We have achieved our goal from last week: Cross Country skiing up Mill Creek Canyon! And when I say "up" Mill Creek Canyon, I mean UP. You can never quite realize how steep something is until you can start going backward at any moment. That was a bit of a side note, but you will be used to that by the end of this post. I promise. Anyways, let me start from the beginning.
Last week, as we trudged up the canyon on our not-so-trusty snowshoes, we were practically beside ourselves with our envy of the cross country skiers. While we slowly walked up and down the canyon (interrupted only by our epic excursion up the face of Mt. Millcreekerest - if you didn't get that, it is a mash-up of Mill Creek and Mt. Everest...) we saw them glide (seemingly) effortlessly by in both directions. They moved twice as fast as we did and it looked like they used half the energy! Now you are all thinking what we were..."Wow! If we were cross country skiing instead of walking...it would be four times more efficient!" We vowed right there on the trail that next week we would go cross country skiing. So we did!
We got our start fairly early. Since Trent and I were picking Miara up and packing -in addition to our own gear - the camp stove, hot chocolate, and some of the sandwiches, all before meeting at Bree and Ben's (their version of this story, with additional pictures, can be found here) house, I was up by eight. I know I know, that isn't all that early. But give me a break! I'm a college student between semesters. Anything before eleven is unpleasantly early. So we made it to the Martins' house about five past nine, or fifteen minutes late. Bree had promised us breakfast, and she delivered. She had made some sort of fruity (not the gay kind) breakfast casserole, and it was very good. Especially once you added enough sugar that you could have helped the entire bottle of medicine go down. Yes, I just used part of a Mary Poppins song in my blog post. Impressed? You should be.
Miara's bruises five days later..big and yellow. Like sunflowers but painful. |
At this point we had reached the general area of a trail that led to the stop of Mt. Millcreekerest. Yes, there was a trail that took us almost all the way to the top. We had no idea this trail existed as we tried showshoeing up the opposite face of the mountain. So we decided to walk up the trail to our mountain-top perch, but not before testing our trail slide again. It was not nearly as smooth as the week before. Let's just say that sliding down it this week may have resulted in some sort of prostate exam. Or at least a sore butt. So we hiked to the top, briefly lamented the death of our stump-top snowman, and had lunch.
Melting the snow on our stove. Hot drinks were awesome at warming us up. You couldn't even see all the floaties from the snow once you added the drink mixes in. |
We had already realized that coming down was going to be a problem, but I don't think any of us expected how hard it would really be. Trent decided that sitting on the back of his skis would be the safest and easiest way down (also definitely the stupidest) but he gave up after a few hundred yards. The rest of us immediately began trying to ski down. I am a pretty decent downhill skier, but this was crazy. Cross country skis have a hundred times less control and are long enough in the front that is isn't hard to tangle them up. Ben, Bree, Trent and I had all skied before and were all having enough trouble. Miara, however, had never been on a pair of skis before. She was actually pretty good for being on skis for the first time. The trail was so icy that you could not use the classic "snow-plow" technique to slow down very much. No matter how hard you snow-plowed, you kept going faster and faster. There really was no way to stop except to crash. So every time I stopped to wait for Miara it involved me crashing down to the ice and skidding to a stop. Miara was not faring much better. She would get going fast, then she would get scared because there was NO controlling these skis, and she would crash too. Eventually she got the hang of it though, and we both started skiing down, mostly without incident. Despite the pain of it all, it was pretty fun. Looking stupid always has its perks. Proving that "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun." Poppins again? This isn't a blog post. It's literary genius. But seriously, we looked like The Bad News Bears. Skiers more talented and experienced than us were constantly slowing down and staring at us before skiing on. Here is how I envisioned their thought processes, "Holy crap, those morons are going to kill themselves! (Not Mormons. I know, I know, you were all getting excited about Mormons killing themselves. But look again! There really is no second 'm'. I promise.) They are kind of funny though, look how stupid they look. Maybe I should ask if they need any help. Not that I would need to ask. They clearly need help. They aren't asking for help though, and if I leave them alone, everyone else can laugh at them, too! Okay, I will just leave them." Then they would ski off. It's okay though, their gawking was almost as entertaining to me as my sucking was to them. Fair is fair.
We made it back to the gate and found a ski trail that would take us back to the parking lot. It looked moderately hazardous to those of us who were inexperienced. And by moderately dangerous, I really mean potentially fatal. Trent, ever the reasonable one, decided to take his skis off and walk back to the car. The rest of us headed for the trail. It actually turned out to be one of the most fun parts of our ski trip. It was slightly downhill which meant no work, and and curves were easier than expected to navigate. There was, however, the rock filled river at the bottom of a huge ditch threatening to kill us. I think I was the only one who crashed on this trail. There was a rock, covered in snow, that my ski hit. I basically face planted on the trail. It was alright though, I suppose. We had at last made it back to the car, just across the street. Trent was there waiting for us, the walk was indeed faster than the ski. But we had more fun than he did. In any case, that was one seriously exciting, yet painful, Christmas Eve.
No comments:
Post a Comment