mike[space] dot net

As you can probably tell from the previous post, I am currently in New York. I'm actually out here for work, heading for a bunch of meetings and the like in Boston next week. But I decided to fly out early so that I could head upstate and squeeze in a cheeky weekend of snowboarding. I got in on Friday, and Ori and I soon hit the road (and a bunch of traffic) as we (and the rest of the city's population) left for the weekend. We were headed to Killington, and it was one hell of a lengthy road trip, taking us something like 6 or 7 hours. I somehow managed to stay awake for most of it, and then found out that we were six people in one apartment, which only had 3 beds (one being a fold out sofa). So I got to torture a whole new set of people with my snoring, sharing a bed with ori.

We hit the mountain early saturday morning, paying the exorbitant lift pass price of 80 dollars and heading up in the gondola. Along with Ori I was riding with Mike (who I've met a few times before on previous trips to Manhatta), his new wife Nori (no idea if I am spelling that right), Vinnie and Brian (a friend of Mike's and a friend of Vinnie's respectively). These guys all ride pretty hard, so I was being pushed from the off, which was great fun. Killington is a fair sized resort, but I am not sure I got a really good idea of the scale as I pretty much sat back and let others do the navigating. I had forgotten how pleased I was with my new board from last year - it really is a kick arse bit of kit. The conditions were not great over the two days, today especially we were hitting some serious patches of ice as the fresh snow got edged out or blown away on the steep bits, and the cold temperatures (below -10 C) kept everything frosty. But the new board held her edge the whole time, I think I maybe wiped out once when I didn't quite get the pressure right, but otherwise I was flying down the hill, and keeping with the others nicely. I dabbled briefly in a park run, but just popped off the top of a couple of jumps, and otherwise contented myself with the air I got just riding straight off.

Saturday night, we got some beers down our necks, and had some fun in rutland at a fairly ropey restaurant. I won't name it as the people there were nice, but the food was pretty shoddy. Vinnie told us all in great detail the difficulties he faced in his love life, and everyone had fun taking the piss out of each other through the evening, before we all pretty much crashed out at 10ish. All in all it was a corking couple of days on the snow, although the cold was a bit much today ... catching the train up to Boston tomorrow (well, later today I guess now), and then it's home again on Friday, where I am looking forward to catching up with Claire, and then taking her, my Mum and Mick to Cirque du Soleil. Fabulous-o ...