Fun & Fitness over 50

Let's see ... do the taxes or .... go skiing? Hmmm. What to do, what to do?

Yesterday was Ski Butternut in Great Barrington, MA. Went with 5 other guys from my church. Lift tickets were $25, weather was warm and sunny and the snow conditions were ... "Mashed Potatoes!"

It probably got up to 70० but it felt like 80 in the sun going up the chairlift. Weird to then ski down a mountain of snow! Cognitive dissonance!

The trouble is after skiing the whole season, I'm skiing my best and really starting to have a blast .... and then it's over.

I had a great time yesterday. Even though the snow was wet and mushy and there was plenty of crud piling up, I could ski it!

In addition to learning how to pick out a line, I am starting to unweight on turns and carving rather than trying to push all that heavy stuff out of the way against gravity. Also I am better able to do quicker linked turns in a tight spot to control my speed. And when I traverse the slope across all the bumps and ridges, I can stay balanced on my skis.

When we arrived about 10 o'clock the parking lot looked pretty full but the slopes were never really crowded at all. This was typical. Sometimes you didn't see anybody, up or down!

And almost no waiting on the lifts. The lodge was not crowded when we went in either. It was warm enough for lots of people to be outside on the deck at the picnic tables (including us!)

The one time I felt out of control was on Lucifer's leap, pictured here. It is steep and narrow at the start which is just out of sight up around the bend in this pic. I got going too fast too quick and didn't want to do any extreme snow-pushing into the crud to slow down (I should have!) But I rode it out successfully like I did on Tuesday on the icy and narrow "Whisper" at Windham. I'm much better at staying upright when going fast and over bumps and ridges. Actually, I'm kind of surprising myself!

Everybody had a good time and nobody got hurt although one boarder took some nasty falls and I got wacked in the back of the head with the chairlift. My fault. I was just standing there talking on the loading line and not looking back to pick up the chair. Good thing I was wearing a helmet! I think I'm getting a little too comfortable!

We even had a couple of snowball fights!

Although Butternut was 100% open yesterday and they intend to be open next weekend, it all depends on the weather. It's going to cool down a bit over the next week but are supposed to get a couple of rainy days.

Mrs. MTBMan1 and I were planning on going next weekend. We'll see. If it's open, we're goin'!