after an extremely restful sleep thursday night, we were awakened by the wafts of something delicious coming from the kitchen. steve had whipped up a good ‘ole american breakfast for the crew, complete with eggs, bagels, fruit, and, of course, bacon. what a delightful surprise! i couldn’t think of a better way to start the day before hitting the slopes. oh, wait. yes, i could. setting the theme song for the day! while we were enjoying breakfast, for whatever reason people couldn’t stop singing “africa” by toto, and just like that, it was the song of the day.
everyone cleared and cleaned their dishes and then piled into the cars to drive over to base. before we could go shredding anywhere, we first needed to pick up our passes. ben led the group right over to the lodge and stuck us in line to wait with everyone else. i felt quite out of place without all my gear on yet but did my best to look the part and act like i knew what i was doing. i knew it wouldn’t be long before we were ready to go, so we patiently waited our turn as we took in the surroundings.
first of all, it amazed me how much energy there already was in the crowd. it was my impression that the typical person coming to big sky knows the skiing and snowboarding ropes pretty well, and these people were ready to get on those lifts and tear up the mountain. the energy was infectious, and i found that i was eager to get into my boots and find my way to the bunny slopes.
it wasn’t long before phillip was strapping my lift pass to my pants and we shuffled aside to get all suited up. i already had on my base layers, pants, and jacket, so the next order of business was the boots. the nice folks at lone mountain sports had given me a quick tutorial the day before on putting on boots, so i slipped off my sneakers and grabbed the left boot. for about a solid 30 seconds, i sat there struggling, unable to bend my ankle at all and get my foot all the way forward. i glanced around to see if anyone else was in a similar predicament. nope, only me. i grunted and tugged and pushed but could not get that thing on. i finally decided i was wise enough to realize i needed help, so i hollered at ben to assist. i was quite grateful when he told me that ski boots can be tricky to get on and that he would be more than willing to help out. with a little more wiggling and pulling, boom! the left boot was on! i felt like a champion already! with some new-found confidence, i tackled getting on the right boot all by myself. it may have taken me a few minutes, but soon enough both boots were on and i was more ready to go than ever!
kelsey v 