Day 1 Update:
I wore a thin liner sock, thinnest I have. We did a warm up day and stuck to greens and blues around Ramcharger and Southern Comfort.
The side of foot pain was the biggest issue today with both boots. The toe pain was better, I think from wearing liner socks and my diy liner stretch at home before we left. The pain was about a 8/10 if standing around, and 5/10 when on easy green cruisers. Took the kenjas.
I noticed that my balance just felt off. Especially on the steeper parts of blues. I found d that when I would try to stay forward, I would get in the backseat, if that makes sense. I normally don't hesitation staying forward on blacks, let alone blues, so that was kind of disheartening. I felt like my skiing regressed to a low intermediate between the pain and the balance issues.
When we broke for lunch after 6 runs, I yanked out the heel lifts and spoilers. Those Ikea slippers were clutch. I felt around the liner on the outside midfoot where I felt the pain, and it seems like some of the foam is squishing part of the side of my foot underneath it. Like there is a little squashed layer of my outside foot skin that is getting pinched between a foam overlap and the foot bed.
Skiied a few more runs after lunch, still blues and greens. Big improvement with my balance and edging with the heel lifts and spoilers removed.
I did notice that I still can't flex the boots, even though I removed the bolt. My shins got sore trying. I think the heel lift was helping me flex, but messing up my balance. I may have to get these puppies softened a bit. They are 95 flex, whatever that is worth. When I tried really, really hard to flex them, my heel came up a bit.
Either removing the lift helped put my foot in a better place in the shell, or the liners did pack out a tiny bit (in a good way), but only a tiny bit. I could still feel my pulse in my feet at the end of the day waiting for DH to bring the car up, but I did get through the day, and the last few runs my toes didn't hurt.
If I could get the side of foot pain under control, I'd be darn happy. It does get maddening.... Grinding teeth in the lift line, reciting state capitals in my head to distract myself from the pain maddening lol.
But hey, better than I feared. I thought I might only be able to do like 5 runs. I don't think I can do anything beyond blues in these though. I might send DH off on his own to explore the blacks and I'll cruise greens and blues this trip. I still feel like I am not as in control or as comfortable as I would like. I used to mostly do black runs, so I'm kind of disappointed. But maybe I should have never been doing blacks in the first place, and I was just doing them with bad technique and not actually skiing well. Who knows?
BTW, Big Sky is absolutely beautiful and awesome.