Mt. Bachelor

Cody's family loves skiing, especially his dad and sister. They usually make it out to Bend/Sunriver at least once a year, sometimes more. I didn't know if I would be able to go (because of interviews etc) but it worked out last minute that I got to go with. We left the 19th and were gone until the 23rd. I didn't totally love going for 5 days and getting back right  before Christmas but they had to wait for Cody's sister to get back from college so it's when it worked out. We stayed in a town a little outside Bend called Redmond (Oregon) in a "chalet" which really just means house that you rent for your vacation. It's in part of a neighborhood but a majority of the houses are rented out to vacationers. We had a few problems with the house we stayed in but mostly we loved it. There was a hot tub on the deck which we used frequently but the two "queen beds" it said it had were hardly queens and with a stuffy nosed husband, me being smushed next to him in a full size bed left me quite sleepless a couple of the nights.

Now let's get things straight, I am not a skier. I went snowboarding once in Idaho when I was in middle school and I went two years ago with Cody's family and was terrified the whole time and had a lot of falls. I mostly went because I didn't want to be husband-less for five days. If I had my choice I'd be okay with not skiing again. Now on the other hand, Cody's family are all skiers. Cody and his sister have been skiing since they were about 3 and his dad is really good.To be a good skier you either need to have been taught young, have a great deal of fearlessness and/or have a fixing for an adrenaline rush. I have none of these things.

For the most part I had a good time though. I really just want to go at my own pace and take it easy. Maybe if I was younger I would be more of a daring person. The first day I had a bad start. I got boots that were a half size too small. I was trying not to complain and knew the boots should be quite "snug" but once we got to the top of the bunny hill I knew something was wrong seeing as my feet were tingling and loosing sensation by the minute. After many breaks and stops down the bunny hill I got a bigger size and things were a lot better. But one of the things that makes skiing harder is being stressed out and that's what I was a majority of the time. I wore my (very out of shape) muscles out very fast by "plowing" or doing the pizza slice down steep parts (everything seems steep to me) and I even wore out my arms and cramped my hands up pretty good from death gripping my poles. The first day at the mountain was a pretty blizzardy day. There were winds at the top of the mountain that were as high as 80 mph so a lot of the lifts were closed, which made absolutely no difference to me but I knew Cody's dad and sister didn't have as good of time as they wanted. I tried out an easy run called Marshmallow (it's like it's teasing you really) which led to a second lodge where we had lunch. But at that point I had just worn my muscles out completely that I said I was okay with just heading back to the main lodge as my last go for the day. Cody's mom isn't too adventurous either and so she stuck with me while Cody and his dad and sister went out for some harder runs. They're goals for skiing are vastly different from mine. They want to get in as much skiing as they possibly can and challenge themselves while my goal is quite simple really: don't die. It was about an hour until the mountain closed so Julie (Cody's mom) and I decided to head back to the main lodge. There were a couple falls but my best fall of the trip came when we were about 50 yards from the main lodge. We could see it and our fatigued muscles yearned to be sitting down again. Julie wanted to go straight down to the lodge but I thought that it was deep powder that way and I didn't want to get stuck so I chose for us to cut across to the right where we could see the bunny hill and go down the way I was comfortable and familiar with. Well we started going and soon realized that both paths were just deep powder. Julie was thinking nice "light" thoughts and made it to the bunny hill just fine, I on the other hand found myself sinking further and further down until I hit a small slope and just plopped right down face first in thigh deep powder. Falling with big ol long skis on his difficult enough but I somehow managed to fall where both of my legs were out turned in opposite directions (see picture below).

 

I yelled to Julie that I was in an awkward position which was starting to hurt and she told me to pop my skis off and just walk over to her. Easier said than done. I finally managed to pop off the skis and after taking about 5 or 6 breaks to make it the 10 yards to her, trudging through waist deep powder, managed to make it to Julie, get my skis back on and then make it down the last 40 yards to the main lodge. It was quite ridiculous but gave Julie a good laugh.. so I guess it was worth it?

The second day was much better. Julie and I hung around the lodge for a bit in the morning while the others were the first ones out on the slopes. The weather was GORGEOUS! Mostly blue skies and no wind/snow hitting you in the face as you tried to get up and down the mountain. I just hung around the easy slope to try and build my confidence and technique while stinkin' little kids ran circles around me going backwards and never falling. It was so much more relaxing. My hands didn't hurt from death gripping the poles and I didn't burn my legs out in the first hour by doing the "pizza". Dare say I enjoyed myself?

Now for some pictures: 

(I had fun with photoshop on these. For the real life color ones check my facebook)