Webster Art

I’ve been out backcountry skiing twice in the last week. Friday I drove up to Dan’s and slept in his driveway. I could have gone in but we are trying to maintain social distancing.

Paradise is closed so Saturday morning Lisa and I drove up to the pass through Morton. It was lovely spring corn. She had her dog on the first run. It did great, but got tired on the last hill. We left it in the car and did another run with lighter loads, but didn’t make the summit. J was supposed to meet me there that night, or in the morning but he bailed. I decided not to paint the next day and drove home.

Thursday Sue and I skied there again and this time I skinned up to the summit twice. Both times the spring corn was uber awesome. On the second trip up, I saw no one at all for the last mile, place was deserted. Not a good time or place to get hurt. I am a careful skier, and even more so when I know I’m totally alone. I called Sue from the last hill, with the summit in sight, letting her know I was half an hour from the top, and then probably 30 minutes down to the car.

I got to the car right on schedule. The turns on the last slope above the road were amazing. On perfect spring corn like that I was able to find my groove. I turn downhill, allow my skis to accelerate straight down, then weight the outside ski. When most of my weight is on that ski, it naturally finds the concave curve on the side of the ski and begins to turn. As it carves, I gently slide my inside ski alongside it, weighting the back ever so slightly. There is a beautiful symmetry that happens in a perfect parallel turn.

I was explaining it to Sue, or trying to, and I think she got it as well. I watched her pull through some smooth turns. She’s been itching to get out of the city. We saw a couple dozen other people up there and everyone was really excited to be outside. Cabin fever is a real thing.

As far as the new ‘stay home, stay safe’ rules. We broke a few of them on those two trips. We made them as safe as possible…using hand sanitizer before and after getting gas (in Tacoma), not stopping anywhere on the way, and we carried all our own food. We didn’t want to  expose or be exposed to any more danger than necessary.

It was super nice to get out and be normal for a while.

Work is good. Zoom seems to work ok.