We jumped on another plane last weekend bound for those snow covered mountains.. trying to make the most of the season before it melts away... this time we landed into Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Excitement State, late on a Friday evening pumped for our two and a half hour haul into heart of Indian country and the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range to our final destination Taos.
Heading up the mountain on that warm sunny morning we were both charged up and ready to hit the slopes!
Riding the cattle car from the car park to the chair lifts... warm day!!
Expecting it to be nice and slushy due to the positive temperatures I headed up the lift planning to practice my carving... Only to be massively surprised when I heard the terrifying sound of 'packed powder' scraping away my boards wax on my first blue run... uh oh... its been a while since I've taken my chances on a hard surface... why so nervous? You see soft, fresh or slightly powdery or slushy surfaces are ULTRA forgiving... you dig in an edge or only partially commit to a turn and the surface forgives you and compensates, keeping you upright and still hurtling 'in a controlled manner' down the mountain.. on packed surfaces... totally different story!!! On hard surfaces you need to be totally and utterly committed, you need to be aggressive and succinct in your motions or the mountain makes you pay... uh oh indeed.... I hit the ground HARD on my first run - thankfully my head broke my fall.. even more thankfully I had decided to wear my helmet that day... and it was just my neck and arm that took the brunt of the fall... off to the bar I went... yes I knew it was only 10:30 but seriously screw it... I just narrowly missed a concussion.. time for a beer...
You know its going to be a bad day on the mountain when your sitting at the bar at 11am!
So after my injection of liquid courage I thought, stuff you stupid evil mountain (there could of been more expletives in there) you're not going to beat me... I strapped up and jumped on that chair lift ready to give it another go... Everything was good! I made a number of runs without having anything go awry.. the beer helped calm my nerves a little and I was gaining confidence and picking up speed... UNTIL WHAM!! I dug in a heel edge and hit the snow once again HARD... this time my butt took the brunt of the impact... Not fun!! Well at that point I'm afraid to say I decided it was time to call it a day and I limped and hobbled my way across to the bar for some liquid condolence.
Yup, the mountain kicked my ass... BAD!!!
So I spent the rest of the day at the bar... unfortunately I didn't meet any cute alpine ski instructors.. but I guess that would be counter-productive these days anyways (teehehe)
At the end of the day we decided to trek a couple of miles down the road (by car... I was in no condition to walk) to check out the Rio Grande Gorge - which was actually really cool - just like the Grand Canyon, its a gorge that has over time has been created by a river, in this case the Rio Grande... very awesome! From there we headed back to the hotel, showered, I took about a million Tylenol and we headed out for pizza and beer in the picturesque and historic town of Taos.
Standing on the bridge across the Rio Grande Gorge
...So 5 days later everything is finally starting to feel normal again.. apart from my poor upper arms and shoulder blades... yup.. guess I might have two more things to add to that phyiso list!
