| Monday, March 4, 2002 |
11:02 - Okay-- now that my blogging muscles are a little less sore...
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I can say one thing now for sure: I like skiing one helluva lot more than snowboarding.
I'm sure this is largely attributable to the fact that I have a total of one day of starting-from-scratch snowboarding experience, as opposed to some ten years or more of skiing, and because snowboarding is a whole lot more punishing to beginners than skiing is. I can list all kinds of rationale, saying how once you learn all the little tricks and get your balance working properly, snowboarding is so much more liberating and flexible than skiing, and even less tiring, and more convenient (you can walk in the boots), and so on. But try telling that to my leg and neck muscles.
See, when you're sliding down the mountain on your toe edge, and you catch the heel edge on downhill snow, you immediately pitch over backwards, swinging past horizontal until you splatter spread-eagle onto the slope with your head pointed downhill. Now, consider that this all happens within one second-- you've got whatever downward momentum you were carrying, plus whatever gravity can impart to a spherical object the size and shape of your head at the end of a large heavy swinging lever the size and shape of your body. What happens? Well, one thing that leaps easily to my mind at the moment is that your head goes clonk on the rock-hard icy ground, right on the point at the back of the skull. And you know what's even better? Your body naturally tries to resist this falling motion; what muscles are suddenly pressed into service that you've never really thought about before? Those two diagonal muscles on the left and right side of your neck, the ones that bulge out in superheroes' most stressed-out moments. Those muscles pull your head forward. When your head is being flung backwards down a mountain, they pull like they've never pulled before. And while they may on occasion save you from a concussion, you wake up the next morning unable to raise your head from the pillow.
So it was for me Sunday morning. But snowboarding is nothing if not unpredictable in its demands on the body; as much as my neck has been wishing it were attached to some other, more stay-at-home body for the past couple of days, my calves and thighs have been even harder put to the task. Walking is an adventure. Raising my legs onto the bar under my desk is impossible without the aid of my hands. My forearms are going to look like Popeye's in a day or two after they rebuild the muscles that I abused for about half an hour trying to get the ungodly-thick liner back into my gloves as I stood there sweating in the Sierra sun under layer after layer of padded ski clothes, trying desperately to recover my breath from the bizarrely intense exertion of trying to stay upright on a snowboard. But you know what? Whenever my body gets like this, I know it's because I've been out having fun.
After the snowboarding trauma of Saturday, Sunday on skis was like putting on brand-new clean socks for the first time: everything was good, all my cares fell away, and all the aches in my complaining legs vanished. I had my video camera out for the first run down the mountain-- I was prepared to tape Drew and David taking off from the top, and then follow them; but I figured, hey, what the hell-- and took off in pursuit, still taping. I discovered why it is that I enjoy skiing so much: I've reached the point where I don't have to think about it. I can just go as fast as I like down the mountain, and engage in other tasks (like keeping the camera trained on speeding friends) without having to worry about balance or keeping my knees bent properly or being on the proper edge. It's that kind of feeling of freedom that I normally get from skiing (effortless speed and absolute decadent leisure), only amplified by how difficult the previous day had been. The temperature was perfect, the snow was actually not too bad considering the lack of recent precipitation in the Sierras, and my friends were having a great time as well. It's enough to make a guy whoop-n-holler as he swooshes down a steep wooded corridor.
But that isn't to say that it was without its downsides. I was coming down Lower Snowshoe, an intermediate run that usually gives me no problems; but the slope was icy today, and I had left my gloves off (the sun was a little bit punishing still). And, well, I hit an ice patch, my skis washed out from under me, and my hands went into the "snow". Only it wasn't snow so much as the blades of icy knives; no powder here, only merciless freezing numbing pain. When I got down to the bottom of the slope (where David had, mercifully, not been able to get the camera working in time to capture my wipe-out), my hands were glistening a bright, sticky red. But fortunately it was just minor abrasions, and after a few more runs down the trail and some attention to them during lunch, my hands were back in working order, and the afternoon was more of the same joyous freedom of the morning.
So now I'm paying the price. Just last night, I was sitting in my desk chair with my hands clasped behind my head; with my head's weight thus supported, I was relaxed and happy. But as soon as I unclasped my fingers and removed my hands, my head began to fall backward of its own accord. My neck muscles were unable to hold my head upright-- they'd just given up, or gone on strike, or dynamited the factory, or something-- and I had to grab my head again quickly before it simply fell off my body and rolled under my desk.
But that's a small fee outlaid in exchange for my favorite kind of weekend getaway. And pending snow conditions improving within the next month or so, we might just do it again.
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