“I Ain’t Bleeping Going Down That!”

This past weekend, the hubby and I decided to pay hommage to American presidents by searching out some fresh powder on the ski slopes.

We went to Squaw Valley USA on Sunday, and there was about a foot of fresh, yet heavy powder there to greet us.

Hubby is a great powder skier.

I am not.

Hence, it was with some trepidation that I followed him into the trees on our second run of the day. “Let’s go this way!” he enthusiastically proclaimed, and then he was off.

I tried to follow, and next thing I knew, I was lost, in way over my head (literally and figuratively), and having one heck of a time picking my way through the trees in the deep powder.

After what seemed like forever, I emerged from the trees completely away from the downhill ski area, and onto a cross country ski trail. Of course, hubby was long gone.

Lesson #1: Don’t venture into the trees on a powder day if you aren’t good at powder and don’t have a clue as to where you are going.

I could see a chair lift off in the distance, so off I went on the cross country trail in pursuit of that lift.

You should have seen the looks I was getting from the real cross country skiers as they passed me. I was definately out of my element.

From that trail, though, I got a view of three dog sledding teams taking off on a run. The dogs were so excited — barking and trying to run as fast as they could. It looked like a blast… Definitely on my list of things to try in the Reno-Tahoe area. Unfortunately, the dogs were moving so fast I didn’t get to snap a picture of them.

I then ran across a sleigh ride, and decided to snap a picture of them to document my scenic foray away from the downhill slopes of Squaw.

Mental note: I should make hubby take me on a sleigh ride to make up for getting me into this mess…

I then came across a sledding hill, where a bunch of kids were having a blast. It was about this time that I started muttering explicatives under my breath in reference to how the hubby led me into the trees and left me there to fend for myself.

About 20 minutes after popping out on the cross country trail, I managed to get back to a chairlift. By this point, I knew I was on my own for a while, as the hubby was probably still enjoying tree skiing, so I headed to my favorite area of Squaw — KT22.

KT22 was named after an Olympic skier that did 22 kick turns down the face of that hill.

Here is a view from the KT22 chair:

I got to the top of the chair, unloaded, and then turned as I heard the lift attendant yelling, “What are you doing?!”

I saw that a snowboarder had not unloaded, and was sitting on the now stopped chair.

“I ain’t *bleep*ing going down that!” He proclaimed. Evidently, he had gotten scared on the ride up, and intended to ride the chairlift back to the bottom. I guess he missed the 10 or so signs at the bottom of the lift saying, ‘Experts only’, or ‘No easy way down’, or ‘This lift requires advanced skiing skills’. Had to chuckle at that a bit.

Lesson #2: They aren’t kidding when they say that a lift is for experts only.

This is the start of the hill under the chair that scared our poor snowboarder:

Anyway, the rest of the day was much more enjoyable for me, as I went down the wide open faces of KT22, where the snow had been tracked out a bit and I was able to ski a bit more in control.

On Monday, we headed to Kirkwood, where they had about a foot of new snow, and this stuff was light and fluffy. What a world of difference that made — I was actually able to ski through it!

Evidently, light fluffy powder makes the hubby think that he’s being filmed for a Warren Miller flick. I just served as his photographer.

We topped off the day with a nice hot toddy in the bar, and decided that we had to go back to work so that our bodies could recover from two days of powder skiing!