The Snow Superbowl

Last night while watching the Superbowl, a friend said I'm so sick of this winter. I was speechless. I felt sorry for him because he only go to experience the work part of this snowstorm like shoveling, cancellations, ice. He didn't get to experience the play part of snow. As we skied around Harrisonburg from our front yard, I was happy to see people skiing along. It was mostly everyone I knew though. But I can't help but to wonder why isn't cross country skiing more poplular than it is. I mean so many more people should own skiis. Americans and Harrisonburgers can certainly afford it, but the ski culture isn't here. It hard to for me to fathom. But I'm totally biased because I love it so much. I mean this winter alone should make people want to run out and at least get some super cheapies.

Anyway, Collin's Birthday party started out the weekend with a candy and pizza party. It was fun to see him so happy and all our friends trekking over in the storm via skis, bikes, feet and four wheel drive made the house warm and steamy. Tim got a new mixer and his pizza dough has such a great consistency. A night ski evolved(of course) and this time it was in our local rockgarden!

The superbowl ski was epic. Meeting at Mr. J's as usual and then heading out in the best trucks we had. The snow was deep out to the dam, but since Reddish Knob is a mecca of big trucks and jeeps we weren't the first to have passed. We made excited turns on the dam and then set out to earn our turns climbing up the road to Reddish. We climbed for about 40 minutes and then some trucks and jeeps started coming up. I don't know how it happened , but the next thing I heard was "grab on" . We then had a joyride up the mountain. I haven't laughed this hard in a while. Joyful, childlike laughter. The sketchiness, the snow spray, the defying of gravity was awesome. I fell off one and hopped on another. It was like cold water skiing with ruts. There were some great wrecks making powdered donuts of those that lost their balance. More peals of laughter.

So since we could get up quicker, we could now go further out the ridge to Flag Pole knob where the annual picture taking spot is. Then we went to Meadow and Pond. We came down Pond and darn it was steep and tight. It was pure struggle with not picking up lightning speeds. I was a lightweight ski wimp. But adreneline maximized. Some of the big boys found some awesome tree shoots and big vertical drainages. It was one for the ages.