a long day on snow. kasmira had the first race of the states at spruce mt., a tiny little hill in livermore falls. they had the slalom portion of the states there and what they call the freestyle (skating allowed) portion of the cross country skiing. kasmira got decent times in both of her runs but unfortunately there was a lot of confusion regarding a gate near the finish line and a lot of skiers went on the wrong side of it. some noticed, stopped and went back up and others were disqualified. what it was is that there is a two gate set-up for each gate and around two sets of tight turns they set up the two gates vertically instead of horizontally so at the last one a lot of racers thought the guide gate was the gate itself. kasmira was racer #30 and had i had any way of getting up there to warn her i would have but sure enough she went on the wrong side of the gate. a major bummer to have gotten disqualified in one of the two state races over something like that. they kind of fixed the gate for the second run but of course every one learned their lesson. unfortunately it was too late for many.
after the downhill it was the cross country ski races and kasmira and i put on our cross country skis and skied around the edge of the course with the other cross country skiers who were rooting their teams on. it was very exciting with a lot of team spirit. it was also finally kasmira's first time on cross country skis this year because it has been such a bad snow year and we have both been so downhill oriented.
on our way home we hit another mountain black mt. in rumford where they had free skiing and tubing that night. kasmira was skiing and i was riding. black has a very nice lodge and it was bigger than i expected with a nice long wide trail right down the middle. unfortunately, we quickly learned that that gave license to a lot of yahoos to bomb completely out of control down the mountain over and over again. it was really kind of scary. i don't know whether it was because of the free skiing or whether this is some kind of a rumford tradition. i mean really. mix in a turn now and then. they are all way back on their skis and boards, many skiers with no poles and pretty much completely out of control. the trail flattens out at the bottom so as long as they don't fall (or crash into anyone) they can get away with not being able to stop. we took a break and kasmira went over and went tubing. a nice tubing park but kasmira had a lot of trouble with people cutting and the workers not doing anything about it. we went back to sking and riding and i was getting tired but kasmira wanted to keep going. at sunday river i wouldn't think twice but here it made me nervous. sure enough, on my last run some idiot going a million miles an hour in a straight line cut straight through my heel turn right in my blind spot. no one else around and she skis within foot of me on a wide open trail at a high rate of speed. i had no idea it was a young girl until i caught up with her but i had some harsh words for her at the bottom. skier's responsibility code: always ski in control and avoid and yield to skiers downhill of you. or not. i felt this was really also a ski patrol issue because i really believe it is the responsibility of ski patrol to police the mountain and make sure people aren't skiing recklessly. i went in and spoke to a patroller who said he'd have his patrollers check it out but i got the sense that this type of skiing isn't really frowned on at black. its too bad because it is really inconsiderate and dangerous. they might also discover that its actually fun to be able to make turns and get on the edge of your skis and boards once in a while. anyway, it turns out kasmira had actually seen the near collision from the lift and saw me take off like a bat out of hell after the girl and she came in to see what happened. she also said she didn't really feel comfortable out there by herself. its too bad because otherwise it would have been a really nice visit to black. i'll be willing to give them another chance. maybe it was just because it was free skiing night.
anyway, what a long day...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment