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I'm back
January 13, 2008Just arrived back in Wichita Falls a couple of days ago after a nice, long vacation with the family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Beautiful place, for those who have never been. The Teton Mountains are only a stone's throw away and the snow is wonderful. One night, 10 inches fell.
And yes, it's cold. But 5 degrees isn't that bad because there's not a whole lot of wind and it's a dry cold.
Among the highlights were a trip to the National Elk Refuge, snow tubing and about five days of skiing the slopes.
Before I discuss a rather funny ski story involving myself, I must give you a little background.
This was my third time skiing. Went to Wyoming last year and to Ruidoso, N.M. four years ago. Greens are no problem. I ski the blues pretty decent, and the blacks scare the living crap out of me.
So in the final day, the powder is great and I'm tearing up a couple of runs that I had struggled with the first couple of days. I'm totally pumped as I get on the lift again.
Halfway up, I notice some peculiar sights. I look over and see that I had unnoticeably gotten on the wrong lift. There's two right together, and the one I was on would take me to the top of the mountain, where double blacks are the norm.
A minor freakout commenced. Then I found a couple of guys who said a trail could take me to where I would me more comfortable skiing.
Unfortunately, it was snowing so hard, plus I do not wear my goggles when I ski, I did not see the trail traverse and I skied right into the out-of-bounds, waist-deep into snow.
There were avalanche warning signs. Not cool.
To make a long story short, I had to take off my skis and slide/walk/scoot halfway down the dang mountain. Maybe I could have skied down part of it, but the snow was so deep, there was no way I could get my skis back on.
It pretty much sucked, considering how cold it was. And the sun was going down, so when I finally was able to get the skis on, I went down and called it a day.
You can be dang sure I will watch what lift I get on next time, though.
A lot will be happening in the next few weeks: high school coaching changes, UIL realignment and the Wildcats hockey team, which I saw play over the weekend.
I will discuss all of these topics in separate blogs later.
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