Skiing!!

I felt like switching things up today, so I skied instead of snowboarded! It was a lot of fun. Andrew drove up with Tim and I and at the mountain, we met up with my coworker Jon and his roommate Eric. Andrew has skied for a long time, and is really good. Jon skied a lot when he was younger, and he was skiing today. Eric had skied seven times. For the morning, Andrew and Tim switched skis and snowboards, and I rented skis for the day. We taught Andrew how to snowboard and Tim and I relearned how to ski. Before I went up any lifts, Andrew, Jon and I walked up the hill a little bit so that I could practice on a small slope and make sure I didn't need more practice before going up a lift. I snowplowed down, and got a few turns in, and felt fine for going up an easy lift. We spent a few hours going on some easy runs. After a while, Tim and Andrew switched back to their own skis/snowboard, and I skied with Jon and Eric on the backside while Tim and Andrew went to the wall. Jon was really nice about giving me tips throughout the day on how to improve. I didn't really like the whole snowplow/pizza stop deal, so he ended up just showing me the real way to stop. He taught me the way skiers learn to turn, and then once I had gotten decent at it he told me to just work on keeping my skis parallel rather than angled. It was pretty easy to pick up skiing after snowboarding for so many years since a lot of the principals are the same. The only real difference is that on a snowboard you pay attention to your weight dispersion across the board, while with skis you pay more attention to which ski has the brunt of your weight. When you are turning one of your skis takes almost all of your weight. You almost have to be weightless on one ski in order for it to follow through on the turn so that your skis are parallel. Once I figured that out, it was all about practicing until I could make some pretty smooth turns and handle some pretty steep slopes. I had a lot of fun!! I get bored really easily, so I think I'm going to buy skis, and just ski or snowboard whenever I want based on my mood that day. I don't think I enjoy snowboarding every single weekend, nor would I enjoy skiing every single weekend, but if I have both options available and just do whatever strikes me that day, I'll be happy.