It was a Powder Day Today

[swalker]

Today was a powder day at Vail. For those who have never skied powder, you just can't imagine how blissful it is.

I went out with a different set of instructors today. Shue is from Japan and is an amazing skier with a well-developed sense of adventure. Wylie is from Washington DC and is also amazingly capable. We were a great match.

We loaded me into the biski and headed up Chair 6 with intentions of starting off on Northstar, a very wonderful black run. It was marked as having been groomed, but it had a heavy coating a snow and what appeared to be an even heavier coating of beginner skiers. That was no place for a biski.

So, we skied past that and headed to the Sourdough lift (chair 14). it is a beginner (green and blue) area, but is one of my favorite parts of the mountain because of the wonderful snow it seems to hold.

Today it lived up to its reputation. I estimate there were 8 to 10 inches of fresh snow with wind-drifted snow over 2 feet in many places. It was deep enough that the seat of the biski was often below the top of the snow!

I got wonderful face shots and full-body shots (which are a true joy for any skier) as we plowed through the magnificent powder.

I normally use the biski with the primary instructor holding onto tethers and skiing a bit back behind the chair. This requires me to use fixed outriggers that would catch in the powder and cause me to cartwheel. Shue suggested that we use a "seat skiing" technique instead. He was still attached to the tethers for my safety in case of an accident (I don't want to continue down the hill uncontrolled if my instructor goes down). With "seat skiing" the instructor has his hands on the back of the biski and initiates the turns.

This turned out to be a great idea. I have skied enough to be able to figure out the rhythm of the turns he was initiating and mostly lean in the appropriate direction at the appropriate time.

What an adventure. We did deep powder, powdered-covered bumps, and more deep powder. It was snowing, with low visibility and flat lighting, which added a bit to the sense of adventure. I absolutely love skiing in conditions like that and certainly enjoyed it today.

Wylie was kind enough to take a few pictures and videos with my phone. I have posted a few below so you can have a better idea of what it was like. You can check out the videos at Zenfolio | Steven A. Walker | 2016 03 23 Skiing. This is a non-commercial web site where I post pictures and videos of my adventures.

There are no words to describe how wonderful it was or what it did for my spirits. I am on cloud nine!

What a wonderful day!

Steve

 

[affected]

Fantastic report Steve, thanks for taking us along. Especially since I've never been skiing, it was such fun to try and imagine it all!

Zenfolio seems to be down at the moment, I tried even just going to their site, so I'll have to be patient to see the video!

 

[scaredwifetx]

I am so happy reading your post Steve. I can see the happiness you have in your words. I certainly cannot ski and have never tried even while living in Oregon. You haven given us all excitement and joy. Thanks for reminding us that can we can all visit cloud nine. You are one inspring dude!

 

[swalker]

Zenfolio seems to be down at the moment

I just checked and Zenfolio has been down for over 3 hours. Pretty unusual. They are reporting that a significant power surge took down their servers.

I have never seen the site be completely down before. Must have been some power surge. Hope they get it back up soon.

Steve

 

[scaredwifetx]

I am so happy for you Steve. You also made me very happy reading the joy in your words. Thanks for taking us your journey and reminding us all that there are still cloud nines

 

[chally]

Hey Steve, great skiing! I was an extreme snowboarder and kayaker so I know what ya mean about it doing good for ya. When it warms up here in WV my friends will take me down the big stuff in a raft,can't wait! Thanks for sharing the adventure?

 

[DreamsEnd]

Steve,

I loved your pictures and excitement at your adventure. Thanks for sharing happy news with us.

Sherry

 

[bigmark1954]

STEVE...........you are a badass!!

 

[affected]

I got to go back and watch the video just now Steve - effing awesome!!!

 

[Dylan]

Keep it up Steve! I'm an avid snowboarder. That looks like it was a great day on the mountain! Unfortunately I think I've made my last powder turns on my own, but I look forward to some pow turns in a sit ski next winter.

 

[Ed340hp]

This is awesome for you to share the experience. Thank you.

The snow looks, cold (but a YaHoo fun cold).

It had to be so much fun. It looks so much better than riding a chair in the lodge.

WOW!

 

[swalker]

Thanks to all of you for your very encouraging posts. It takes a lot to go out skiing, but the reward is very much worth it!

I have just about recovered from last week's adventure and will be heading out for another morning of skiing tomorrow. The forecast is for 8 inches of new snow between now and then (of course, weather forecasts are notoriously unreliable in the mountains).

The ski season is winding down here. The ski area's closing is usually one to two weeks after Easter, regardless of ski conditions. Since Easter was so early this year, the ski area closes on April 10. I am trying to get 3 more morning of skiing squeezed in.

Steve

 

[avnl]

Wow, that made my day. The pictures and video with your words make you feel like you are there. Can you tell I am not a skier. Thanks for sharing. We hopefully are done with the snow in Rhode Island and my love is the garden. So I am focused on Spring.

 

[swalker]

Thanks for the kind words.

From the looks for your picture you have about a 2 month head start on spring over us I am anticipating that our bike path will be clear of snow by the end of May, but then only because they will plow it for springtime riding. I am looking forward to taking my wheelchair up on that path in June.

I have always enjoyed the fruits of others' gardening labor My wife has a green thumb. I can kill just about anything she can grow.

Steve

 

[swalker]

It was another powder day in Vail today!

It did not look all that promising when we got up. There were about 3 new inches of wet, heavy snow. Kind of yucky for skiing, but no big deal since there were only 3 inches.

It was still snowing as we headed to the base are to get me fitted into the biski. Once we got up on the mountain, the snow was wonderful. I estimate it at about 8 inches of very light powder.

It snowed most of the time while we were skiing and has been snowing much harder since about 2:00 PM. Tomorrow will be a wonderful day for those going up skiing.

I had a great time. I skied with Justin and Gary as instructors. Justin had taken me out once before and this was my first time with Gary. Both are wonderful. I was joined by my wife (of course!) and our friend Kathy. Kathy's husband is a ski instructor and had a client today, so he could not join us.

We took chair 6 and then chair 11 to get to the top of the mountain. As we were riding up chair 11, we noticed that Northstar, a black run, looked to be in great condition. So, we headed there for our first run.

We were not disappointed. It was absolutely wonderful. Words cannot describe how great it was! We did take one tumble when Justin's skies got tangled up in the powder.

From there we headed back up chair 11 and did Ramshorn to chair 3. We rode up chair 3 and skied over to Pickaroon (one of my very favorite runs). It was magnificent. We cut over to Columbine (another favorite run) about midway down and it was great also.

We then rode up chair 2 and skied down Lodgepole to Columbine. Another ride up chair 2 led us to Ledges to Columbine. I was pretty wiped out at that point, so we skied down the top part of International to Bear Tree and then to the base area.

It was a great day.

And, as a big bonus, Vail announced yesterday that they are extending their season by a week due to the great snow conditions. Instead of closing on April 10 they will close on April 17. I am hoping to be able to squeeze in an extra ski day during that week.

Skiing pretty much wipes me out. It will take me several days to recover, but it is very much worth it.

I have attached 1 picture of skiing along with 2 screenshots of the My Tracks app on my phone showing where we skied and some statistics. Note that max speed was over 37 mph Much slower than I used to ski, but still fast enough to get the wind in my face

You can view a video of one of the runs at Zenfolio | Steven A. Walker | 2016 03 30 Skiing. This is a non-commercial site where I share my photos and videos.

Steve