the final tally.

some of these numbers don't quite add up right but it gets a little confusing because i sometimes skied and snowoarded in one day and in kasmiras case she skied at two mountains in one day but forgive me with a slight plus/minus here are are numbers for the year:

i downhill skied 63 times. i snowboarded 25 times. i x-country skied a mere 4 times. i skied or snowboarded at sunday river 80 times, sugarloaf 3 times, then shawnee, mt. cranmore , black mt. and wildcat once a piece. best i can figure, i skied, rode or x-country skied 87 days this winter. that's up from 52 last season so that's a healthy jump.

kasmira downhill skied 50 times, snowboarded a mere 3 times and cross country skied only once. it was a crappy season for x-country. she skied or rode at sunday river 45 times, sugarloaf 3, shawnee once, mt. cranmore once, black mt. once, titcomb once, spruce once, mt. abrams twice, and wildcat once. so, she skied at nine mountains! pretty impressive. her total is approximately 54, although again i might be off a day or two on that. she was actually off a little from last year when she went 59 times. last years season did start earlier and she also went more in the spring last year.

so, we didn't get a lot of natural snow, but thanks to jon pasternak, sunday river, telstar middle school, community concepts (our wonderful landlords) and the mountain explorer this was one hell of a season. i am really commited to losing some weight and being in much better shape for next season so my body can better endure the long season. on the other hand, if i managed to ski and ride 87 times this season, i must be doing something right...

day 102. skiing. sunday river. 4/15,

this might have been our last day anywhere but it was definitely our last day at sunday river. we were there for first chair. at first it was still most frozen with a few soft spots. it didn't take long for it to start to soften. it was still sunny and beautiful. we just kept hitting the trails over and over as they softened up from cascades over. i preferred jungle road over to sunday punch because the width of the coverage on sunday punch was much better kasmira prefers ecstasy. we were cutting through rocking chair most of the runs to check out our tracks. basically, it was real fun. one of my highlights was one of the times kasmira dragged me down ecstasy. i thought i'd be clever and cut off the main groomer track to the right on what appeared to be snow to the right of a big rock with no snow on it. as i cut to the right and came over the lip i realized the snow stopped abruptly and the rock was much bigger than i thought. at first i thought for sure i was going to ski right onto the rock and stove myself (and my skis) right up. i went into a a hockey stop and then saw about 6" of snow along the right side of the rock right at the side of the trail against the trees. i cut over there and made a sharp left and actually skied that little strip past the rock and back onto the trail. i was stunned that i had reacted so quickly and actually skied my way out of that crisis. it was fun to be out of my comfort zone. i am not a risk taker but being in that situation forced me to be quick, which is not usually my specialty. we got a lot of runs in and skied till a little after 11. if this was the end, it was a great way to end the season. sugarloaf is still going, and we might still make a trip, but i doubt it. if not, i'll be back with the season totals soon.

day 101. skiing. sunday river. 4/14.

another beautiful morning. got there a little earlier today and stayed a little longer. a couple of runs i took were just magical. a great, great morning on the hill. tomorrow i'm gonna let kasmira go to school late and we'll take our last runs of the year. the mountain is open till monday but i have my test friday and we are headed to ct./nyc on saturday. can't wait until tomorrow, though.

day 100. skiing. sunday river. 4/13.

i had been laid off the day before. the mountain was down to just barker. it had been reasonably cool the night before. i hit the mountain at 9:30 and was ecstatic to find that what remained open was actually quite good. i had my tunes on and was feeling it. the snow was just going from firm to soft and was sweet as can be. sunday punch in particular was fantastic all the way down from the jungle road. i left early to study for my computer final and watch the yankees' opening day game on tv. still, i was psyched to know that the season was still going to end on a high note, not that crappy morning i had on saturday.

day 99. skiing. sunday river. 4/10.

parrothead weekend. for some reason they gave me the weekend off and kasmira was off to her aunt angela's bridal shower so i was ready to party. i was hoping to re-create the nice runs i took at jordan the other day so i dragged myself out of bed to get to the mountain early. the difference was that it had been colder last night so the surface was pretty well frozen. it had been warm and rainy before the freeze so the grooming was pretty rough and then for icing on the cake in jordan it had snowed at the tail end of the storm but it was extremely sticky and wind-blown. so, you'd go back and forth between hard and fast and sticky and slow randomly every 10-15 feet. near the top of lolla the left side of the trail had about three inches of powder on it and a ski patrol guy flew threw it making it look easy but i kept getting tangled up in the sticky snow. i really felt like i was going to hurt myself so i took kansas back. that was ok till i got to grand rapids which was one groomer track of slush, mud and pebbles. it sucked. i cut around broadway which wasn't much better and finally when i went throught the jib park i found the first decent snow i skied on all day. it was about 9:15 and i was done for the day. maybe the season. fortunately, parrothead was an absolute blast as it turned out to be sunny and beautiful. the goggle was completely packed at night. it was a real good end of the season celebration.

day 98. snowboarding. sunday river. 4/7.

