It was a great, long skiing weekend. I had to work on Friday, but the great thing about living in Los Alamos is that it's only 15 minutes to the ski area, so I was able to get about 2 hours of skiing up at Pajarito on Friday. We had about 3 new inches of snow. It was all a little hard and crusty snow. I feel like I have gotten the tele turn on the blues, groomed slopes, but the challenge is different snow and different terrain. I had a hard time in the crusty snow, it would throw me off balance. I need to get stronger and up my confidence.
I left early Saturday morning to head up to Pagosa. I made it to Michael's house at about 9:30 which got us up on the mountain by about 10:30am. It was cold and snowy, but there was some incredible new powder. I am not a very good powder skier, so I was a little nervous about tele skiing in powder. It turned out to be really fun. It took me a little while to figure out what I was doing. Aside from being very cold, it was a fun day. John Telle and Alexis joined us on the mountain around 1pm.
On Sunday, John T decided also to wear his tele-skis. We also took two runs with Donna who was up in Wolf Creek with some other friends. We did a warm up run and then hiked up to Boundary Bowl to ski some fresh powder. It was a lot of fun but I had a very hard time doing a tele turn in the deep powder and how steep it was. So I ended up alpine turning most of it. We did a few more runs, testing out our turns and then we decided to hit a bump run. I am certainly not ready for bumps, but as they got smaller at the bottom of the run I was learning how to turn in them. John T had some spectacular falls as he was braver than me and just went for it. All in all I think I am getting better at this tele skiing stuff.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
K2 Women's Ski Weekend 2/8/09
This weekend was the K2 Women's Ski Weekend, a weekend of ski fun with the gals and raising funds for breast cancer. We started the event with a social at Fuller Lodge on Friday night. There were about 50 women participating in this event, some skiers, some tele-skiers, and some snowboarders of all levels and ages. We had an amazing talk from Carolyn Hall Young and learned about the Anita Salas Fund http://abqwgc.com/ which a portion of our raised funds will go to. It was an inspiring night and got us excited.
Saturday we met for breakfast up at the ski hill, took a group picture (see above and the poster will be in the Lodge at Pajarito soon) and separated into our groups for the day. I was in the tele-skiing group. There were 5 of us plus our team leader Amy. Myself and one other woman were fairly new at tele-skiing and Amy gave us some great instruction and we figured out how to fix the tele-wedge which I tend to get. Of course it had to do with weighting my uphill leg. Surprise, surprise. The good news is that I was able to actually weight it enough to fix the wedge, now I just have to do it all the time. But I have felt how to make it happen now.
K2 had the new line of women's tele skis on hand for us to demo. They are: (1) gotback 135-102-121 tip rocker (2) payback 129-92-115 (3) sheback 121-80-107 . These skis have not even come out on their website yet. But keep an eye out for them http://www.k2temark.com/home.asp?Lang=English I still love my G3 Nectars so I'm not switching YET.
Saturday we met for breakfast up at the ski hill, took a group picture (see above and the poster will be in the Lodge at Pajarito soon) and separated into our groups for the day. I was in the tele-skiing group. There were 5 of us plus our team leader Amy. Myself and one other woman were fairly new at tele-skiing and Amy gave us some great instruction and we figured out how to fix the tele-wedge which I tend to get. Of course it had to do with weighting my uphill leg. Surprise, surprise. The good news is that I was able to actually weight it enough to fix the wedge, now I just have to do it all the time. But I have felt how to make it happen now.
K2 had the new line of women's tele skis on hand for us to demo. They are: (1) gotback 135-102-121 tip rocker (2) payback 129-92-115 (3) sheback 121-80-107 . These skis have not even come out on their website yet. But keep an eye out for them http://www.k2temark.com/home.asp?Lang=English I still love my G3 Nectars so I'm not switching YET.
Unfortunately my daughter ended up in surgery that day and so I missed the afternoon of skiing, but there were games, a scavenger hunt, apres ski yoga and a wonderful dinner with video and photos from the day (I was able to attend for about 1 1/2 hours).
The more I tele the more comfortable I am getting. I have a few things to work out and get that "muscle memory" to stick and then I'm moving on to moguls.
I spent Sunday taking care of my girl. Surgery was tough but she is a trooper :-) Donna made it up to Taos for what was our last lesson. She was given a private lesson by Dave (the instructor on my second lesson). She learned a lot and is feeling better about her abilities. Attitude is everything and having confidence is key. I actually saw Dave (and met his girlfriend) up at Pajarito on Saturday. They were there for the very first time and thought that it would be a really great mountain to ski when the snow is good (which it is not by the way, super hard). Snow is predicted for this week so hopefully we will be skiing powder soon.
Stay tuned for next years "K2 Chicks on Sticks" weekend. I might be even bigger and better than this years This group raised ~ $3000 for the Anita Salas fund.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
February 1st 5th Telemark Lesson
The snow is extremely hard up at Pajarito right now and so with huge firm icy bumps not seeming so appealing, I thought it would be a great day to work on some edging techniques on my tele skis on Sat. Mike Skaggs was up tuning skis and gave my new skis a nice sharp edge. It turned out to be one of those days where I started to feel like things were starting to click. I worked on my edging as well as making those smooth transitions that Bob was talking about the week before. I was pretty excited because it was just starting to feel pretty good and much more natural. Because the snow was so firm, it was not a long day on the runs, but a very nice sunny day for some wine on the deck with friends :-)
Sunday was going to be my last lesson, and I was a little sad about that. I think I could use more, but I couldn't find a way to get to my class, to Alb and on a plane to Houston all in the same day. Work ruined my fun once again.
