tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

We headed out for our annual January trip to Snowshoe on Saturday morning. We really should have really paid more attention to the weather reports and left Friday, but we didn’t want to pay for another night, and Saturday is kind of a waste anyway since the slopes are so busy during the day. So we left around 10am, after it had already started snowing. 66 wasn’t too bad, but by the time we hit 55, things had gone rapidly downhill.

The roads hadn’t been plowed or treated at all, and we were heading into the mountains. Oy.

The 4 Runner handles pretty well in the snow, but Aaron was still taking it easy. I think we hit a high of 25mph twice. And what was scariest about it was the idiots flying past us – I’m really shocked we didn’t see any of them flipped over later on.

It was a tense ride, but Aaron had it all pretty much under control. Then we came to what I like to call The Death Slide. We were going downhill, on a completely snow covered road with barely any traction, coming up on a turn, and while there was a guardrail, the other side of the guardrail was a steep drop into trees and I think a creek. Aaron was crawling along in Low, and we started to slide. The steering wheel was turning, but we were headed straight for the guardrail. And the cliff. I jokingly told him he was making me nervous, but when he came back with, “I’m making myself nervous!” I knew we were in trouble.** I was knitting at the time (a lace pattern, no less) and I started shaking so badly my needles started banging together (I still haven’t gone back to look at that row and see how many mistakes I made).  I noticed my fingers had turned white and I wasn’t ‘breathing’ so much as ‘panting in terror’. I could only picture us careening over the edge of the guardrail, tumbling down the hill, and coming to a rest at the bottom of the mountain. The empty, deserted mountain where we would probably not be found for days.

Suddenly the tires started to grip and we started turning away from the guardrail and back on to the road. A little too much back on to the road and into the other lane, but luckily no cars were coming the other way.

Needless to say, Aaron got us safely through The Death Slide, and then another one, this time a right hand turn with no guard rail. Finally we made it down the mountain (passing quite a few cars struggling and skidding to get up) and we stopped for much needed pit stop.

**Aaron claims we were never in any real danger, and I completely overreacted by almost going into a panic induced cardiac arrest, but what can I say. I suddenly realized how much I liked being alive and I wasn’t sure how long that was going to last!

The roads were slightly better when we crossed over into West Virginia, but we still had to go pretty slowly. Our 3.5 hour trip took almost 6.5 hours. But, we made it! We checked into our Rimfire Junior Studio (241 for future reference) and headed over to Silver Creek for some night boarding.

The conditions were really great, and it wasn’t really crowded at all. It was a good way to unwind after that drive. We had a few good hours and then called it a night.

We didn’t get out until about 11 on Sunday, which was nice because everyone else was heading in for lunch. There was lenty of snow, cold enough to be fast but not so cold we were miserable.

Aaron rode the Arbor park board and Flows I got him for Christmas last year, and now that he had his bindings set up better, he really loved the board. It definitely has more pop than his all mountain Never Summer. He had a good time playing around with his ollies and seeing what jumps he could hit along the way.

We ended up on the blacks by Soaring Eagle since that lift is always empty. I just wish people who insist upon snowplowing down blacks they really shouldn’t be on would do it on the side of the hill, not right smack in the middle of it. It’s just a recipe for disaster.

After a few hours we went in for some lunch at FireFox Grille, and learned they no longer sell bottles of their sauces. Horrors! That Bucket Hill sauce is freaking awesome!

We decided to hit Silver Creek again before people started coming over from the main mountain. We started getting tired after a few hours so we decided to call it a night. We hit up Red Rover for dinner and watched the end of the X-Games.

We were pretty sore so we decided to come straight home on Monday and not board. At least we saved some money on lift tickets. We made it home in 3.5 hours, a much nicer trip.

All in all it was another awesome weekend of boarding!