The 7-Day Challenge

Yo, hey you. Yeah I'm talkin' to you. How about this. I have a challenge, nay a quest. It begins with yours truly, a year ago this week. As a poor college student, prostituting himself to higher learning for hopes of one day owning a Porsche with a ski rack I was unable to scrape together enough funds to buy that holy grail of ski paraphenalia: the Season Pass (cue angels singing).

The flakes began to fly and I found myself at opening day at A-basin sans lift ticket. If you've ever been to the Basin on opening weekend, you know that the pass is really just a ticket to stand in line for one or two hours between 700' runs with a bunch of drunk Front Rangers, so I gave it the big F-U and decided to walk it. I strapped my skins to the lightest set up I had, a pair of 175 Cabrawler Pro Model bump skis, BCA Alpine Trekkers, and my trusty when not agonizing to walk in Salomon boots and started trekking up the main and only run open.

I passed all the first day traffic, skinned up through the jib park they had set up to the cheers of those hiking to save the lift line and up to the top of the lift. I repeated the shot 7 times, which was the same number of runs my lift-riding buddies got in by the end of the day. I continued this commute for the next 6 days until some 3 of the hottest girls I know bought me a pass for my birthday and saved me from having to walk the rest of the season.

I mention this because those 7 days were probably the best first 7 days of a season I've had so far. I met tons of cool folks wondering what the crazy guy was doing, tons of cool folks who know what I was doing and joined me and got some turns how people used to have to get em. This wasn't a rad backcountry trip or the usual "earn your turns" kind of excursion, it was resort skiing in slow-mo.

So here's the challenge. For the first 7 days of your season, walk it. Try to walk it at the resort. It will kickstart your training and you might meet some cool people on the way, not to mention walking and getting the same number of turns as your hitchhikin' buddies is pretty bad ass. If you're at the Basin opening day, keep an eye out for me. I'll be the bump ski-touring guy with the green hat. I hope you'll go for a walk with me. All those who complete the task, let me know I won't send you anything but I'll raise my glass to you sir, for you are a worthy knight of the pow table.

Keep on truckin,

Geoff
www.alpine-sports.com