last season I put in an impressive (for me) 700k of vertical. I know this because of the handy modern marvel that is Slopes – an iOS app running on my phone and on my watch that captures every statistic imaginable while on the mountain. Most of that was in March – the peak month most seasons out here. This week I ticked off 57k between Friday at Wildcat and Saturday at Cranmore. Off to a good start.
The other new bit of kit purchased with ski season in mind was some AirPods. For the last four or so seasons I have regularly skied with buds in. I love a soundtrack for the slopes. The wires were always a hassle and the buds have solved that. They present other problems though. With a ski helmet on you cant’t touch them for on and off – so I resort to transport and volume control being handled on my watch which means glove off which can be problematic. I am going to see if I can rig a bluetooth button to help out with this.
Wildcat was great. Solid conditions from top to bottom with lots of terrain open (over half the mountain was open). The weather was cold but for the notch it was quite nice. The views were grand and it was the perfect day to start up though not quite where I left off.
The new skis are a whole different game than the BD converts I had been riding. They take a lot more power to stay in control . When you turn you really turn compared to the Tokyo drift that was the SOP for the converts. I don’t mind it. I think I will grow into loving the new ride but until I develop the new muscle memory I will be getting beat up a little more than I used to for the same terrain.
I was back at Cranmore yesterday for the first time this season. There was not much open but they had enough. I think the seasons snowfall for the valley is in the 5-7 inch range. Not good. But they have been making it as fast as they can and what they had was open for business this weekend. One trail that was open was Ledges which surprised me. I was on the lift at 9:05 and figured that would be a great way to start the Cmore season – a trip down ledges. What looked good from the lift was a lie. The corduroy was frozen solid combined with golf ball sized chunks of frozen granular. This did not make for a fun first drop. I got down but by the time I was half way down Nastar I needed to stop. Twice. My legs were melting down underneath me.
Around this time I was wondering how many laps I needed to do to say I had actually been skiing today. Was one enough? Surely no… So I went back up (no lift lines all day) and decided to see what else was open. Schneider to Artist Falls was open and that was next. While also scratchy in terms of grooming the cover was solid. I felt I could muster at least one more run after that and had rationalized that three laps was a good minimum for this trip to be something other than a waste of time. I took the last of the three options and cruised easy street. Now this was groomed. Fluffy machine groomed powder on a solid base. Sweet. That restored my spirits enough for lap four – back to Schneider. While on the summit I noticed the hut was dark. I was surprised it was not open but it is early season. Bummer. Down Schneider again with a finish on south slope which also had real good snow. Sweet. Enough for ONE MORE five would be a solid success. This time around to my surprise the open flag was flying at the hut. My reaction was to check my watch to determine how close to Oh Beer Thirty I was. 10:05 AM. Of course. The hut opened at 10:00. Well, if I was going to get a classic pint on the rail shot I would have to do some more laps to get to a respectable time to start drinking. So more laps until I could no longer resist the sirens call for a rock pile IPA.
First Meister Brew of the 2019-2020 Season. There would be many to follow
That happened around 10:55 AM. Early yes – too early? Hell no. So a pit stop at the hut where I nailed the trivia question for a butterfinger and set out for the pint on the rail shot. Sweet. Suitably medicated I set out again. This is where the magic kicked in and I found myself closing the day at 35 laps rather than 3. I did rack up a fall in the frozen gravy train of lower artists falls – released a ski and bent the brake. A quick fix and down for ‘one more lap’ (did not want to end on a fall) . I managed six hours of skiing on two brew breaks for my second day out. Not bad.
Off to a good start.
