Ice Skating-Downhill

Not too long ago, Aaron and I had a moment where we were just sucked into the TV. It was one of those lazy nights where your mind is just too overwhelmed to do anything beyond just sitting in front of the TV like a zombie. What drew us in was the braveness (read: insanity) of a group of guys throughout the world who compete in a sport called Red Bull Crashed Ice. If you're not familiar with Crashed Ice, and I don't blame you if you're not familiar, it is a hybrid of downhill skating and ice skating where competitors ice skate downhill on an enclosed track.

Minus the ice skates, this is the experience we had today on the slopes. While yesterday was 60 and sunny, today was cold and cloudy; you do the math on what this caused the snow to do. I know, it's a bit of a pop quiz, so I'll give you a second to come up with the answer. Okay, time's up! If you answered the following: "It turned the slushy snow into ice," then you are absolutely correct. Combine the ice with our love of challenging routes and you get an experience quite similar to that of ice skating, except you're on skis.

You see, today's forecast called for snow, so we were at least anticipating a small layer of powder. Unfortunately, that was not the case, so the ground was left in cobbly, crusty snow and ice. But, hey, we're always up for a challenge. Minus the enormity of the slopes, though, the conditions aren't too different from what we have seen skiing in the midwest.

Despite the challenge of maneuvering our skis down steep, icy runs, we traversed the mountain to make it to the far side of the mountain. Given the icy conditions of the run Monte Crisco, we were happy that is only a blue. Any steeper and it wouldhave been a LONG ride down; unless we fell, then it would have been a short, but painful, ride to the bottom.

Having made it over to the other side of the mountain, we decided that scratching our way down the mountain had taken its toll on us and called it a day. Hopefully tomorrow's forecast will be a little more accurate. It's calling for 3"-7" of snow. Combine that with slightly higher temperatures and the next few days of skiing should be heavenly!