some days it's a struggle

Some days it's a struggle.  Not for H, in this case, but for me on Sunday.  I woke up feeling less than great and shooed him off up to Alta while I slept in a little longer.  When I got up, I puttered around until noon, when I looked out the window, saw gorgeous blue skies and was completely annoyed with myself for not sucking it up and just going skiing.  So I texted H to let him know I was coming, threw my skis in the car and drove up to Alta.

Nice blue skies at lunchtime

I've never gone up so late before: the main parking lots at Goldminer's Daughter and Albion were completely full and the road was lined with overflow cars.  I finally found a spot up above the Albion lodge, near where the Summer Road gate is.  I put on my boots and walked down to the maintenance shed, where the bunny slope comes back to the Sunnyside lift, already sweating in the bright sun despite having radically layered down since the day before.

I took the Sunnyside lift up and skied over to Alf's, where I got to Supreme in time to see H getting on a chair six ahead of me.  I knew I'd never catch him on the run down - he skis so much faster than I do, on both his alpine and telemark set-ups, and he was on alpine this day - so at the bottom, I skied right under the lift, waving my arms like a lunatic until he saw me as he was heading up again. 

In the trees below East Castle

H waited for me at the top of the lift and we did four or five runs together, going into the fun trees under East Castle and the Apron, gliding through some buttery soft spring snow on Big Dipper and Rock N' Roll (and then having to scramble a bit as some rocks were already coming up through the melting base).  But I was having a horrible time with my boots with painful foot cramps on both feet, despite a quick run into the lodge to take them off and put them on again.  The snow was pretty nice and the crowded parking belied the crowds, but I just couldn't enjoy myself with the pain in my feet.  Super-annoying.  H decided to stay to finish out the day and take the bus back down, so I drove back down the canyon, windows down and 1980s New Wave tunes cranked.  I didn't get the feeling back in my poor, abused toes until I got out of Little Cottonwood Canyon.