Hey look! An actual picture! Part two actually starts a little before that picture was taken, but it’s a fun place to start.
We made it to the Copper mountain ski area with a few hours of sunlight left, and time to explore before the kick-off dinner for the conference. It was sunny and clear, making the day one of those amazing winter days you seem to only get in the mountains. It should have felt cold, but it wasn’t bad walking around with a coat on. Sunshine is an amazing thing, I know we technically get sunny days during February in Des Moines, but they just don’t have the same kick.
After a beautifully scenic walk around the little resort area, we headed into the ski shop to pickup our rental equipment. About two minutes into that process, Heather had what she continues to describe as the most shocking revelation of the entire trip. I had frequently said things like “Heather and I are going skiing next week.” Internally I knew I meant “although I will be using a snowboard” but apparently I didn’t communicate that with Heather. To say she was surprised would be an understatement! She quickly adapted to the news, but did insist that I add a helmet to my rental load-out. As a side note, the helmet was a good option, and I would recommend it to everyone.
The next morning, Heather had to be at meetings really early, although she did get a great breakfast out of the deal. I slept in as best I could (this trip was rough for me… as you can no doubt tell) and then wandered over to a little coffee shop for a “waffle” and some coffee. I put quotes around waffle, because they were running some sort of pastry dough through a waffle iron, and selling it as a waffle. Not that I am complaining really, I just don’t know if that counts as a waffle. Anyway, the coffee was good and the pastry thing was good too once I accepted it’s true nature. It was kind of strange to just be hanging out waiting for things to start around the base camp area. Every other skiing experience I have had had started a long ways from the actual ski area, so mornings were rushing to get everyone and 50 cubic yards of winter-sport related junk loaded into a car and over to the mountain. I don’t know if it’s worth it really, but if you have to stay at the base of the mountain expect a much more peaceful morning.
Eventually Heather got out of her meetings and the lifts opened up. We started to gear up to get in line, and found that Heather was having issues with her boots snapping into her skis. She graciously encouraged me to make a run without her while she went back into the ski shop to figure out what the issue was.
I know it wasn’t her intention to make me look awesome by the time we skied together, but it was the end result. I hadn’t been on a snowboard for… about five years, so I was a little bit rusty. On the bright side, Copper Mountain is huge. By the time I made it back down to the base-camp area, all those old reflexes were starting to work again. You might think this would make it harder for us to stay together if I was starting to ramp up to competency, and Heather still needed to warm up, but really I find it harder to take it slow than run at a moderately fast speed, so the warm-up run was beneficial in a number of ways.
After our initial run, we figured out a system for skiing “together.” We would ride the lift up, then split up at the first fork in the trail. We would each continue at a comfortable pace, I would ride the lift up, ski down again, and then Heather would be ready to ride the lift up with me again.
Beyond that, there are only a few other skiing related notes left to mention. First that Heather really did enjoy it after a little practice, a fact that made me glad. Before our first run, I think we both were a little concerned that she would hate it, and it would just take a lot of fun out of the trip. I don’t know if Heather liked it enough to put it on top of her ideal vacation destinations for next year, but she at least enjoyed it. The second note is that I had one truly bad crash (and only one) the end result of that is a rib that still hurts when I laugh two weeks later.
Off the mountain, we just enjoyed getting to spend more time together than we would during a normal week. Our room ceased to be a quiet little hangout on the second day, when our neighbors arrived. We quickly learned that the walls were paper-thin, and that our neighbors consisted of a “guys trip” intent on cutting loose for the weekend. Ideas like “inside-voices” were not something they brought with them for this trip. Lucky for us, skiing wore them out as much as it did us, so everybody spend most of the time indoors sleeping.
That covers most of what is noteworthy about the second portion of our trip.
-Jordan
Nelsons 