by Albert Neubert
Finally, I got to experience my first run of the season. It came at Windham on Black Friday after management made the call that they could open with a few runs from the summit of their Westside Six detachable chair lift. First, a quick transition. By way of a little background, I had a brutal ski season last year as I was battling a disintegrated left hip so I gutted out the entire season literally on one and a half legs and lots of painkillers. On April 18, I got that hip replaced and I’ve been working out like a fiend ever since.
For obvious reasons I was going into my first outing with lots of trepidation about how my hip and legs in general would hold up. The bad hip affected my knees last season as well but that all went away with the hip replacement surgery. So, with all that as a backdrop, I said to myself, limit your runs and take only one if conditions are tough. They were which is not surprising. I decided to take the Whistler run from the summit to the base and it’s an upper intermediate trail with a couple of decent pitches but add in a quarter width of snowmaking and a mix of hard pack and uneven terrain, and by the time I got to the bottom, I said, “no mas.”
However, my hip and knees passed the test and I am really was looking forward to my next time out. Given how my legs held up I fully expect that I will be a blur on the slopes again once I strap on my long board GS skis when conditions warrant. My first day was meant for slalom skis, precise tight turns and check turns and a little bit of cruising on some of the flatter parts of Whistler. Many thanks to the snowmakers at Windham for laying down enough terrain in a very short window to open up for the season.
While at Windham, I got to spend time with Chip Seamans, their President and General Manager, and we spoke about a number of things. First, the most burning question on my mind, along with many, many other people, was the rebranding of…
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