April 10, 2011

Skiing is the new golf

Last night, we had dinner at a local restaurant that also happened to be a whiskey distillery – High West Distillery! Cool. We had a private room for our group, and a set menu for food. Normally I’m not a fan of set menus, because I feel like there are usually healthier things on the regular menu, but after a full day of skiing, I was ready to indulge! I started with a delicious cocktail (Rough Romance, made of High West Vodka 7000′, raspberry syrup, lime, and ginger beer), and then progressed through some delicious cabernet sauvignon for the rest of the meal. On the food side, we started with some amazing cheese fondue (honestly, I ate so much of that I didn’t even need the meal!), and then for my entree, I chose the bison ribeye with a silver whiskey porcini sauce. Yum!! They even cooked it rare, just the way I like it.

After dinner, in addition to the best butterscotch pudding I’ve ever had, we also did a whiskey tasting. I was a bit nervous, not being much of a fan of hard liquor served neat, but I did my best, and actually found the silver (an unaged oak whiskey) to be delicious – it tasted much more like tequila than whiskey. The other three weren’t quite to my liking, but I gave them a go anyway.

By the end of the night, I was so exhausted that I wasn’t even game for another drink out at the local watering holes – bedtime for me!

As a result, I woke up bright and early to start my adventures, and managed to impress our CEO by getting three ski runs in before we all met up at 9:30am. However, that became the last time I impressed anyone all day – the others were all expert skiers, and I was now the worst in the bunch!

On our first run, the group insisted on doing an intermediate trail (my level). Then, bored, they decided that they’d do an advanced trail that ran parallel to the intermediate trail, and have someone go with me on the intermediate one. I felt terrible that I needed to be babysat like that, but as much as I protested that they could go off on their own, they refused, and someone was always with me. It made me realize just how important it is to be good at skiing – it has clearly replaced golf as the new corporate outing 🙂 I better start taking lessons!

On the plus side, having a buddy made me confident enough to try one of the advanced runs, which was pretty exciting. I finished without much trouble, but my legs were exhausted from the powder. That particular trail had at least a foot of fresh powder sitting atop the trail, and on skis (instead of a snowboard), that meant that they went right through it, slowing me down. On the one hand, it made it easier because I wasn’t going as fast as I normally would on the steep trail; on the other hand, my skis were a lot harder to control when they were buried in the powder! It was such a different experience from skiing on the icy slopes back east.

Eventually, I was able to convince the group to follow a plan that worked for me: they would all take the advanced runs, I’d take an intermediate run, and we’d meet at the lift at the bottom. We skied like this for the rest of the morning, until lunch, and then headed to the lodge for some delicious rewards: hamburgers and sweet potato fries! Delicious 🙂

Unfortunately, my legs were absolutely exhausted from all the power skiing I had done that morning. We remarked at lunch that we had gotten in more runs that morning than most people normally do in a full day, since we were skiing fast and there were no lift lines at all (being so late in the season)! I had hoped that lunch would give me more energy, but I ended up barely able to get the rest of the way down the mountain. My skiing form was really sucking at that point, but I still managed to take all intermediates (including some double blues) to get back down the mountain to the Main Street side.

I trudged back up the hill to our house, walking probably slower than I had ever walked in my life, and the only thought running through my mind was how much I wanted a nap… to the point where I was contemplating comfy-looking spots on the side of the road to catch a breather! I think I was more tired today than I have been after running any marathon… which just goes to show you how hard we were skiing.

However, when I got back to the house, instead of taking a nap, I got busy with my computer and booked myself a mini-vacation this week. Tuesday through Thursday, I am on the consulting “beach”… but will be spending my time actually on the beach, in St. Maarten! I can’t wait. Looking forward to hearing some tips from any well-traveled readers who’ve been there before 🙂

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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5 thoughts on “Skiing is the new golf”

  1. No one commented on the tequilla??? NO ONE? Oh, blog readers – you disappoint.

    I keep hearing about a tequilla tasting here in town that they are doing soon. It sounds fun, but it is one of those fancier ones where the tickets are 100 bucks each. Orrrr, I could just go buy 3 bottles of my OWN tasting and goto town.

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