"checked tickets" at the bottom of two until 11:30. didn't want to ride over to jordan and felt it was too late to drive over so i headed to barker. south ridge had basically one groomer track wide of snow which basically disintegrated into mud as it dropped down to barker. ecstasy was decent but i was planning on taking monday morning which turned out to be closed because they are apparently moving the bust and burn contest over there due to lack of snow everywhere else. so, i headed over to cascades which wasn't bad at the top but had about a two foot path of snow down the edge for considerable lengths down low. it sucked. unless i head back to jordan, or go back to wildcat or sugarloaf, i am done for the year.

day 97. skiing. sunday river. 4/6.

a special morning. i had a dentist appt. in portland at 1 pm so i had time to get out early. i knew the best conditions were in jordan so i headed up spruce and over on sirius. there was no one over there and it was perfect firm groomed slush. beautifully edgeable. i had my tunes going and took some luscious runs down lolla, just tweaking my center of gravity and feeling the flow. the snow was actually surprisingly fast. i wanted to see what the barker area was like so i came back across kansas and down tourist trap (which was nasty bad near the bottom). lazy river was still excellent and i was really feeling it as i came down the part where american express and lazy river merge, but then as i cut into south ridge it quickly became rather tragic. i worked it hard though, and those lolla runs were in fact epic. hope to get back over there earlt for some more runs soon, but my schedule might prevent it.

day 96. snowboarding. sunday river. 4/4.

back to work. i was scheduled to be a spare and was delighted when todd told me i could do top shack breaks. it had been a while and most likely will be the last time of the season. it was gearing up to be another scorcher. i started down paradigm from the chondola to get to aurora. there were some barespots, but all in all it was really good. after aurora i cut over to jordan, concentrating on balancing my turns more after my realization from yesterday. a very nice run. then i had to take kansas back from jordan and was delighted to make it all the way across without having to step out of my board. conditons were good all the way to grand rapids but when itried to cut back on the lazt river to south ridge it was just a muddy disaster. i actually had to cut back over towards the spruce chair and down tourist trap (which really wasn't much better) to get to barker. exhausted, i took a brief break. after barker i took ecstacy and cascades to #9. then down tempest which had some decent parts and some more mud than snow spots down to lift 11. assumption over to #11 was pretty good and it featured some easy bumps which i did pretty well on. after #10 (the view was incredible today), it was down obsession, which had some massive rocky bare spots at the top, over to heats off, to cascades and over easy to the race course. the right side of the race course was practically untouched and really amazing. finally, down easy street and across south ridge and in. i've been kind of in a funk about the hot weather and the slushy snow, but today kind of got me psyched up again. you just have to get the hell away from south ridge, which is hard for me to do on a lunch break.

day 95. snowboarding. skiing. wildcat. 4/3.

the unseasonable heat continued. i took the day off so kasmira could do the slush cup. i wasn't going to kick down for passes but was hoping we could stumble on to some. signed her up for the slush cup. she did the zip line which essentially involves flying over the base lodge area. i managed to get one free pass and we snuck kasmira past the liftie so we could take one run and some pictures. the view of mount washington under the clear blue skies was amazing. the snow was nowhere near as mushy as what i had ridden at sunday river the other day. as we were coming down i kind of picked up on a flaw in my snowboarding. i have become way too heel turn dominant and it makes it hard for me to make balanced turns. i think i do it because i am braking too much and using my power legs on my heel turn to do it. kasmira of course looked great and made it look easy. then it was time for the slush cup. kasmira went about fourth, i think she was the second skier. she thought she couldn't use poles because they didn't let her at saddleback the last time she did it. she made it about three quarters of the way across and sank without falling. it wasn't that deep, though. it turned out all the other skiers were using their poles to push for speed and i have no doubt that had she used hers, she would have made it. boots soaked, we were done for the day. we had two gift certificates to the muddy moose in north conway from our snow sculptures at shawnee peak so we went and used them. it was like summer in north conway.

day 94. snowboarding. sunday river. 4/1.

it rained steadily for three days. april fools day someone turned on the heat. by the time i got out on my lunch break, the conditions were just crap. mushy, cut up and gross. there might have been good snow somewhere on the mountain, but i didn't have time to find it. one and done. it also left me fairly pessimistic about the rest of the season.