Getting into and out of the skiing routine

So, leave it to me to stack up a couple of additional "issues" to go along with our adoption.  The first one started out so innocently...

The Flagstaff winter of 09/10 was one of amazing snowfall.  During just one storm we received 55 inches of snow.  (The local ski resort picked up more than 80 inches from that storm.)  So, this seemed like a great season to get back into skiing.

I learned to ski when I was 14. (I am now 40.  Yowsers!)  It took one or two tough days and I was hooked.  Then, when I was 16, I was shown a snowboard and I never went back to skiing.  So, last year, at the encouragement of a number of skiing friends I decided to hang-up the snowboard and head back into skiing.  I figured that it would be just like riding a bike, right?  Wrong.  To compound this problem I am very cheap and did not purchase a pass to my local resort, Snowbowl, so all of my skiing would be before the resort opened in the morning and after they close in the evening.

Armed with enthusiasm and an ability to suffer I started hiking up the resort and skiing down at least once per week.  There was a long list (OK, like three people) that I would routinely recruit to hike with me.  To be honest, this was great as I got in a great workout on the way up and a fun ride back to the car on the way home.  The only problem is that you don't become a very good skier when you only get in one or two runs per week.  I realized this after a back country skiing adventure with friends in Ophir Colorado.

Ophir is one of those last unspoiled places in Colorado.  It is a tiny town of several hundred people that sits one valley south of Telluride.  Pretty much the entire population of Ophir skis or snowboards.  The cool thing is that in Ophir you can step off your front porch, clip into your skis, skin up several different mountains and then ski down.  It is a very cool place.

At the end of an ice climbing trip I convinced two friends Ryan Bradley and Constantine Severes to take me skiing outside of Ophir.  Ryan is a school teacher in Aspen and skis almost daily during the winter months.  It takes most people 20 days or so to summit Denali in Alaska.  Ryan did it in 7.  Constantine, or Con as most folks call him, has guided Heli skiing in Telluride for years.  Con also guides on Denali and has summitted Mt. Everest.  My climbing and skiing resumes don't look anything like Ryan or Con's.

So, we park the car in Ophir and start heading up a trail heading south out of town.  I almost immediately get housed and quickly lost contact with Ryan and Con.  In my own defense Ryan and Con were on skis with climbing "skins" on the bottom, and I was on snowshoes which are much slower than skis.  However, I don't think I could have kept up even if I had been on a snowmobile.

After hiking and climbing up a steep trail for about 40 minutes I catch up to a waiting Ryan and Con.  Ryan says that this is the part where it gets steep.  I manage a smile and say OK.  Again Con and Ryan are almost immediately out of sight.  After struggling, swearing, and fighting my way up the better part of this mountain I meet up with Ryan and Con near the top.  I am running out of time and need to head back to the cars as I had to drive home to Flagstaff that afternoon.  Ryan and Con want to continue to the mountain top, but I just don't have time to go that far.  They say that I can drop into the chute we are going to ski from this location and that they will give me a "spot" until I am in the clear.  I drop into this chute and promptly crash.  Con and Ryan laugh as I pick myself up.  I get up ski to the other side of this chute and crash again.  Con and Ryan are now howling with laughter.  I get up again and repeat the process of skiing across the chute and crashing.  This time I don't hear any laughter.  Instead Ryan and Con ski up next to me and say that they are coming down with me.

To spare everyone the details, I basically fell my way back to Ophir.  At one point I buried the tips of my skis so deep I did a front flip.  It was pretty humbling.  This led me to realize that hiking one or two laps per week at home was not going to get me the kind of skiing experience I was going to need to be able to ski with these guys.  So, I broke down and rode the lift at my local resort.

I met a good friend, Matt Shaw, at the Arizona Snowbowl and he agreed to give me some tips to help my skiing.  After just one or two runs with Matt's help I was skiing better than I ever have.  We met up with another good friend, Mike, and proceeded to have a great afternoon. 

On the last run of the day I was trying to pick up a fallen skiers ski when I caught an edge and felt a pop in my right knee.  An MRI two days later would confirm that I had torn my ACL, and it would need to be surgically reconstructed.  I was facing a painful surgery and 6 months to a year of rehab.  Not cool.

I had surgery on April 12th.  It wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be.  It took less than an hour for the doctor to clean up my knee, drill the channel for the new graph, and put the thing in.  My physical therapist had me pedalling a bike 10 days post op.  I was doing leg press after three weeks.  The rehab was almost fun.  I was allowed to run again after 16 weeks. 

At this point, eight months post op, my knee feels pretty darn good.  The PT said to plan on being 90% after one year and 100% after two.  That seems pretty good to me.  I won't be skiing this season, not because of my knee but because of my shoulder.  That however is for another post.