No Expectations on the Mountain

When my friends came back from opening day at Mt. Bohemia, they said it wasn’t that great. Coverage was lacking, and some rocks were exposed. Bless their hearts. I didn’t feel so bad.

But Saturday was my turn to go and check it out for myself. I was even a little leery because of what I’d heard from the day before, and it didn’t really snow overnight. I expected my first day back on the board to be brutal. I was hoping we would only have to stay for a few runs. The back side of the hill was going to open that day, though, so that would make it worth it. Aaron and I rode up on the first chair of the morning.

That first run was rough. The snow was hard and too fast for how steep the run was. I ended up on my butt at least six times before reaching the lift again. If you are not familiar, the runs at Bohemia are all labeled black and double black diamonds (difficult and very difficult), except for one blue square (moderate). I decided to go for the blue square run, though I usually never choose it during the season.

That was just what I needed. Not too steep and not too skied out yet. I built up some confidence and was ready for another run. I had been hoping to ride the back side of the hill all morning, but that wasn’t going to open till 1:00 pm. Since we got there at 9:30, I had a lot of time to kill without killing myself before the fresh snow was available.

And do you know what? I had a blast! I found some decent snow on some of my favorite spots. Sure some rocks would scrape under my board and I’d have to dodge branches sticking out, but by gum, the first-day-fever had a hold of me, and I was tearing it up. And the bonus was that it snowed all day, so ruts continually filled in.

I already had taken 13 runs before they opened the back side, but once I saw those ropes pulled apart, it was like a new day. I took my first run on my favorite path (which, unexpectedly, lots of others liked too) and hooted and hollered the whole way. I even had some fresh tracks down the Baby Bear run. Fresh powder runs are a snowboarder’s dream come true. I took that trail again.

But after half a cookie and no water during 5 hours of riding, I tired rather quickly. I was beat. I was done. Luckily, so was Aaron, and on the way home, we talked about how much fun we had on a day that we thought would be so horrible that we would want to leave early. Guess I can’t have any expectations on the mountain.