(Hmmm. Was that today, Fri. 11 Feb., or yesterday? Maybe it was TWO great days. The snow has been soooo good this winter the days just all run together like a blur.)
Regardless, I was awesome today. King of the hill. A veritable LEGEND in my own mind. Walter Mitty had nothing on me, and he was even before MY time. Jonny Moseley (Olympic freestyle skier) in the bumps. Okay, 1/100th of 1 percent Moseley. But I did bumps and enjoyed it! Less work, more fun!
The new skis, Rozzi (Rossignol) S86s, love to turn, and they have really helped me get back to the bumps, where turning can be verrry important. 😉 The skis are short, short, short (162cm) and light, thus easy to turn. I’ve given up a little stability as a result, so I can only do Mach 90 instead of Mach 100 on the flats. (There goes that Walter Mitty thing again. Think ‘Robert Redford’ in the very old movie Downhill Racer.)
My previous skis were ocean liner cruisers by comparison. Nordica Hot Rod Top Fuels. (‘Sounds’ impressive.) Very heavy but very stable. They loved powder and crashed through crud (deep, broken powder) like an Abrams tank. But they were tough to turn for my aging legs. LOTTA work when I took them into bumps. I’ll be the first to admit you can’t expect the skis to do everything. You have to have legs, no substitute for that. You do take whatever help you can get from your equipment.
So what did I do today? It was a late start at Copper Mountain. Arrived in the parking lot at 11:15am, planning to ski straight through for a couple of hours until a late afternoon appointment. It’s ‘sorta like going to the gym for a workout, but a LOT more fun. To my surprise the parking lot was nearly full on this sunny Friday. Not to worry. Modern ski areas, and Copper, do a great job of moving people around the mountain.
Free bus shuttle to Center Village, ride up American Flyer lift. (Ski map here: http://www.coppercolorado.com/winter/the_mountain/trail_map/trailmap1011big.pdf .) Warmup run down the American Flyer run (no relation to the lift) to the Timberline lift. It was still fairly flat and groomed from yesterday. (That other GRR8 day of recent skiing. The large part of the whole mountain was freshly groomed Thursday and flat as a board. Makes for great high speed cruising. My ski bud (he of the 66+ years of skiing out of 72) and I did just that. M’lady doesn’t downhill anymore. Tooo many knee surgeries from following Walter Mitty around Vail. She still snowshoes and cross-countries though. But I digress.)
Up the Timberline and short ski down to the Sierra lift. Up that and down the black diamond (B.D.) Kaboom run. Moderately bumpy, moderately steep. I’m awwwesome. Back up Sierra and down B.D. Endeavor run. Mod bumpy and steep. Legs still feel good. Making those turns. Up Sierra, looking for B.D. Little Trees, wind up on Endeavor again. Darn. Bumps. Legs good. Feelin’ the love!
Up Sierra. Over the back, down along blue grade Timber Ridge run, now blue Copperfield to Timberline. Up, over to Rendezvous lift, up, over the back, down to Blackjack lift in the Copper Bowl area. Up, over to Mountain Chief lift, up, down Copper Bowl to Mtn. Chief again. Up, over the other side to the top of the Sierra lift, down Kaboom again, then an end of day cruiser down green grade Coppertone to Center Village and the bus shuttle to the parking lot.
Time expired parking lot to parking lot: about 3 hours. Fun quotient: off the top of the charts. Feeling of accomplishment: maxed. Oh well, just have to start over again next week and see if I can do better.
John's Space ..... 