Washington & Lincoln offer up Bluebird Ski Day

Up at 6am. Clear skies and a setting moon over Park City ski resort. That was enough motivation to pull me from bed. David’s company, some coffee and a banana ahead of a stretch and run. Out the door near 645am again.

The ¾ moon was absolutely gorgeous setting behind the ski park mountains, At the same time, the sun was just making its ascent over the peak of the mountains just to the east. Again, beautiful, dappling the ski peaks in golden sunshine.

This time I wisely ran north first, my thinking being that I might adapt better by running the downhill leg first. Still, I underestimated the impact of the altitude and incline. By the time I made it back to the house I was sucking wind, dry mouthed, and completely exhausted. My run was only about three miles but all I could handle.

Looked like a bluebird day in the offing. Everybody was excited about that. Like the day before, I showered after my run and before eating breakfast. I think I had a scrambled egg. Can’t recall for certain. At any rate, I was full before we left for another day of skiing. Oh, barely touched my vodka and Mio mix the day before. Might’ve had two sips. Took it with me again on Monday. Topped off Mindy’s Gold Schlager too.

Anita dropped us at the same place as the day before. It was 9am sharp as we headed up the Eagle lift just for a change. The run just below the lift looked to be all powder. I couldn’t wait! It snowed about 4” the day before and a little more during the overnight.

Atop Eagle run, we soon learned that the run was closed for racing that day. Crap! Had to take another route down. At the same time, we learned that Anita was stranded at the base of the park. Apparently didn’t’ have a house key. Moreover, she didn’t have her cell phone with her either. David quickly devised a plan. I gave him my house key and he skied back to the base hoping to meet up with her. He said she would be a mess emotionally after the faux pas. Said he’d meet up with us again as soon as he could. We figured to ski several blue runs off the King Con lift.

Finally heard from David via text near 11am. Said he was going to hang with Anita until after lunch time. After two incidents in two days, her spirits were a little down. We all felt for her. We ended up skiing the north end of the park for most of the day – Thaynes, Motherlode, Silverlode lifts. Lots of fun runs, though my complaint still held true, not a lot of character to the runs.

Hooked up with David atop Thaynes area. Skies started to cloud up around 130-2pm. Took a brief warming break. Mindy and Tommy opted to stay in for an extended break. David, Glenn and I headed back out agreeing to head to the south end of the park, over by the Town lift. Heard from a ski park employee that there were lots of cool runs over that way.

Took us a while to figure out how to get over there but we did. And I must admit, the runs over there had much more character than those at the north end and center of the park. We found a treed gulley as well as several long runs with turns, shelves, and undulations. We took the run to the bottom of the Town lift into Old Park City where we took a brief beer and fries break at the outdoor patio which was drenched in sunshine. Awesome!

After 30 minutes or so, back to the slopes! Atop the McConkey’s, the wind was fierce and the views spectacular. Already nearing day’s end, David, Glenn and I skied hard and fast while also taking in a treed/gulley run we found from the lift ride up. Near 330pm, we opted to ski back to the resort center (bottom PayDay & Crescent) via Homerun, a long, mostly slow run. MY legs were tired by the run’s end. Anita was there to get us near 4pm.

Back at the house it was same as the day before. We all got in the hot tub, only this time I opted to enjoy a beer. By the way, my alcohol consumption for the entirely of the trip was low. For the most part, I wasn’t drinking beer during the ski day, and then just one or two during the evening back at the house.

As for Monday’s dinner, we enjoyed a wealth of snacks and then more home baked pizzas. By 9pm everybody was ready for bed.