Fun & Fitness over 50

OK. I declare Dec. 24th my "official" start of ski season 2010/11.
In previous posts, I declared the start of ski season in stages.
Stage 1 was the ski expo
Stage 2 was the Warren Miller film.
Stage 3 is getting our skis tuned up (with coupons from the ski expo).
Stage 4 was a false start for me. Jiminy peak sent out emails on the Saturday after Thanksgiving that they had 6 trails open (for all practical purposes, 1) for $35! But it was too crowded, too narrow and too icy. After an agonizing 1st run, I hurt my knee and went home defeated.

However, yesterday Mrs. MTBMan1 and I went to Windham on our free Warren Miller vouchers along with our son Josh, 30, who is up from Baltimore visiting for the holiday.

Worked out great. Windham was the only hill in our usual roster of possibilities that did not start their holiday rates until Dec. 26th which made using our freebies possible as well as a reasonable rate for the 1 ticket we had to buy.

And the conditions were just about perfect. Little to no waiting on the lifts, good snow for the most part, especially later in the day and blue skies. Temps got up to about mid-20s I guess although we did see some water dripping off the lift towers in the afternoon.

Trees looked like they were coated with powdered sugar against blue, blue skies.

And I still know how to ski. Hooray! My best 1st day ever. I dove right into it with no severe warm up problems. No shakiness or weakness even though I ill-advisedly did a very hard workout at the gym on Tuesday from which I was still very, very sore.

So we have 1 full week to recover because next week is school holiday and the prices are too rich for our blood. Next likelihood will be Butternut or some other hill with $20 or $25 mid-week tickets the week after next.

Even though we haven't had any big snow around here, the mountains have got a few inches and the temps have been cold enough that they have been able to crank the snow guns around the clock. So conditions are good. Now if they can only hold!