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snow skiing
As you
can surmise from the picture on my home page, skiing is one of my
hobbies. I took it up relatively
recently, skiing a half-day with my friend Brian
Camfield (who sucks, not at skiing but just generally) at Show Shoe Mountain in West
Virginia around 1994 (I was about 30).
I was an avid water skier as a teenager; our family had a ski boat and
went out every weekend in the summer.
My brother and I even went to ski camp every year at Camp Grady Spruce. I skate-boarded as well, so I have practice
balancing on boards hurtling down hills.
The first time I skied, I didn’t have any lessons at all, and managed
to get on the lift and down the beginner’s slope without falling. In fact, I didn’t fall once in getting off
the lift. I was pretty proud of
that. Conditions were pretty icy, and
I didn’t realize that all skiing was that way until I had done some skiing in
the Rockies.
ski group
After a
couple of years, we started a little group that went skiing every year in the
Spring. We went to a different place
every year.
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Year
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Location
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Comment
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1996
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Breckenridge,
CO
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I
went with Leanne Covert (nee Pecorino) and Allison Shasteen
(nee Brinkworth) and some other folks from work,
Dave Nelson and his girlfriend Gina Floyd.
I came down with a case of altitude sickness, I felt nauseous and
had a headache the whole time we were on the mountain, but on the drive
back down to Denver, it immediately went away. It was a fun trip, Leanne and I had just
started going out.
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1999
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Steamboat
Springs, CO
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We
went with Scot and Gena Courtney, Robin, and Greg
Strickland. I had a great time, but
on the penultimate (next-to-last) day, I fell hard and broke a rib. Right after it happened, I thought I just
had altitude sickness again, but it started to really hurt the next day,
and I couldn’t sleep at all. I went
to the doctor in Houston, and had it x-rayed, but the doctor said that
there wasn’t anything he could see.
About a week later, he called me at home and told me he had looked
at the x-rays again, and that it was broken.
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2001
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Park
City, UT
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Brian
and Robin and Tom Wildman and I went to Park City. We made our plans last minute, and Park
City was preparing for the Winter Olympics, so we had to stay a couple of
miles from the slopes. We still had
a great time. The snow here is
better than anywhere else I’ve been.
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2002
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Whistler/Blackcomb,
British Columbia, CA
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This
was the biggest mountain and the biggest village, Tom and Brian and Robin and
I stayed in a hotel right at the bottom of the mountain. It was a great time, but during the week
it got so cold they closed the top of the mountain. When Canadian’s close the mountain
because it’s too cold, you know it’s cold.
I almost froze my nose off.
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2003
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Big
Sky, MT
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Most
of our trips are planned as a compromise between good skiing conditions and
the availability of nightlife. This
trip we knew that there wouldn’t be a lot of nightlife, so we rented a
cabin. We cooked dinner every night,
played card games and board games, and had a great time.
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2004
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Snowmass/Aspen,
CO
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Robin
and I went, we stayed in Aspen in a hotel, but we could ski right out of
the end of our hall. We skied on
Snowmass twice and Buttermilk in Aspen once, conditions were great, and it
wasn’t very crowded. No new snow,
though, until the last day, when we went shopping in Aspen.
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2005
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Winter
Park, CO
Sun
Valley, ID
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I got
two weekends in this year, one in Winter Park in January after a business
trip to Colorado Springs. I had a
great day of skiing, one of the best that I can remember. The weather was like Spring (the season,
not the Houston suburb).
I hooked
up with a church group from Second Baptist to go to Sun Valley the next
weekend, I didn’t think that I’d know anyone, but there were a couple of people
that I knew on the trip. I had a
great time, but the skiing was terrible for some reason. The snow was icy from the unseasonably
warm weather, and they were having to make snow. I didn’t even bother to ski on the third
day.
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2006
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no trip
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I didn’t manage to squeeze in a trip in 2006, I had just changed jobs and was too busy in the spring.
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2007
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Banff/Lake Louise, Alberta, CA
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Robin and Todd and I went, and met Tony & Liz up there. This is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Robin and I had some trouble learning the ins and outs of snowboarding, but it was a great trip. We drove up to see the glaciers on our day off, the scenery was just breathtaking, lots of wildlife.
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2008
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Park City, UT
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Robin and Todd and I, along with Gregg & his soulmate Suzanne, Tony & Liz, and Robin's friend Christie went to Park City. This is the first repeat location we've had, and we went here again mainly because of the perfect snow. It's 30 minutes from the SLC airport, and there are several other great resorts nearby. We had a four-bedroom condo, right near the lifts, and we had a blast. I had a problem with the altitude this time, and I think it had to do with my apnea problem.
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pictures
Robin and I at the base of
Whistler/Blackcomb in Canadia (muy
frio)
From the left, me (asleep), Tom,
Robin, and Brian (also asleep) in Park City
From left, Robin, me, Tom, and
Brian in Big Sky
Robin and me in Aspen
Me on the mountain at Winter Park
(this was the best self-portrait of three, you should see the
others)
Last updated 8/2/08
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