Catamount

I've just gotten back from skiing at Catamount in the Catskills. Today was a really warm day for skiing. The sun was out, the air was calm, and it was so warm, that we barely needed to wear a jacket even. Unfortunately, this didn't equate to ideal snow conditions. The slopes were really icy. The Boy and his friend both brought their own snowboards, and I rented skis again. I might decide to buy my own skis for next season. The skis I rented at Catamount were the crappiest skis I've ever used. The blades were so cheap and dull that they wouldn't catch anything.

Although the Boy and his friend weren't too fond of the slopes here, I really liked them. It's true that there weren't a whole lot of options, and we skied/snowboarded down the same slopes over and over, but I thought they were fun slopes. We went down intermediate slopes the entire time. What I like about these slopes is that they are generally wide and don't have huge stretches of straight down drops. There's a lot of twisting and turning, and some short drops followed by flatter (sometimes bumpy) trails. I thought it was easier to control myself and my speed with these kinds of trails. Also, when I did gain a lot of speed, I was more comfortable with it, knowing that the drop would soon level off. This allowed me to try to develop/improve on my skiing techniques, rather than use my usual snow-plow stance the entire way down for fear of gaining too much speed, leading to a complete and utter loss of control. One of these days, I'd like to make a graceful, controlled descent down the mountain with my skis constantly parallell to eachother, rather than look like a scared, clumsy little girl whose skis are constantly running into eachother.