Ski at Home

Yesterday I couldn't bear the thought of another movie in front of the trainer, so I decided to try something different -- I skied up the mountain behind our house.

I literally put my skis on in the driveway and started climbing. One might suppose the skiing would be terrible, and it was, but not because the hill is bad or even due to the sage-brush poking through everywhere. In fact, the hill is just over 1000 feet of vert, and the slope is consistent (though I haven't measured the grade yet).

Actually, the problem was the 45 degree weather, which formed up a serious 2 inch crust over softer but super heavy junk snow. Tough skiing but the climb was really fun and I'm hoping the forecasted Sunday snow storm will yield a few genuinely good turns.

Today was sunny and warm enough that Bp, Toni, and I got out for a few hours on the bike. They were on the tandem, which is a fast setup as long as the grade isn't much above 2%. I spent most of the time wandering left and right, in and out of the edge of their draft, regulating the drag so that their pace would put me at my desired effort.