Saturday, December 27, 2008

Happy Christmas

I headed up to Sundance last week for my first skate ski day of the year and to pick up a nordic season pass. I was all ready to pay what is already a comparatively high price for the pass when the nice lady says, "you know if you get a season pass for the chairs it counts for the nordic center as well." Tempting. Very tempting. I told her that I'd mull it over while I skied and let her know before I left. While skiing, the following scenario played through my mind a dozen times:

5:45am - wake up
6:00am - leave for work
6:05am - arrive at work
2:00pm - leave work
2:30pm-3:30 - skate ski
3:30-5:00 - snowboard
5:15 - arrive home to happy wife

Okay so the schedule might be a little ambitious, but the possibility is quite appealing. Maybe I could try to throw in some snowshoeing on the same day to make a triathlon out of it. I couldn't help myself. A few days later, Wesla was surprised to find this show up in my stocking:


Santa pulled off a pretty nice stocking stuffer and somehow got my picture and everything. Unfortunately for Wesla (and conveniently convenient for me), she couldn't even question me about it in front of the kids without blowing Santa's cover.

I have a feeling that I'll be spending a lot of time up at Sundance alone this winter since I don't know anyone in the U.C. that skies (either the fat kind or the skinny kind) or snowboards. If you are from 'round here, participate in any of these activities and need someone to ride with, shoot me an email to set up an online date.

The possibility of skate skiing and boarding in the same day raises an interesting choice of apparel question. Depending on the whether, I'll sometimes dress for skate skiing similar to the way I'd dress for a cold-whether bike ride. In other words, I look a little something like these guys:

How much would you give me if I skated in my spandex (or "MANdex", according to Tony) and then went snowboarding without changing my attire? If the pot gets big enough, I might actually try it.

6 comments:

Rick Sunderlage said...

Throw your board on your pack, slap on the snow shoes, and come out with us into the backcountry. It's the best of both worlds...you'll get the lung and leg burn of the climb, and the untouched powder on the way down.

Aaron said...

Somehow I knew I'd get this comment from you because backcountry really is the logical solution. If you think I won't slow you down on my snowshoes and you can find a route that isn't going to get us buried, let me know and I'll join you. One of these days I'll either learn to downhill ski or buy a split board.

South County Ciclista said...

I don't think anyone would mind your riding attire, especially if you can pull off some backside 540s or rodeos.

Anonymous said...

Dumb question but is skate skiing the same as cross country skiing, and would 2 sets of gear be needed?

Aaron said...

Skate skiing (aka free technique) is one form of XC skiing. The other kind is classic XC skiing, which is probably closer to what you did back in the boy scouts. Two complete sets are necessary to do both. You can find quite a bit of info on both by poking around online.

Keith said...

Aaron,
Adam and I both snowshoe and have access to skate skis. I also love to snowboard and taught snowboarding at Sundance for 5 years. Let's go man.