White stuff

After at least two weeks of waiting for snow and getting really sick of having to choose between a long run/hike, a short run, running intervals, or strength on the back porch, I finally got what I wanted: SNOW!  And…more snow.  And more snow.  And lots of wind.  I should have been more careful with what I asked for–now there was so much snow and it was so windy and stormy each day that Karl up at the Snow Farm couldn’t groom–if he could even see where to go, the trails just blew back in right behind him.  One day I woke up to howling wind and pouring rain,  and after leaving for his snow-blower-testing job at 5:00 am, Nils was back by 8:30 because the road up the mountain was totally closed.   It was a tough time for me–I went running down in Hawea, surrounded by sparkly snowy white mountains, and just stared longingly up into them the whole time–if the rain stopped and the clouds were high enough to see them, that is.

Then finally on Thursday my mind was made up–I was going up the hill no matter what!  Even if it was miserable windblown skiing, I wanted to see it for myself.  I’d gotten wind that the Snow Farm was grooming, and it looked like it was going to be a nice day, so I caught a ride in to town, and then hitched up the hill.  And it turned out to be a beautiful day! Wahooooo!  What a great feeling to be GLIDING, and on top of the world too!

In the four days since then, I’ve skied about 14 hours, and its been getting better and better each day.  Nils and I have met lots of interesting people hitching up the road to the Snow Farm, and we haven’t had to wait longer than about 10 minutes for a ride.  Today there was almost no wind at all and it was a bluebird day.  Its hard not to ski yourself into the ground when its like that!

Here are some pictures from the past few days:

The view looking down the access road. I never once saw the snow this low into the valley last year.

So excited to be on snow!

Not bad skiing