Woo Hoo, I made it and had a blast!
The setup: Indianhead in Wakefield, MI. Left around 8:30AM EST...arrived around 9:30 CST. Went with the secretary at our school...she's 50, skied since she was young...skies on Hart straight skis (about 30 years old) LOL I drove and paid for gas, she brought the food. We had light snow the day before, maybe a dusting overnight...temps around 5(F) with sunny skies and very light wind.
I got to ride the magic carpet, rode up on one of those bars you stick between your legs...chatted with the lifties who noticed the school name on my friend's hat. VERY friendly people...but very helpful also. I forgot to set my skis out before I set them down:( DUH
Did the learning park, bunny hill and a slope that runs back to the bottom of the bunny hill. The lifties told us about the one green run near us..OMG, lots of fun. It opens up to a huge area and I was able to just play and practice. It was funny though...they said there was a slight headwall...LMAO, I've stood at the top of our ski hill...that's a headwall, not what I skied there.
Stopped and had a delish lunch, headed back out, did some more runs. There's a blue run that is parallel and meets at the bottom so my friend did that a few times and we met at the bottom, rode the lift up. Just picked up our conversation where we left off
Took a break around 2:30 EST, had some more food, decided to check out some other runs. Went to one more in the trees at the end on side. In the trees...hardly anyone had skied it, tons of corduroy...the first time down, it felt steep at times...told myself not to look down. Absolutely no problems...went back to the main area, left at 5PM EST totally happy, tons of runs and lots of fun.
What I learned: the ski hill here in town where I'm learning is STEEP. This was kind of baby compared to what we have. In fact, I was looking at a black run and it looked just like the blue run that I've been trying to do. I didn't even bother trying to do the one blue run, even though it looked easy enough...just decided I was going to ski my green, have fun and not push it.
I was really trying to work on turns, etc. Decided I was overanalyzing everything. Just started flying down the hill, didn't care if I had to pick up an inside foot occasionally. There were times with almost no one on it, I was able to do huge traverses, pick up the fall line and just go down....work on big sweeping turns or small little ones. Who cares if I skidded and scrubbed off lots of speed, it was fun. All my turns were linked...just one big continuous ski.
I embraced my inner fall line, worked on angulation, etc. but I think I was trying to be too perfect before. I didn't fall at all...by the time we were finishing, I was beating my friend down the hill.
Speed control - I guess I really don't want it. I will have to work on it when I get to steeper slopes, but the fact is, I like to rip down the hill. It actually never bothered me, it guess it's more a matter of getting back to my local hill and facing down "the steeps" It certainly was fun to ski at a place with nice long friendly runs.
Thanks for all the advice from everyone. My boots were great, might have to put some heels lifts in but I was fine in them for 6ish hours. Skies worked well, I think they will be fine for me the more experience I get. Admission...I wore my daughter's helmet. I don't normally wear one, but I was glad, I had a hat on under it, totally kept me warm.
One of those perfect days spent with a nice friend!
The setup: Indianhead in Wakefield, MI. Left around 8:30AM EST...arrived around 9:30 CST. Went with the secretary at our school...she's 50, skied since she was young...skies on Hart straight skis (about 30 years old) LOL I drove and paid for gas, she brought the food. We had light snow the day before, maybe a dusting overnight...temps around 5(F) with sunny skies and very light wind.
I got to ride the magic carpet, rode up on one of those bars you stick between your legs...chatted with the lifties who noticed the school name on my friend's hat. VERY friendly people...but very helpful also. I forgot to set my skis out before I set them down:( DUH
Did the learning park, bunny hill and a slope that runs back to the bottom of the bunny hill. The lifties told us about the one green run near us..OMG, lots of fun. It opens up to a huge area and I was able to just play and practice. It was funny though...they said there was a slight headwall...LMAO, I've stood at the top of our ski hill...that's a headwall, not what I skied there.
Stopped and had a delish lunch, headed back out, did some more runs. There's a blue run that is parallel and meets at the bottom so my friend did that a few times and we met at the bottom, rode the lift up. Just picked up our conversation where we left off
Took a break around 2:30 EST, had some more food, decided to check out some other runs. Went to one more in the trees at the end on side. In the trees...hardly anyone had skied it, tons of corduroy...the first time down, it felt steep at times...told myself not to look down. Absolutely no problems...went back to the main area, left at 5PM EST totally happy, tons of runs and lots of fun.What I learned: the ski hill here in town where I'm learning is STEEP. This was kind of baby compared to what we have. In fact, I was looking at a black run and it looked just like the blue run that I've been trying to do. I didn't even bother trying to do the one blue run, even though it looked easy enough...just decided I was going to ski my green, have fun and not push it.
I was really trying to work on turns, etc. Decided I was overanalyzing everything. Just started flying down the hill, didn't care if I had to pick up an inside foot occasionally. There were times with almost no one on it, I was able to do huge traverses, pick up the fall line and just go down....work on big sweeping turns or small little ones. Who cares if I skidded and scrubbed off lots of speed, it was fun. All my turns were linked...just one big continuous ski.
I embraced my inner fall line, worked on angulation, etc. but I think I was trying to be too perfect before. I didn't fall at all...by the time we were finishing, I was beating my friend down the hill.
Speed control - I guess I really don't want it. I will have to work on it when I get to steeper slopes, but the fact is, I like to rip down the hill. It actually never bothered me, it guess it's more a matter of getting back to my local hill and facing down "the steeps" It certainly was fun to ski at a place with nice long friendly runs.
Thanks for all the advice from everyone. My boots were great, might have to put some heels lifts in but I was fine in them for 6ish hours. Skies worked well, I think they will be fine for me the more experience I get. Admission...I wore my daughter's helmet. I don't normally wear one, but I was glad, I had a hat on under it, totally kept me warm.
One of those perfect days spent with a nice friend!
