What a difference a year makes. The past few years I've made it out a couple times a year, and it was pretty rough. I never got my confidence back to where it was when I was younger, and after every run I was absolutely exhausted. I had to take breaks every other run to let my feet recover a little, and the pain I was in was tremendous, even just walking to the hill. It's amazing how much better shape I'm in now, despite barely working out lately.

I was very lucky when I got to the hill, because there was this nice chick from Chicago who was looking for someone to share her two for one coupon with. I didn't realize how expensive the ticket on it's own would be, so that helped a lot. I was concerned after talking to a few snowboarders who were trying to get rid of their tickets. They were out for the first snow, and they said the conditions were horrible. They just wanted to get out of there. There was a lot of rain, and even though near the peak there was some snowfall, it was way too heavy and it was very difficult to get through. But whatever... I figured it'd be nicer to land on.

I started off doing a lot of green runs in the Emerald lift area to try and get back into it. The first one was pretty bad, and I was worried this trip would have been a waste. I just wasn't feeling right about it at all. But it didn't take long to get my groove back. As long as I stayed on the more groomed and/or busier trails it wasn't too bad. The one time I went out into the fresh stuff I had some serious issues. My skis were flying all over the place and nearly threw me over the skis forwards!

After a quick burger I was back out. I bought some new gloves, since mine seemed to have a leak in the finger. I thought they were supposed to be waterproof. Yeah, neither were the new ones. I managed to get in a bunch of runs on the other side of the lodge. This is where I found the Big Red Express, and started to do some blue square runs. I was doing alright here. I was still falling a fair bit, but every time I did was fun! I'd just slide down the hill on my stomach for a while before stopping. It's pretty neat to have the GPS along for the ride, because I can replay all the falls!

I was eventually way too wet to continue. Not really all that cold, but the wetness made it pretty bad. At the bottom of the lift it would be raining, then freezing rain halfway up, and at the top it turned into wet snow. Pretty funny stuff. On my last run I was going to take this cute green run called Bear Cub. It looked like a nice meandering ride under the lift. But I got to this black diamond run called Jimmy's Joker and debated about taking it for a while.

I was trying hard to resist. Yesterday Alison told me that it's bad karma to say "this is my last run." As long as you think you're going to go up again you'll be fine. I was considering coming back up after this one... I don't know if it was because of what she said though, because my legs were burning, my asthma was kicking in again (after two years), and I was so wet that I had this Princess Superstar track stuck in my head.

It was a decent run. Hard as hell. Maybe it's the way I ski, but I was bloody exhausted by the time I got to the bottom of it. The harder I try and slow myself down, the more work it is. I barely topped 18 km/h down the majority of it, but I didn't care. I did a black diamond run!

Right now I'm going to pass out so I can be up first thing in the morning. I can't wait! Why did I have to enjoy this so much at the end of the season?

Click the map (or here) to view the stats and to watch where I went. If you've got Google Earth, then use this link. It looks awesome!