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Alternately entitled "Thredbo Days 1 & 2 - Where Liv mangles his legs with successively less comfortable boots", this here post is about Prae and Ethi's fabulus ski adventure, which it seems I was the only dude interested/awesome enough to go on.
The rest of you, having a far larger budget for toy soldiers than high-altitude adventure, unfortunately missed out on an excellent weekend.
Props first of all to the aforementioned two NWTJ funksters, who are a right pleasure to go anywhere with. After two lengthy trips with just Ash for company, I had begun to view sarcastic little so-and-sos who act like an exaggerated version of one's mother as some sort of cross one must bear to go do interesting things. On this outing, I got to enjoy myself without the running commentary (unless you count Ethistan's brand of "humour"  ), and still didn't have to do a lick of the organizing myself. Now that's luxury!
The snows were thick and fluffy, the weather sunny and perfect, and the skifields abuzz with activity when we arrived. Geared up and kitted out the previous night, we were able to hit the slopes right away, and I got to renew my familiarity with ski boots and the pointy end of trees.
Ethistan was already a ski expert, from months of weekend ski trips with JB (who is also fine company on the slopes, I should add) during his internship in Seattle. Despite this, he chose to join the novice skier class to be with Praeteritio - who had never donned a pair of skis before (at least in a downhill capacity), and was starting from scratch. The two of them had a humorous sort of partnership on the mountain: Praeteritio learning quickly and flailing about with her arms as she occasionally lost control, Ethistan - in his patented BeanieScarfTM - zooming about like a pro, alternating between caring concern and skiitastic showboating.
I spent my first day skiing, and my second day snowboarding, just to generally figure out which of the two I enjoy more. I figure I have both skills up to about an intermediate level, but as with most of my abilities this involves a curious mix of competence and disaster. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I did some very dangerous things very well, and some very easy things extremely badly.
In particular, I started to get pretty good at some of the more tricky moves with the skis and snowboard, and even managed to learn to do snowboard jumps and jump-slides along big ol' ice-blocks (kinda like skateboard grinds). My perennial enemies, deep powder and ice, however, would constantly show up out of nowhere just to throw me down a black-diamond run or send me hurtling into the bushes, just to ensure I don't get too secure in my own mountaineering prowess. Moreover, as if that weren't enough, there was always Catch-Me-If-You-Can Ethistan, whose desire to compete tends to increase proportionally with his chance of winning - and whose chance of winning each race between us this time was, dare I say, extremely good. As such, I entertain no illusions of having become a fabulous skiier and snowboarder overnight, but I did learn a lot of useful stuff - both on my own and through lessons - which has increased my overall confidence and enjoyment whenever I tumble screaming down a mountain, regardless of what sliding-instrument I just fell off of.
We had us many an adventure on this here trip, from optimistically assuming we could take a first-time skier to the top of Kosciuszko for lunch without her, um, getting stuck up there for an extended period in a howling sleet-storm (which may have been more entertaining for us than for her, and turned me and Eth briefly into a highly encouraging and entirely useless Japanese-style cheer-squad encouraging her steady descent down the mountain), to the death-defying plummets and "short-cuts" through trees (always a bad idea, btw.) of my and Ethistan's exciting races down the mountain (despite the overall obviousness that Ethistan would win, particularly when the exact same flat stretch forced me to slow to a crawl, stop, and crab-walk whenever I got to it, which Ethistan would typically pole past and wait at just to watch me swearing and straining before he skied on down to win the match).
Overall, a fabulous time was had by all, and although I can barely walk today from how much I knackered my legs swooshing that snowboard around all day, I would heartily recommend attending the next NWTJ ski event to anyone looking to capture the thrill of speeding down the side of a mountain without any brakes.
Oh, and RJorb: I got your message. In the face.
After rendering Ethistan a suitable reply (and having to devise a whole new way of snowboarding, to account for the surprisingly large weight of a giant ball of thick, fluffy mountain-top snow), I decided not to have him deliver it back to you after all, as I have been poetically composing a suitable reply for you myself... |
My Legs Hurt
GrubLord: I know Ash is sitting around in his underwear somewhere fuming that he can't waste time attacking this post with pointless details, so I thought I'd help him out.
SimAsh says: NO! ALL LIES! His ski boots were actually quite comfortable, and the snowboard boots were fine too until his legs started to cramp up from all that swooshing, at which point they started to swell somewhat, and the boots FELT like they fit poorly. But, of course, they were still technically THE RIGHT size. Ooh, nice one. I got that Liv GOOD.
cK: Loved the post Liv, wish I could have come along.. but a) poor, and b) that was last weekend yeah? I'm gonna post up my Magic Nationals experience in the meantime.
Praeteritio: Lucky for those who didn't have to stand 8 hours the following day doing surgery...
teh_saq: Fünnîŀÿ enoügh, I dîdn'ŧ even noŧîce ŧhaŧ ŧhaŧ was SîmAsh raŧher ŧhan reaŀ Ash ŧhe fîrsŧ ŧîme I read ŧhîs posŧ.
