***About that ski trip
– It was a classic mad one-day Sierra up-and-back run. I got up at 4:00 am and hit the road for my buddy Owen’s place in Pleasant Hill around 4:15. We loaded the skis and other gear into his vehicle and left for the mountains around 5:30 am. I managed to stay awake most of the way to Northstar near Truckee.
By the way, we’re both music geeks – Owen is on the music faculty at Diablo Valley College and I teach electronic music and other music courses at De Anza College. So, the audio environment on our trips to the
Sierra tends to be a bit, well, unusual. We arrived at Northstar and drove through the parking area with John Adam’s latest recording blasting like your basic low-rider. People didn’t seem to know what to make of this as we drove by.
I took a one-hour telemark lesson from Ivan at the Northstar nordic center – actually the first ski lesson I’ve ever taken even though I’ve cross-country skied for something like 3 decades. I figured that it would be a good idea to pick up some quick pointers rather than slowly figuring out the whole thing on my own. The telemark lesson and nordic trail pass got me onto the lower runs at Northstar for about the same cost as a regular lift pass, plus I got to use the XC trails for an hour or so at the end of the day.
My skiing background is that of a fairly proficient kick-and-glide xc skier. I’ve done this long enough that my instincts kick in automatically when I put the skis on… as long as they are cross-country skis. The tele’ thing is different – those darn skis don’t have any kick, but they sure can turn. By mid-afternoon I felt pretty competent on beginner downhill runs. I could actually stop and turn where and when I wanted to. Cool!
With two hours remaining I ditched my tele’ gear and picked up my skinny skis and did about an hour of cross-country track skiing. It felt good to do this since I feel totally competent on XC skis, in contrast to my still-developing instincts on tele’ gear.
At 4:30 I found a nice sunny table at the nordic center and called my 13-year-old son to tell him what a great day it was and how much fun it was to ski and how warm the sun was and how beautiful the mountain was… which was really my way of telling him that he shouldn’t have backed out of this trip!
We met a DVC colleague of Owen’s at a Mexican restaurant in Truckee before the drive back to the Bay Area. Traffic wasn’t half bad for a Sunday evening and I managed to get home just before 11:00 pm. Just enough time to grade some papers and get 5 hours of sleep before getting up to go teach my Monday morning classes.
No pictures this time – too busy skiing.
—–
February 26, 2003
Posted by gdanmitchell |
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Comments Off on 2003.02.26
Dan's Outside 
2003.02.26
***About that ski trip
– It was a classic mad one-day Sierra up-and-back run. I got up at 4:00 am and hit the road for my buddy Owen’s place in Pleasant Hill around 4:15. We loaded the skis and other gear into his vehicle and left for the mountains around 5:30 am. I managed to stay awake most of the way to Northstar near Truckee.
By the way, we’re both music geeks – Owen is on the music faculty at Diablo Valley College and I teach electronic music and other music courses at De Anza College. So, the audio environment on our trips to the
Sierra tends to be a bit, well, unusual. We arrived at Northstar and drove through the parking area with John Adam’s latest recording blasting like your basic low-rider. People didn’t seem to know what to make of this as we drove by.
I took a one-hour telemark lesson from Ivan at the Northstar nordic center – actually the first ski lesson I’ve ever taken even though I’ve cross-country skied for something like 3 decades. I figured that it would be a good idea to pick up some quick pointers rather than slowly figuring out the whole thing on my own. The telemark lesson and nordic trail pass got me onto the lower runs at Northstar for about the same cost as a regular lift pass, plus I got to use the XC trails for an hour or so at the end of the day.
My skiing background is that of a fairly proficient kick-and-glide xc skier. I’ve done this long enough that my instincts kick in automatically when I put the skis on… as long as they are cross-country skis. The tele’ thing is different – those darn skis don’t have any kick, but they sure can turn. By mid-afternoon I felt pretty competent on beginner downhill runs. I could actually stop and turn where and when I wanted to. Cool!
With two hours remaining I ditched my tele’ gear and picked up my skinny skis and did about an hour of cross-country track skiing. It felt good to do this since I feel totally competent on XC skis, in contrast to my still-developing instincts on tele’ gear.
At 4:30 I found a nice sunny table at the nordic center and called my 13-year-old son to tell him what a great day it was and how much fun it was to ski and how warm the sun was and how beautiful the mountain was… which was really my way of telling him that he shouldn’t have backed out of this trip!
We met a DVC colleague of Owen’s at a Mexican restaurant in Truckee before the drive back to the Bay Area. Traffic wasn’t half bad for a Sunday evening and I managed to get home just before 11:00 pm. Just enough time to grade some papers and get 5 hours of sleep before getting up to go teach my Monday morning classes.
No pictures this time – too busy skiing.
—–
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February 26, 2003 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on 2003.02.26