12/20/08

Day 11

Conditions: Packed powder in the morning; powder in the afternoon
Location: Mount Bohemia, MI

After a surprise snow day on Friday, we were able to start the 10 hour drive up to Bohemia a few hours early. Unfortunately, no one in the Lansing area knows how to drive in the snow, including the snow plows and salt trucks. The drive took us the longest it ever has (11 hours), but at least we arrived at 9:00 p.m. instead of 1:00 a.m.

After a good night’s sleep, we were ready to go. Even though most of the front side was skied off, we found plenty of powder pockets on Powder Keg and Widowmaker.

We ate lunch and adjusted our angles, which made a huge difference later in the day. By the time we got back out, the back side was opening. We had a five star run down Rollercoaster and Goldilocks. There was a wait for the bus, but luckily we were at the front of the line. We took one more bus run, this time waiting through three busses for a total down time of about 20 minutes. We both agreed it was worth it. Bohemia fired up the double, so we were able to ride the back for most of the day. With Lindsey’s help, we discovered a second set of trees in Goldilocks. Later, we discovered the long-lost Papa Bear. Both newly discovered runs were top notch.

Highlights:

- Widowmaker
- Discovering and naming a new run that links many runs together and hits several runs that don’t see many riders. To protect the secrecy of the new run, and to respect the person who told us about it, we will reveal nothing further.

Lowlights:

- We were both riding “Boyne” angles earlier in the day, so we were both having difficulty hop-turning. Once we figured out why we were struggling, we were able to fix it and enjoy the rest of the day.

Après Ski:

We ate a greasy dinner at the Bear Belly, watched a movie, and fell asleep.

Days to go: 39