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We had a big Easter week snow-dump this year. I went to Stinchfield the day after Easter and brought my little digicam and took some video of a couple of the best downhills there. By the time I got my video skills warmed up the snow was also so warm that the hills had slowed down, but they were still fun. So here’s a vid clip showing the Hardwoods and the Rollercoaster downhills…with soundtrack by Daisy May…
So, we had a decent snowfall in mid-Michigan this season but even so I’m not all skied out.
The Easter snow dump we got a week after everything else melted was most welcome. My first day out on it the day before Easter was great good fun—I went to Stinchfield, the hilliest local area (near Pinckney). Dozens of other skiers were out, too. Sunny, wonderful. I skied up all the biggest, longest hills repeatedly. I had one good climb and several semi-lame ones.
I was also having a blast on the downhills.
On my best romp up a steep hill my skis gripped at the steepest angle they ever have—it was weird but I just went with it—it felt like crampons. I just dropped the angle really low, hunched and flew up.
On a couple other sunny climbs I felt my grip going then I thought, Hmm, who needs grip? I got a neat, flowing arm action going with a relaxed semi-doubletime tempo, using legs only for backup. But on one 3-stage half-mile long climb (from medium to steep 3 times as it winds up thru hardwoods) I had to stop to catch my breath (after doing it 3 times). I didn’t know what was going wrong but just lived with it. It still went OK. I was just blasting and trying to use it all up. I stopped for bacon and cheese snacks a couple times and felt no fatigue in over 2 hours of max hammering. (I’m finding that gels and powerbars aren’t enough lately.)
On one of the last uphills, a guy was off to the side, lightly attired, doing tele-turns on a fairly long slope thru the trees. I think they call that hillside Tele West. (Is that it?) Lower Michigan isn’t so bad, is it.
On Easter Day I did a relaxed little outing close to home. But the day after—the very last day of our snow—I went back out to Stinchfield and just clobbered those uphills. I finally figured out the 3-stager and nailed it perfectly once and almost-so a few other times—4 good hammers up that hill. –That’s when I brought my minicam.
It was an old lesson I that finally came back to me from other years there. I hadn’t skied Stinch this year yet and had forgotten it. You have to just relax and flow into that uphill. If you do, you can get good glide up the whole thing and also not go under. It’s the best feeling to do that hill right. So I did. I finally think I have just about my max good-feel for skiing right now this year. Peaking! …With nowhere to go. Ha!
(Maybe I can get up north for a good spring outing still… Shinglemill Pathway! THAT’S THE TICKET!)
Tele West at Stinchfield
JP at the Grand Canyon of Stinchfield—you can see a half mile thru the hardwoods, up down and all around
