My first ski trip of the year was, shall we say, a bit rocky. I and a few other members of the Clear Lake Area Ski Club joined the Texas Ski Council at Durango Mountain Resort (formerly known as Purgatory) in Colorado.

I went on this trip without my wife, Susan. That means I had to find other victims to follow me around the mountain. :) The mountain was reporting a 30 inch base, which was a couple feet short of covering up all the rocks, tree stumps, fallen logs, and other obstacles. Most of the groomed runs had occasional bare spots, usually hiding just over a rise where you couldn't see them until it was too late. Plenty of "packed powder" (which some people refer to as "ice") spots scattered around as well. I got a nice big bruise on my hip/leg the first day when I didn't notice a particularly mean patch of "packed powder" while skidding to a stop next to a couple of ski patrollers. Smooth move. I felt obligated to hop right up and pretend it didn't hurt. Ten days later and the bruise is still fairly huge. Except for a brief "unplanned stop" on the last day when I snagged my boot on a buried tree branch, I didn't fall any other times during the week.

We stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in Durango. That means we were about forty minutes from the mountain. Thanks to the wonderful chauffeur services of Neal Ramsey, who had driven his truck out there, I was able to avoid the bus for all but one afternoon. Dick and Georgeann Reitz gave me a ride up on the last day, when Neal and a few other club members rode the train up to Silverton. I returned their generosity by scratching the roof of their rental car while trying to remove the magnetic ski rack. Oops. Fortunately, the rental company didn't hassle them about it when they returned the car. They took the afternoon off to go snowmobiling and had a great time. As it turns out, that day had the best snow conditions at Durango for the week. I wasn't too happy about the bus leaving before the lifts closed, but since I only had to do it that one time it wasn't too bad. If Neal and the Reitzes not been around to give me rides to and from the mountain during the week, I probably would have been pretty grumpy.

On our first ski day, several of us hooked up with a mountain tour to get the scoop on where to ski (and not to ski). After that I spent the better part of the day checking out the terrain under chair 8. I closed out the day by myself by trying out Styx, a nice long black run. The top section was in great shape, as the run takes a bit of work to get to and doesn't get much traffic. I had planned on bailing out before the lower section, but the ski patrol had the cutoff roped off. That meant I got to dodge plenty of rocks and tree stumps for the last few hundred yards. Never did make it back over there during the rest of the week.

On Monday, we hit the NASTAR course for a few runs. Gary Kuchcinski and Delilah Hart both raced on snowboards, while James Broughton, Neal, and I stuck with our skis. A few other club members got in a few runs as well. The race staff was nice enough to let us race for free. Spent the rest of the day doing high-speed runs off of chair 8 with an occasional bump run thrown in. I tried a tree run on my own, but the coverage was just too thin. Had to bail out back to the groomed run.

On Tuesday, James, Gary, Delilah and I hopped in the cab of Neal's truck for a day trip to Wolf Creek. We left Durango around 7:00AM and got there around the time the lifts opened. They had much better snow conditions. We warmed up on several cruisers before hitting a few bump and tree runs for fun. I learned the hard way that my pole handle is removeable while trying to help Gary out of a tree well. I also got in a run or three on the relatively steep Alberta Face.

After everyone had eaten lunch, James and I decided to check out the Waterfall Area. I was in the lead and stopped quickly when I came upon the caution sign marking the entrance to "Big Drop". I couldn't see over the edge but it was probably around a 20-30 foot drop. I don't even think about doing those. I tried to traverse around the ridge while James found a rock-filled chute that he was able to slide down. I kept thinking that I'd find a chute that was skiable (at least by me) but it didn't happen. If it wasn't tree stumps, then it was fallen logs or rock outcroppings. I finally got to a point where I couldn't go back, around, or up. In order to clear the rock ledge below me, I would have had to jump 4-5 feet sideways before dropping the remaining 6-7 feet. I quickly learned a new technique: I took off my skis and tossed them and my poles down into the landing area, which wasn't too steep and fortunately full of soft snow. I then jumped feet-first after them. I was most happy to not land on any rocks. A local later told me that there are sections in there where you can drop up to 50 feet.

Gary and Delilah had gone down another section of Waterfall, only their selected "run" supposedly had fewer obstacles, although it was plenty narrow. Neal decided to be smart and spent the rest of the afternoon on the front side. Meanwhile, the other four of us had great fun skiing several tree runs under the Alberta chair. Wolf Creek has some serious terrain. A lot of it is "backcountry-style", only with lift access. It's kind of exciting to come up on a cliff in the middle of a tree run. This was easily the best ski day of the week. I'd love to ski Wolf Creek in a normal snow season. They only had about half what they usually have in February. We were all too worn out to consider hiking along the ridge. Maybe next time...

For me, Wednesday was a bit of a letdown after our Wolf Creek adventure. After doing a couple of NASTAR runs, I spent the rest of the day either dodging bare spots on the high speed cruisers, or rocks on the bump runs. I did get a chance to make one of my better recoveries. The tip of my uphill (i.e. unweighted) ski hit a rut while I was flying down a very slick run. It swung around behind me about 100+ degrees from my other ski. I was able to pull it back around in time regain control. Had I fallen, I would've slid right into the trees.

Thursday was race day. The Texas Ski Council club races were held on the NASTAR course in the morning. Our club raced last, at around 11:20. We had 13 of our 16 skiers attempt the course. Unfortunately, 6 of us either missed a gate or fell. Gary, Neal, and I finished fast enough to earn silver medals, while James got a bronze. Georgeann, Alice Kilgo, and John Getrost also collected valuable points for the club. Unfortunately, we still ended up in last place among the eight clubs represented.

The TSC individuals race was held that afternoon on Upper Hades. A ski patroller foreran the course in 55 seconds. It had over 30 gates on it. Thanks to a computer snafu, our club members got to race last....again. That means we spent a lot of time standing around in the falling snow waiting to race. The fresh snow also slowed the course down quite a bit. I finished it in over 77 seconds on both runs. I found it hard to keep my speed up in the flatter sections. Several people got hurt in falls on the course, including the fastest woman skier. She beat me by only 14 seconds. I think I finished fifth in the men's open division, but was 18th overall. It was fun, but that was an awfully long time to wait, considering we were getting fresh snow. Gary, Delilah (the only snowboarder to try the course), James, Steve Gaylor, and Carol Oeller also raced.

On Friday, the mountain was in much better shape. At least 2 inches of snow had fallen. It was heavy enough to cover lots of the bare spots and rocks. James went back to the NASTAR course and stayed there until he finally earned a silver medal. I skied with John Poffinbarger and others for most of the morning. It was quite a bit different pushing around all the powder on runs that had been very slick only the day before. James and I finished off the better part of the afternoon skiing whatever runs we could find that we had been too worried about coverage to ski earlier in the week. We both picked up a few dings in the bottoms of our skis, but had fun nonetheless.

The Awards Banquet was held that night at the Tamarron Resort. The most exciting part of it was the bus ride back to town, when we packed the small shuttle bus with about twice as many people as it was designed to carry. Our flights back to Houston on Saturday were uneventful. The airlines are getting better at having your luggage make the same flight as you, thanks to the increased security measures. Our trip leader, Jim Smith (with some help from his wife, Gloria) did a good job of keeping things running smoothly throughout the week. They're going to be moving up there in a few months, so we'll probably have a hard time getting them to volunteer to lead any future trips.

Hopefully this week got my legs in decent shape for our trip next week, when Susan and I go to Copper Mountain with the club.

Think SNOW!!!