So many choices

So I have been doing some shopping. Not the usual mall shopping. I have been looking for new skis. The skis I have now are about 4 years old. I bought them at the wrong time. I bought new skis just as they were coming out with the shaped skis. My skis have a little bit of shape but are still pointed at the top. Shaped skis allow for better maneuverability. That means that less work is required for turning so it takes some pressure off of your knees. Now when you go into a ski shop they only have shaped skis.I have decided that I want a new pair of skis because I have begun to ski faster and want to improve on my form especially my turning.

The hard part is, there are so many brands to choose from. Rossignol, Volkl, Head, K2, and Atomic. Just to name a few. I think I have narrowed it down to K2 or Volkl. Both brands are equally good however Volkl are a bit more expensive. As the ski season moves on I plan to demo a few pairs of skis to see which brand gives me better maneuverability. Hopefully by the end of the season I can make a decision on which brand of ski I want!

Why all the brake lights?

In my life weekends mean skiing. This past Saturday I got up 6:00am on Saturday in order to leave at 7:00 for NH. Everything went as planned. We were on the road by 7am and moving quickly on the highway. By the time we went through the tolls in NH it was about 8:30am which was right on schedule. Then we saw the brake lights. All of a sudden all the traffic came to a complete stop on Route 93. Initially we thought it was a small fender bender because right ahead of us there were two cars that had hit each other. Little did we know there were many accidents ahead of us. So as we sat on RT 93 for 20 minutes everyone began to get irritated because we did not know what was going on. Finally a cop came by and told us there was a thirty car pile up about 2 miles ahead of us and the highway was closed. We couldn't believe it. Since we were just stuck in traffic everyone started to get out of their cars and began to socialize. What else were we supposed to do? Everyone around us was going skiing at WV. After about 45 minutes the fire department from the closest town was walking up and down the rows of cars to check on everyone to make sure no one was hurt. The firefighters did not know any more than we did. They expected us to be in traffic for about 3 hours. Fortunately they were wrong. By about 10:00am traffic began to move. As we creeped along the highway, all we saw were cars off the road. The black ice had caused one van to swerve and hit a tractor trailer which caused the pile up. The cars were demolished. Later on the news I heard one person had died.The total amount of cars involved was about 100.We were so lucky we were not part of the deadly pile up.

Finally by 11:30 we made it to WV. We were excited because there was fresh snow. Once we got on the slopes, we realized that the fresh snow had not been groomed yet and therefore was really heavy and hard to ski through. The conditions were not so great. After about 2.5 hours we called it a day and headed home to RI at about 3:00.

Even though the conditions were not great, we were lucky. We could have been on the side of the road and hurt because of the black ice. This ski trip was certainly exciting, however not the type of excitement we like.

My winter so far

I could not wait for winter. In November when it began to get cold, I was already planning ski trips for December. When Christmas break finally arrived I was all ready to go skiing. Except there was one problem; no snow. Everyday I would check the snow report at Waterville Valley (WV) in Campton, NH. Finally during the third week in December WV had 11 trails open. On December 22nd about four friends and I ventured up to Plymouth, NH to spend the night at my friend Emily's vacation house. The next day we loaded the cars and drove about 30 minutes north to WV. When we arrived we were a bit confused. There were only about 3 trails coated with snow. However since my friend Emily and me have ski passes (which means we pay up front for the ski season) we decided to go anyways. The snow conditions were not bad, where there was snow. However it was really weird to ride a chairlift and look down and see grass. I was not the only one who wanted snow to cover the trails. As you enter the parking lot at WV they had a sign that said "Please, Please,Please Think Snow". That sign sums up the beginning of the 2007 ski season. As the winter progressed so did the snow conditions. When we went skiing on January 3rd there were about 21 trails open and the snow was nicely groomed. 21 trails meant that only about half of the mountain was open because there are usually 45 trails open. By mid January, snow covered the entire mountain and almost all trails were open. At the end of January I had gone skiing about 4 times. Since those trips have already passed and I cannot remember every detail I will write a post after each ski trip so you can know everything that happens on my crazy weekend adventures in NH.