How I wish I was back in Utah! It was gorgeous and tremendous fun. The whole week was amazing. The plane ride back to Pittsburgh on Saturday was just about the most depressing thing ever; that, and I got a massive bruise on my knee from my jeans and the pressure change. Cry. I want to go back and ski some more… Well, I think I miss the not having to worry about school thing more than I miss the skiing… Sigh.
I took a total of four lessons (two full day lessons, on Sunday 3/25 and Wednesday 3/28) and by the end I was hesitantly skiing down black diamonds. The first lesson helped me get over my fear of heights by reiterating over and over that I was capable of doing any hill, just how hesitantly or good was up to experience and practice. Bryan and I skied together a little bit and I spent a lot of time skiing with his grandfather. His grandfather is tremendously patient and really taught me as effectively as any professional teacher, which was fantastic. He also helped me get over my fear of some slopes by doing them with me. We did a black called Harper’s Ferry about five times on Thursday afternoon and he kept hammering at me to do it right. It was terrific practice. We got the first part of a storm on Tuesday, making it rain in the valley and thunder-snow in the mountains, so we didn’t ski. On Wednesday I got a chance to experience fresh powder — which was amazing. I love it now! As I said over and over, it’s much, much better than ice. I was a little wobbly but generally much happier than with the ice we had on Sunday/Monday.
Altogether, it was much better than skiing at Okemo or Killington. They say once you ski the Rockies you never really want to ski back east… and I think they’re right. Skiing in the Wasatch Mountains, at Snowbird, made Seven Springs look like a little bump on the ground somewhere. It was a little staggering. They were very different from the Alps, too; where the Alps were green and grassy and just shot out of the ground, these mountains were very rocky and craggy, giving the impression of the American southwest’s dusty sort of terrain. It was very interesting; I hadn’t expected to be put in mind of the prologue of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… The only really unfortunate part is we won’t be able to go back until Bryan is done with his program. I don’t think I could go without him and he won’t get time off. Sigh. I will really miss the mountains.
Salt Lake City was also very interesting and not exactly what I expected. It looks like one giant suburb. The mountains add to that effect by dwarfing any tallish buildings ridiculously. And the Salt Lake is sort of, well, odd. It doesn’t really look like a Great Lake, which I’d expected, but more like, well, a huge puddle. It was as if someone stepped on the ground and water filled in the footprint. (Maybe that’s the glacier effect; was it formed by a glacier? Is that what glacier lakes look like?) It also looked like Ohio in an odd way — flattish with strip malls and chain stores and little houses. Like the America I see most everywhere I get off of a highway. As a result, I didn’t take any touristy pictures of the city (I wasn’t really there to see the city, anyway).
Sigh. Five weeks of classes. End sooner, school! End!
Email me if you want to see my pictures.
