Welcome To Our Blog
Welcome to the What Did You Do Last Weekend blog. We have numerous people that will be participating, talking about all of their adventures in Reno-Tahoe, America’s Adventure Place.
I’m Adventure Grrl. This is me:
I’ll be the moderator of this blog, and will kick things off with telling you about what I did last weekend.
I have a new addiction: The Chutes at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe.
The Chutes are some super steep terrain that Mt. Rose just opened to the public last month. Prior to that, it was illegal to ski the Chutes, but I know of people who would hike in and ski them after the ski area had closed for the season.
But now, you can ski them, and keep going back for more. Which is eactly what I did on Saturday.
The Chutes to me are all a big mind game. It’s all about getting past your fears and just skiing. I won’t claim that I skied them with grace, but I skied them, which is a feat in itself.
The top of the Chutes are extremely steep. As you ski down them, if there is someone coming up behind you, they are knocking snow down on you, causing a mini avalanche. (Mini, I said, just little sprinkles of snow, because they do avalanche controls in the Cutes).
You really don’t want to fall on the top half of the runs on the Chutes, because you’d most likely slide for quite a ways. You have to really push that thought and mental image out of your mind while you’re on them.
For a split second, though, that thought did cross my mind, and I was thinking, You really don’t want to fall here, and I fell.
As I was tipping over, a small whimper of panic escaped from my lips. Luckily, I managed to just sit down and didn’t slide at all. It was a close call, though.
Another time, I stopped to take this picture of the Chutes while I was in the middle of the hill.
It’s hard to tell from that picture exactly how steep the terrain is, but believe me — it’s steep. It didn’t really hit me how precarious of a position I was in while I was taking until I was in the middle of taking the picture… It’s hard to balance on a steep slope in skis, while you’re focusing a camera and trying not to drop anything.
You couldn’t get me to stop doing the Chutes while I was there on Saturday. It was such a feeling of conquering that I just wanted to keep going back for more. And then, when you’re standing at the top with your skis poking over the edge, the adrenaline rush is quite the high.
Like this:
You can see a trail map here. I’ve now skied Nightmare, Hornet’s Nest, Yellow Jacket, El Cap, Jackpot and Exhibition.
Here is a view looking down on the Chutes:
Before skiing the Chutes, the hubby and I went to ski WildCard, which is the a run that you have to hike to reach. WildCard used to be known as Unemployment Bowl, as any Mt. Rose employee caught skiing there in the past would be fired. But now, it’s open to the public! It’s more of just a trees run on a really gentle slope (in sharp contrast to the Chutes). Here is the view from the top of WildCard:
It was the first run of the day, and my first turn into WildCard, I tried to take a narrow path between some trees, and managed to hit a branch with my arm, knocking me over.
Man, did that hurt. I have a nice bruise to prove it, too. The hubby was laughing at me, saying, ‘That didn’t take long.’ I think it’s a good thing that we both have helmets this year!!!
As for the rest of the weekend, on Saturday night, we went to see Larry The Cable Guy at the brand spanking new Reno Events Center (REC). Wow, what a building! It was the first event ever at the REC. The event was sold out, and there was great energy in the crowd. It’s so awesome to have such an incredible events/concert facility smack in the middle of Downtown Reno.
Well, stay tuned for my next week’s post. And if you want to participate in this blog, drop me a line!
