SKiing in the sierra nevada

HI :) !

(I love this pic >.<)

The way up->

Hanging around riskin pictures on the skis lolz

On the mountain

John Bradshaw >.<

Word.

More Mountain Sierra Nevada

Scared... There are clouds (no its not fog... its clouds) and its steep >.<

Takin a ride

See! We really couldn't see more than 10 feet at times!

Yup

The bus ride back. haha we were SO beat >.<

So yesterday, I finally found the time and people to skiing in the Sierra Nevada. It really was a mind blowing experience for me, because it was undoubtedly the most frightening and exhilarating thing I've ever done. 

So, let me begin by saying in my life, I've skied a grand total of 4 times before coming Spain. Twice in vermont (pretty much strictly on the bunny slopes), once in central Kentucky, and once in Lutson, Minnesota with Alyssa (:) :): ) :)) and her sister. Never had a lesson, and learned whatever it was that I knew by watching people speed down beside me. I first tried snowboarding in Lutson, and after falling on my face a whole bunch of time (OUCH!) I decided, you know what- skiing is pretty fun  >.<

I went to the Nevada with my friend John Bradshaw. Now Johns a pretty crazy guy- I've mentioned him before in my blog so you may recall a little bit. He's a cool guy, but at times its a little difficult to not be skeptical when you listen to his stories about things he's done. So when he told me that he was an expert skier who could do 180s and jumps, and even ski backwards, I was inclined to brush it off. For now, I'll just say that I was surprised...

The original plan was to wake up at 6:30, get my shower, and head out at 7 so that I could get to the bus station at 7:30 to buy tickets for the 8 o clock bus. I live half an hour away from the station by line 33 so I gotta plan ahead. At 7:45 I receive a phone call from John, which is when I realize that I just slept through 3!! alarms and just happen to wake up this time for a phone call... didn't make sense. I was up till about 1 the night before accidently though. YES, it was an accident... I was helping another friend figure out Excel and it just got late. Anyways, we decided to wait to catch the 10 o clock bus since we were unsure about the weather and we wouldn't be able to make the 8 o clock anyways. Also- the buses to the mountain only run ever 2 hours. And funny thing is, if I hadn't waken up to his phone call.. probably would've slept through the 10 oclock bus too. >.<

So I arrived at the bus station in Granada at 9:35 to buy tickets for a 10 oclock bus. However, John isn't there, and the line is about 30 minutes long... So i wait around looking for him, just in case he had already bought my ticket, when I found a bunch of girls from my program who were able to send him a text for me. He showed up with about 15 minutes before the bus, and we hopped in line. hahaha, IT WAS CLOSE. we bought our ticket with 30 seconds to spare, and ran down to the bus, getting there just at the conductor was walking on. >.< 

We arrived at the top, and walked towards the bustling town that was the Sierra Nevada ski resort and began our search for rentals. I had two more things I wanted too- ski goggles, and gloves... neither of which I bought haha

Side note: Gloves are a good thing to have while skiing, no doubt. But in the spring, you only need thinner ones, because the weather is generally quite warm. I was sweating a lot. So really, you can ski without. HOWEVER. The times you DO need gloves, are the times that you fall. By GOD wear gloves if you might fall. haha cause that snow, no matter how warm it is outside, is still frigan COLD.

Ok, continuing. We found a nice shop that was able to get us TOP end equipment, for single digit bills. 2E for like 450 Euro boots to rent, and 8E for like super nice skis. AND I even went low end on the rentals. John went High and only paid like 12E for the skis. We organized our stuff, bought some sunblock because we had forgotten ours and headed out. It was a good thing though, because my block was weak as hell, and that sun was STRONG!!!! I think I got a tan with 50+...and I've heard that some people have had to go to the hospital for sunburns up there.

Well, we took the Gondola up the mountain from the resort/shop section of the mountain to the first main lodge and looked around. It wasn't really that busy since it was the off season, and the mountain had about 1 or 2 weekends left to be open. Though the entire mountain was still open :) :) We took our first lift up and started skiing!

We went down a ton of slopes, from the equivalent to green slopes, to Double black diamond slopes. Bumpy, steep, and choppy as hell oh MY god. But man, if you are learning on those, you learn quick haha 

The one thing that saved me I think is the fact that John was with me and was giving me EXCELLENT tips. As it turns out, this guy really IS an expert skier. He was skiing with such ease and suave, and he was doing jumps,  flipping around skiing backwards, doing 180s off of snow ridges. Its pretty nuts. The only sad part was that it was wetter spring snow, and so its not as easy to do tricks. I got one of his jumps on film, but its not as good as some of the other stuff he was doing. Oh well. I wish I had gotten him skiing past me going backwards on film, because that was pretty impressive haha.

The Snow on the Nevadas was a lot different than what I'm used to. Its higher up then I've been, and its spring, so I almost had to relearn how to turn. Needless to say, I fell several times >.<>.<>

So anyways, we skied our asses off, and finally at about 3:30 decided we were VERY tired. My thighs were burning so hard. But it was a good feeling. :) By the end of the day, I was staying up a lot, could turn well on the soft snow, and had the turns down pretty good too. And the really steep points didn't really scare me either... unlike when I first got up. MAN, I was shaking! Because it was the first time I went where I didn't spend at least an hour or so getting used to how to ski again down the bunny slopes. I just went up and did it. haha So hopefully, this next winter, I'll be able to come out to Minnesota again with Alyssa, and go skiing down some of the intense slopes there in Lutson :) That was so fun last winter :)

Well, after we returned our rental equipment, we decided to try and make the 4 o clock bus. So we ran over to the bus stop, and right as we got there, the conductor, again, was just getting onto the bus- we JUST barely made it haha. 

We got home a while later, I went hope, and watched a movie which ended at around 8 (Alien versus Predator Requiem - RETARTED. DON'T see it.) and fell asleep until 9 this morning when I started writting. I was very tired. I woke up twice during the night though, which sucked, because I was having very crappy dreams. One was I had to deal with some asshole that was giving my Alyssa problems and for some reason MOM, you were trying to be nice to him, got me pretty mad, and I think I ended up beating the crap out of him because he wouldn't go away... and the other was this story I was being told about in a cave somewhere, where a mine train...like a real train in a mine.... blew up and killed all the deamons, or goblins... or veitamese.. I have no Idea. Anyways, they both sucked. And it made sleeping difficult. But yeah. Thats my story >.<

It was a pretty frigan epic day, and I'm TRYING to upload pics right now, but its been 30 minutes, and they still haven't loaded cause the internet is so slow, so I'll get some pics later when I'm at the school again. :)

I'll post you all soon! And I"l get some pics from Barcelona too. I was busy last week >.<>

Paul G