12/12/09

Day 5

Conditions: 20 inches in the past three days
Location: Boyne Mountain, MI

Opening weekend at Boyne always illuminates one great truth: Boyne cannot do anything in a timely manner. The first weekend of the year always includes the following: a broken change machine near the lockers; empty Kleenex boxes still not refilled from last year; a half-running cafeteria. To top it all off, patrol still has not upgraded their 1979, brown uniforms to the modern, red and black patrol uniforms.

But all of this ineptitude, procrastination and slow motion actually translates into one, blissful truth: the first weekend of Boyne always has the best riding of the year. When we arrived today, two feet of snow blanketed the entire mountain. Were most of the trails groomed? No - only Victor and the bunny hills were groomed ready at 9 am. But the more important question is: Did patrol rope anything off? Of course not! The entire mountain was our playground – a playground filled with luscious powder that the masses are too dumb to try and ride.


Opening weekend was full of snow and snow guns.

We started with the trees under Hemlock chair. The coverage was great. In fact, the snow was better than the snow we had almost a month ago in Colorado. We moved on to Nose Dive, then Meadows, then to all our secret spots off Victor chair: Brad’s run, Fallen Tree, and the Soup Bowl.

We ended up plugging in a solid day of riding: 9am-3pm. Normally, we’re bored at Boyne before noon. It was nice to have that feeling that there were so many runs we wanted to take and just not enough time.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Boyne management – not for exceeding our expectations, but for their total lack of service on the hill. Thank you for not fucking everything up before we had a chance to get in some epic turns!


Dirk coming out of the Soup Bowl after an epic run.

Highlight:

- We never ride the terrain park run, which normally includes many features and a half pipe. Because nothing was set up, we took a run there today. We were rewarded with a great run parallel to the half pipe. I guess with the park rats gone, no one thought to venture in there.

Lowlights:

- We had a great first lap through Fallen Tree run, so we decided to take another run. Dirk let me have dibs, so I hit it hard and waited for him at the bottom. Time accumulated and it was clear something happened to Dirk. Eventually he came out holding his bicep and writhing in pain. Apparently something very hard struck his bicep then inexplicably dematerialized…so he’s really not sure what it was. I was tempted not to believe him, but then we examined the bicep. The bicep in question is now half the size of the other, normal one – it is extremely strange. We’ve tossed around several theories from a rabid animal that jumped from the foliage and bit him to a ghost defending the run from intruders. There is no actual wound, just a seriously deformed arm. My real theory is that his bicep muscle has separated from his joint and is all rolled up in his arm. Dirk’s not willing to accept that idea.

Après Ski:

The Red Mesa, as usual. Then we watched The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon. I would not recommend that movie to anyone.

Days to go: 45