A weekend of snowboarding and bouldering - Dec 16-18
It was an activity-filled weekend.
On Thursday night I drove up to Gaithersburg and crashed on Nathan's futon.
Friday morning Nathan and I left Gaithersburg at 7 am for Whitetail. The roads were icy from the freezing rain the previous night, combined with the morning traffic, driving was slow. We got to Whitetail around 9 am, I went snowboarding while Nathan rented skis and took a ski class. We spent about seven and half hour skiing/snowboarding, the condition was pretty good compare to last year when I was snowboarding at night. Many of the blue trails had some pretty good packed powder. I was afraid that I might be rusty after a 9-month break, but it felt like I picked it up right where I left.
We drove back to Gaithersburg, showered and changed, then drove to Alexandria to a parting gathering for Karin, who is moving to Chicago for a new job and to be closer to her family. It was fun talking to everyone (or rather, listening to the conversation because I was pretty beat), before I knew it, it was 10 o'clock. Nathan and I left to get some rest for the next day.
On Saturday we left Gathersburg at 7:30, when we got to Whitetail the parking lot was a lot more filled than Friday. The slopes were slightly more icy than yesterday, we went down the blue slopes a few times until the chairlift was stuck shortly after noon. Then everyone started going on the green slope including us, so it was extra crowded. After a couple of hours though, people started to thin out, and they finally fixed the chairlift that served the blue slopes. Also at this point, I spotted Mike (who works on the base as well) skiing down from the chairlift. I met up with him, his son Nick (who has grown so much in a year), and Nick's friend Tim. I ran their last two runs down the blue slope with them. After they left, Nathan and I took two more runs down the blue, and decided it was time to go.
After getting some inexpensive Chinese food in Gaithersburg and watching the Apprentice on Nathan's TiVo, we picked up Eric from the metro station around 11 pm so he can crash in Nathan's apartment as well.
The 8 hours of sleep I had felt awfully short when I woke up at 7 on Sunday morning. We all got up and met up with Hung shortly after 7:30. After two and half hours of driving and $12.75 in tolls because we didn't (couldn't) get a ticket out of the ticket booth, we arrived at Governor Stables with about 3-4 inches of snow on the ground. But it was a clear day and the sun soon warmed everything up. We started in the Upstream area and just moved along the trail looking for stuff that were dry enough to climb. It was a good day for me, I went further on a few problems than I've ever did last winter. I also got spanked on a few hard problems, and Tut (V3) still eluded me. A key hold broke off this year, making a small right hand crimper even harder to hold on now. We also ran into some climbers from the St. Mary's College: Chris, Miranda, Dav, and Dean. They got to GS pretty late and I didn't see them until late in the afternoon. We all worked on Tut for a while, then everyone else in my group was done for the day, so we left while the college climbers went to look for a warm down problem.
A long drive back to Gaithersburg because we decided not to take the toll road again, then another long drive back to my home. Got back around 8:30, just enough time to unpack everything, lay stuff out to dry, and crawl into bed and fall asleep within minutes.
Eric warming up as best as he could on the Scoop (V1)
On Thursday night I drove up to Gaithersburg and crashed on Nathan's futon.
Friday morning Nathan and I left Gaithersburg at 7 am for Whitetail. The roads were icy from the freezing rain the previous night, combined with the morning traffic, driving was slow. We got to Whitetail around 9 am, I went snowboarding while Nathan rented skis and took a ski class. We spent about seven and half hour skiing/snowboarding, the condition was pretty good compare to last year when I was snowboarding at night. Many of the blue trails had some pretty good packed powder. I was afraid that I might be rusty after a 9-month break, but it felt like I picked it up right where I left.
We drove back to Gaithersburg, showered and changed, then drove to Alexandria to a parting gathering for Karin, who is moving to Chicago for a new job and to be closer to her family. It was fun talking to everyone (or rather, listening to the conversation because I was pretty beat), before I knew it, it was 10 o'clock. Nathan and I left to get some rest for the next day.
On Saturday we left Gathersburg at 7:30, when we got to Whitetail the parking lot was a lot more filled than Friday. The slopes were slightly more icy than yesterday, we went down the blue slopes a few times until the chairlift was stuck shortly after noon. Then everyone started going on the green slope including us, so it was extra crowded. After a couple of hours though, people started to thin out, and they finally fixed the chairlift that served the blue slopes. Also at this point, I spotted Mike (who works on the base as well) skiing down from the chairlift. I met up with him, his son Nick (who has grown so much in a year), and Nick's friend Tim. I ran their last two runs down the blue slope with them. After they left, Nathan and I took two more runs down the blue, and decided it was time to go.
After getting some inexpensive Chinese food in Gaithersburg and watching the Apprentice on Nathan's TiVo, we picked up Eric from the metro station around 11 pm so he can crash in Nathan's apartment as well.
The 8 hours of sleep I had felt awfully short when I woke up at 7 on Sunday morning. We all got up and met up with Hung shortly after 7:30. After two and half hours of driving and $12.75 in tolls because we didn't (couldn't) get a ticket out of the ticket booth, we arrived at Governor Stables with about 3-4 inches of snow on the ground. But it was a clear day and the sun soon warmed everything up. We started in the Upstream area and just moved along the trail looking for stuff that were dry enough to climb. It was a good day for me, I went further on a few problems than I've ever did last winter. I also got spanked on a few hard problems, and Tut (V3) still eluded me. A key hold broke off this year, making a small right hand crimper even harder to hold on now. We also ran into some climbers from the St. Mary's College: Chris, Miranda, Dav, and Dean. They got to GS pretty late and I didn't see them until late in the afternoon. We all worked on Tut for a while, then everyone else in my group was done for the day, so we left while the college climbers went to look for a warm down problem.
A long drive back to Gaithersburg because we decided not to take the toll road again, then another long drive back to my home. Got back around 8:30, just enough time to unpack everything, lay stuff out to dry, and crawl into bed and fall asleep within minutes.
posted by Boer @ 12/18/2005
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