Mt Hood

I went downhill skiing! And it was definitely an adventure. No practice. Up the chair lift immediately. Cat run first, thank goodness, though it started with a mighty steep hill. I had no fear, though I was cautious and safe. I ran that with only a couple of falls. Then we hit the green diamond portion. I know, easy peasy, right? No. It got ugly here. But I did it.

Back to the top. And an additional section. That was what killed me. I almost missed a big turn and got scared. I was not really ever able to regain my initial (likely foolhardy) confidence. At one point, I took off and threw my skis and vowed to stay on the hill, never to return to civilization. Steve, ever patient, took my verbal abuse and coaxed me down, mostly by taunting me by skiing backwards in front of me. So, I was doing better and then we went down it again. This time it took me a fraction of the time.

Then the good stuff. I was taken to a blue diamond. Just to say that I did it. Once I realized how steep it really was, it was too late. I did manage to learn how to slide down sideways, which helped me learn balance and how to dig in and slide on my edges. I did cry at one point out of extreme frustration at the difficulty of the run. Again, Mr. Patience helped me down, and almost lost his grits in the effort. I skiied the bottom, but the initial say 50 yards of extreme slope was horrible.

Found out later that it was a black diamond run. So, I've done about the worst skiing I'll ever do.

Did I mention that Steve is the most amazing skiier that I've ever seen. Like jumps and stuff and fast and backwards and amazing. I'm impressed to no end. Granted, he's been skiing for 30 years, and I for only 5 hours. But he's really good.

I did the cat trail again, without falling and without making Stephen have to stop for me, not even once. SWEET!

And then the lovely warming hut, a couple of beers and I skipped a few runs, mostly because I felt bad for the boys having to babysit me.

Then they were cold, came back to get me, and then I had to ski one more green hill down. This one was the first thing I saw when I got to the park. I thought it was a triple black diamond or something, it looked impossible and at the beginning I would never have dreamed that I was going to end my day going down it. I fell a couple of times, but once I was kindly reminded to make big turns, I did just fine. I still think there was something wrong with my right ski, but I'll figure it out next time.

Which, will hopefully be next weekend.

More photos here.