Yukon Jack Scoffs at Black Diamonds
Posted by Moose on January 27th, 2010. Filed under: Travel.Skiing – or, more accurately, rolling down snowy slopes like a 130 (FINE, 140) pound snowball on sticks – was one of the first items on my 2010 bucket list. I decided I was going to make it happen and two days later, an old friend emailed to ask if I wanted to go up to Tahoe with him and his friends. Apparently, the universe does read the suggestion box. Don’t forget to include your social security number so the yacht and hot Polynesian 18-year-old are delivered to the right person. Kidding! What would I do with a yacht?
Anyway. We rented skis, a really big SUV, and trundled out into the frosty wilderness of snow-covered hotel chains and In’n'Out burgers. I never managed to get an accurate count, but the ratio of digital devices to people was at least 3:1 in that car – cell phones, GPS, weird lollipop-like contraption to hook an iPhone to the radio, laptop to watch Entourage. All we needed to complete the scene was Guitar Hero and a Victrola. My only contribution was a plastic flask of Yukon Jack, described on the label as the black sheep of Canadian liqeuers. It was purchased at a gas station in Vacaville and consumed to the dulcet tones of ceaseless mockery. Insulting my taste in alcohol didn’t stop anyone from asking me to pass the bottle.
Driving past very chilly cows.
As a pretty average skier, I can get down most blue runs without much trouble. My technique could use some work and I’ve been known to greet pine trees with my face, but I can generally hold my own. Not with this crowd. I’ve been skiing with this friend before, but it was about five years ago. Since I can’t remember what happened five days ago, I have to forgive myself for forgetting that he’s a much better skier than I am. So are his friends, a pertinent little fact I discovered the hard way. After a so-called warm-up run, where I did less warming up and more falling and displacing skis, we started for real. As we hovered at the top of the run, he turned to me and said, “It’s like staring into the abyss, isn’t it?” Then they pushed off the ledge and tore down the slope like they were on a mission to beat the Austrians for the gold. I pushed off the ledge and went careening down the mountain with a face full of snow and my limbs splayed in all directions. I would gather my skis, poles, shattered cool, and at least one glove and set off again, only to find myself sliding backwards down the hill like a turtle, legs wrenched in every direction but the comfortable one.
What I learned that day: 1) I am not ready for black diamonds, especially inadvertent ones. 2) People are very nice. Every time I’d go tumbling, some good Samaritan would stop and ask if I was OK, stand below me as I tried to reattach my skis or gather whatever bits of ski gear had flown off. 3) Next time I’m going skiing with a trauma surgeon.
Post-abyss
The hot tub and steak that night were well-earned. And I have a new item for my 2010 bucket list: Get down a black diamond without giving myself a concussion.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Sounds like many a ski experience I’ve had. Oh wait, you were there for the last one. You know what I’m talking about.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
“I would gather my skis, poles, shattered cool, and at least one glove and set off again, only to find myself sliding backwards down the hill like a turtle, legs wrenched in every direction but the comfortable one.” – Oh my, I had a good laugh picturing that in my head. I’m impressed by your so called average skills, since a hot tub was all you needed(not the sexy Doc et al!), so I guess those skills are above average after all.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Tonight the role of Moose’s Maw will be played by Alison of Locusts and Wild Honey.
[Enter stage left]
Moosey Marie! Please tell me you opened that flask AFTER you arrived at the condo. PLEASE???
January 27th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Locusts & Wild Honey: I find it absolutely hilarious that you remember my middle name. The first draft contained a note to my mother, but I edited it out. Would it make you feel better if I told you the driver didn’t have any? No? [clears throat and whistles a dirge-like tune]
January 27th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
I think we would be really good skiing companions. We need to make this happen. I mean, god only knows what would happen if OUR AWESOME SKIING FORCES COLLIDED (not to mention if WE collided, which would probably totally happen) but I really think we would each make a good wingman for the other. I am more about the greens but I can be coerced into blues, depending.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
NBB: Yes! We would clear the slopes with our flailing limbs in no time. We could flag down help for each other after clonking our respective noggins on the side of the mountain. (This happened, by the way. Nice guy #27 asked if he should get a doctor.) (Not kidding.)
January 27th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
We will ski the greens and stop for hot chocolate after every second run. I need a ski buddy who isn’t training for the Olympics. We will train for Olympic Awesomeness instead. And Olympic Accessorization. And Olympic Apres-Ski Chicken Sandwich Eating.
Must sleep now. Getting punchy. Or maybe it’s just the unicorns dancing across my screen.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:13 am
I’m naturally impressed by people who ski, regardless of whether they do it well. Skiing terrifies me. Those skis, jutting perpendicular to my body as they do, give the earth too much leverage to break my legs.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:33 am
I will totally ski with you. I used to be really good, but I think it’s not like riding a bike — pretty sure that 10+ years of not doing it will make you suck. And if it turns out that I am still good, well, I had some training in ski patrol type stuff in High School, so I can at least be there to help you sweep up the pieces
January 28th, 2010 at 10:39 am
The only time I’ve been skiing, my friend showed me which run we were going to go down as we sat on the ski lift. “That’s not so bad looking,” I said. Then, on that very slope, a young girl went careening into some orange safety fence at the edge of a ravine, collapsed, didn’t move, and about 30 seconds later an emergency snowmobile came and got her. True story.
So I decided that instead of going on that green-circle trail, I would go on the nearby blue square one. “It’s just straight down!” I proclaimed. Which it was…but it was also covered in moguls. Needless to say, part of my skiing technique is now yelling “Get out of the way!” whilst sailing off moguls and over the heads of far-more-adept-than-me five-year-old skiers.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Black diamonds are not my friend. Although, a friend and I once took a beginner down a short black on accident. She climbed down, poor girl.
January 28th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I’ve never been skiing, but this is a pretty accurate representation of how my snowboarding experiences have gone. I can get down a mountain, but only by applying “the brakes” pretty much the whole way down (which entails digging my heels in and balancing precariously leaning backwards). So, as you can probably imagine, I wind up even more sore after a day of snowboarding HENIOUSLY than my companions do after a day of snowboarding well.
HOT TUBS, indeed!
January 28th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
You should take my ski helmet! I hardly get a chance to use it and it is both warmer and more comfy than a fuzzy hat. And you don’t really get hat hair. I’d like to contribute to a lack of concussion.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:36 am
Oooooh I love Tahoe. But I SO suck at skiiing.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:43 am
I don’t even know what all this blue, green, and black stuff means. But I can get behind the hot tub and whiskey parts!
January 29th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Alison, thanks for stepping in.
HollyLynne… yes. You Know.
January 30th, 2010 at 8:24 am
The one time I went snow skiing, I was a teenager and fell face first off the lift, meanwhile my younger brother was going down black diamonds with nary a turn of his skis.
I would like to try again someday but I find it likely that I would once again find myself happily in the lodge in front of a fire only this time I could be drinking scotch instead of hot chocolate
January 30th, 2010 at 9:35 am
So I’d rather snowboard than ski but I’m terribly awful at that. I can do blues if they’re not crowded, but there’s no way a black is happening. I hate looking down and not being able to see the bottom because it’s beneath me. No way.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
[...] And managed to end up on a date. (Date = 1 hug.) Then I managed to leverage someone I met on the Infamous Weekend o’ Yukon Jack and Unrequited Crushes (did I ever tell you the unrequited crush story?) (probably not) into a [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
[...] skiing. And I’m very proud to announce that I have accomplished one of my goals for 2010: Get down a black diamond without giving myself a concussion. Not only did I accomplish this goal, I improved upon it. By swooping quickly down multiple black [...]