Since we didn't have to stop by the Boot Doctor (since we are all geared up now), we were on the mountain a little earlier than usual. It started out as a very nice day, and the snow was soft. Donna and I took it slow and worked on our turns, we were joined by Katie, a woman in Donna's class. This was the first day that I didn't feel like I was starting all over again on the first run. The thing that makes me the happiest is my left hand turn, it is starting to come around and I was afraid it never would.
Donna and I took a break and had lunch at the Bavarian, a beer and some Spatzel, it was yummy. The girls (Linda and Deborah) were back for our lesson, and Katherine couldn't make it so there were just the four of us (including Bob). Linda and I will not be back next week, so Bob tried to wrap things up for us as best as he could. We again worked on the smoothness of the transition, pulling your leg back and not pushing the downhill leg forward. Also weighting our skis continues to be a focus for Bob. Bob feels that what we need is to get the turn mechanics down as best as we can, and then we can take it to other terrain. We worked on shortening up our turns so that we would have experience in turn ratio's that match the terrain we are on.
We had two video's taken of us on different terrain. This was great, the video was close up and we watched it in slow motion while Bob showed us specifically what we were doing well and where we were needing improvement. It really helped to be able to see what he was telling us.
The last thing we did was just plain mean. Bob took away our poles so that we would have to concentrate on our balance. This was hard, but I think a very worthwhile exercise. At the end of the day, as usual, Bob asked us what we found most useful and what two things did we want to take away to work on for the rest of the season. Mine are weighting the skis and not bracing my downhill ski (especially on my left hand turn). He thought these were the two things that would take me to the next level as well. S
o I have been let loose from lessons (YIKES) to work on this by myself. This blog will serve to be useful in remembering what Bob taught me.
Donna didn't have as good of a day on the mountain and was somewhat frustrated at the end of her lesson. Her instructor Stephanie will try to see how they can work with her more next week to meet her particular needs. I hope that happens. Donna and I stayed up on the mountain to watch the SuperBowl at the Martini Tree, but left shortly after half-time because we were so tired. We listened to the game on the way home and it sounded as though we missed a lot.
Next Friday begins the K2 Women's Ski Weekend at Pajarito. I signed up to tele-ski with other women tele skiers, we will have socials, yoga, etc. it should be fun and another chance to practice my tele-skiing.
Sunday was going to be my last lesson, and I was a little sad about that. I think I could use more, but I couldn't find a way to get to my class, to Alb and on a plane to Houston all in the same day. Work ruined my fun once again.
Since we didn't have to stop by the Boot Doctor (since we are all geared up now), we were on the mountain a little earlier than usual. It started out as a very nice day, and the snow was soft. Donna and I took it slow and worked on our turns, we were joined by Katie, a woman in Donna's class. This was the first day that I didn't feel like I was starting all over again on the first run. The thing that makes me the happiest is my left hand turn, it is starting to come around and I was afraid it never would.
Donna and I took a break and had lunch at the Bavarian, a beer and some Spatzel, it was yummy. The girls (Linda and Deborah) were back for our lesson, and Katherine couldn't make it so there were just the four of us (including Bob). Linda and I will not be back next week, so Bob tried to wrap things up for us as best as he could. We again worked on the smoothness of the transition, pulling your leg back and not pushing the downhill leg forward. Also weighting our skis continues to be a focus for Bob. Bob feels that what we need is to get the turn mechanics down as best as we can, and then we can take it to other terrain. We worked on shortening up our turns so that we would have experience in turn ratio's that match the terrain we are on.
We had two video's taken of us on different terrain. This was great, the video was close up and we watched it in slow motion while Bob showed us specifically what we were doing well and where we were needing improvement. It really helped to be able to see what he was telling us.
The last thing we did was just plain mean. Bob took away our poles so that we would have to concentrate on our balance. This was hard, but I think a very worthwhile exercise. At the end of the day, as usual, Bob asked us what we found most useful and what two things did we want to take away to work on for the rest of the season. Mine are weighting the skis and not bracing my downhill ski (especially on my left hand turn). He thought these were the two things that would take me to the next level as well. S
o I have been let loose from lessons (YIKES) to work on this by myself. This blog will serve to be useful in remembering what Bob taught me.
Donna didn't have as good of a day on the mountain and was somewhat frustrated at the end of her lesson. Her instructor Stephanie will try to see how they can work with her more next week to meet her particular needs. I hope that happens. Donna and I stayed up on the mountain to watch the SuperBowl at the Martini Tree, but left shortly after half-time because we were so tired. We listened to the game on the way home and it sounded as though we missed a lot.
Next Friday begins the K2 Women's Ski Weekend at Pajarito. I signed up to tele-ski with other women tele skiers, we will have socials, yoga, etc. it should be fun and another chance to practice my tele-skiing.
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