Yesterday’s rain and warm weather was really depressing. The snow was as slushy as Stowe in late April. And when I kept waking up last night hearing more rain, I got into a real funk. But with so much to do and so little time, I was going to be on the mountain today regardless.
I slept like a log from 9 PM last night to about 3:30 AM, then woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. At 4 AM I finally got out of bed and figured I would take advantage of the 16 hour time difference to do some work. Checking Skype, I saw Dave was online (it was, after all, only noon Friday so he had better be working!!) We had a good conversation, recapping all that was going on in Essex and in Queenstown.
Finally covered everything and I went back to bed at about 4:45 AM. Still tossing and turning, I did eventually go back to sleep and grabbed another 1 1/2 hours before my 6:30 AM alarm went off. Had my morning coffee with a great Skype conversation with son John and then Bonnie. ( I can’t believe how great Skype is … )
Warner popped in as I was getting ready to leave, so we did some fine tuning to his new DODGE Ski Boots, then I was on my way to Coronet Peak, getting on the lift right at opening time of 9 AM.
After all my fears about the snow conditions being lousy because of the warm weather and the rain, I was blown away at how perfect everything was. The snow was corduroy and frozen … perfect for the testing I needed. The sky was blue and magnificent. The temperature was 35 or so. My gosh it was fabulous.
Skied over to Rocky Gully where the majority of the training was taking place and got some good runs on some of the Warner-flex boots. Wow! They felt great. I had set up the cuff angles to be the same as my regular flex boots so I was able to get an apples vs apples baseline comparison. Then, me being me, I started fiddling to see what effect different changes would have.
After a half dozen runs, I had a pretty good bunch of information. I decided I wasn’t man enough for the Warner flex, so I did a little softening of the boot this afternoon. Still firmer than my regular flex, but not brutal. Will test it tomorrow.
Also decided to put in a little more forward lean and lateral cuff angle for tomorrow. Want to see how it affects hip position and turn initiation on the hard snow.
Spent some really good quality time with Warner today. I like him a lot. He is a great asset to DODGE Ski Boots … he certainly can ski; he is really good about trying different things; he is even better about working with us to provide feedback and ideas, and; he’s a nice guy.
It’s 7 PM as I write this and, frankly, I’m a little hungry and tired. Time to make omelets for myself and New Zealand racer Ben Griffin.
Take chances and ski fast.
Bill