I am thankful to Higher Ground, the Sun Valley Adaptive Sports program that helped me fix my outriggers. The person I was supposed to meet did not show up, but after a phone call, the director of operations made sure someone did come by to try and help me. We could not find a stand alone spare spring, but I suggested that we find a broken outrigger and take the spring off that, and that is what we did. Outriggers fixed, yay.

It took me awhile to find the lift area and get my pass, but that happened and I was ready to ski. Finally.

It was a beautiful morning as the sun rose and clouds cleared.

But, WTF, what was wrong with me??! I felt like I could not ski at all! My ski was not holding an edge at times, or hanging on for too long. Was it because I was fat and had been a lazy sod the last 3 days and sitting on my bloody arse? I took a few more runs trying to figure out what was going on. It must have been because I filed my own ski edges the day before and I must have fucked that up. I went to the ski shop in the main lodge to see if they might be able to take a look and do a quick tune. When I brought my ski in and explained what was going on, the ski tech immediately nodded and was like, yep, I see what is going on. I had taken off too much off the base edges, and my side edges were totally trashed (from use and my attempts to fix it as well). He was able to get my ski turned around in 20 minutes so that I did not have to throw away yet another day due to yet another piece of equipment failure.

I took the ski out and breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, it was the ski and not entirely me. Although I was skiing out of sorts today just from sitting in a car all day and eating McDonalds :( I was able to rail on that ski though.

Clouds clearing in the distance

Conditions were dust on very hard crust, so it actually was not that fun skiing. Sun Valley is a good mountain if you want to rail on your downhill and GS turns; I can see why Picabo Street came from here. But the whole vibe and place is not really my scene. It seems like there are a lot of rich douchebags. Not that being rich makes you automatically a douchebag, but I am trying to characterize a particular type of skier. The kind who feels entitled, complains and grumbles about even the most minor of inconveniences. The kind who will knock down skis/snowboards on a rack and not pick them up. I found the town of Ketchum, ID to be extremely dull, and I am generally suspect of ski towns with a Lululemon in them. The highlight of Ketchum will be going to the Pioneer Saloon and eating an Idaho potato that weighs in at over a pound. Seriously.

That being said, I can say in retrospect that despite the shit show on New Years Day and the equipment setbacks with my outriggers and ski, I managed to find a solution and get things back on track. On a big trip like this, stuff is bound to go wrong. I will make use of my second day at Sun Valley that comes with the Mountain Collective pass, and continue on my way to Utah and Wyoming.

I also realize that there are not many people with my physical situation doing what I am doing. That’s probably why Whistler Adaptive was so not helpful for me. A lot of adaptive skiers require more supervision. Whereas I am on this big road trip, managing on my own for the most part, until a key piece of equipment fails and I am a long way from home to get the part fixed/mailed to me. Adaptive programs also tend not to be located in the places I enjoy skiing the most.