day 11. skiing. sunday river. 12/19.

sunday river's 50th anniversary. my first day as top shack break relief. part of me still can't believe its true. jon gave me my list of shacks and told me to head up the chondola and ski over to lift 13, the lateral lift, and take that to the jordan bowl lift. sensation was closed for snowmaking, however, so i had to keep going down dreammaker and back to south ridge. then up south ridge and spruce to catch sirius over to jordan. that was a challenge, too, as where aludra cuts under the aurora lift the cross-over to northern lights and cyclone was closed so you had to hike up a little. i was getting tired already. its amazing that they have skiing on all 8 peaks because only two weeks ago they had 3 trails open but basically most of the peaks have one maybe two trails open on them. grand rapids was closed too so i headed down northern lights and took a trail i had actually never taken before called firestar to the base of jordan. 9:15 and i was at the top of jordan. who wants their break before then anyway? then across kansas back to northern lights to the aurora lift to do that shack. then after that break back down northern lights to the quantum leap chair where i did that top shack. normally, i would do the north peak shack then, too, but its not open yet. so, down to the top of the south ridge express for that break and up spruce again. did that break and i was done for the day. risky business down to outa here back to south ridge, but it took me a while because my legs were really starting to burn. i'll ski myself into shape in no time at this rate. i was done at 1:15. kind of a short "work day" but i will be "working" six days a week (and friday nights at pizza hut). with one more shack to do i'll be done just under the six hour threshold for breaks. jon says some days they'll have me take a break and stay later but for the most part it sounds like i'll be getting a 34-36 hour "work week" over six days. also, i can obviously free ski from 2-4 on weekdays. i'm a pretty lucky guy.