Sugarbush! Back After 16 Years

Not one to save up my vacation time, I opted to use two days to head up to Vermont to go snowboarding at Sugarbush with 13 teammates. Suzanne had the hookup on a resort condo so we packed up our gear and drove 8 hours for some wintery goodness.

For the first day, I opted for a snowboard lesson at the suggestion of others. Sugarbush is a hell of a lot bigger than anything in the Poconos so why struggle with turning when I can have someone teach me and then enjoy myself the rest of the time? I did a "Day Two" lesson and was plopped in Lesha's class where it ended up being just the two of us. A small dump of snow the night before yielded fresh powder so I spent the morning with Lesha and our instructor Will (cute, but married) on the bunny slopes boarding in powder and learning how to turn properly. With a few detailed instructions I was turning in no time - the lesson was a wise investment. We stopped for a mid day beer break and some grub and then headed back out. The mountain was kicking most of our asses and a rash of helmet purchases were made at this time. Justin sustained a mild concussion, but this did not stop him from preparing a fine spaghetti dinner for the womenfolk that night. Ruddy may have had some brain damage as she mistook cold leftover coffee for vinaigrette dressing...and still ate it.

Second day was so much colder (-10 at the top!) and Ruddy and I paired up for the day when we realized we had very similar skill levels. We headed over to the other mountain, Mt. Ellen. We started off on green (beginner) trails and then by the afternoon we were heading down blues (intermediate) although the difficulty added many more falls into the mix. I caught an edge once and bounced so hard off my ass that my hat flew off. I followed Ruddy everywhere, even down a black trail (Organgrinder) where I was wondering why the hell it got so steep all of a sudden. By the end of the day, my knees and ass couldn't take anymore falls so we bid farewell to the slopes and headed back to the condo. As Ruddy and I were returning our equipment, she made a funny discovery - forgetting that she had to return her snowboard boots at the end of the day, Ruddy wore them to the slopes and didn't bring shoes for the trip back to the condo without them. The logical solution was to place her mittens on her feet and run to the bus stop. Yep, pretty ghetto, but it's Philly representin' yo.