Felice hadn’t skied in ten years.\u00c2\u00a0 Not since her father died.\u00c2\u00a0 It just wasn’t the same.\u00c2\u00a0 He loved the life.\u00c2\u00a0 Loved to hire an instructor, beat the lines and take a long lunch at Mid-Vail.<\/p>\n
But I told her it was a deal breaker.\u00c2\u00a0 That unlike her exes I wouldn’t push her, I wouldn’t yell at her, we’d have fun.<\/p>\n
And the season began in Aspen, where she rented the new shaped skis and hired an instructor who got her back in the groove.\u00c2\u00a0 She had fun.\u00c2\u00a0 She loved it.<\/p>\n
And in short order, she got better, really good.\u00c2\u00a0 And it didn’t matter if it was a blizzard out, she’d accompany me into the weather.<\/p>\n
It was quite the turnaround, from reluctance to zeal.\u00c2\u00a0 If we didn’t ski for a few weeks, Felice would question me…when were we going again?<\/p>\n
And then she got her own boots.\u00c2\u00a0 Tecnicas.\u00c2\u00a0 A racing model, but with a soft flex.\u00c2\u00a0 And suddenly, her ability and confidence soared.\u00c2\u00a0 We were looking up at Mammoth’s cornice from Chair 12 as the wind blew flakes into the steep natural bowl below and when I expressed a desire to make some turns up in Scotty’s she said yes!<\/p>\n
So, we skied down the backside and after riding the lift up climbed the ridge into some of the gnarliest weather, swirling snow amidst forty mile an hour winds.\u00c2\u00a0 But after hesitating to drop in, Felice linked turns all the way down the bowl, and then wanted to do it AGAIN!<\/p>\n
And I feel responsible.\u00c2\u00a0 What am I going to tell Felice’s mother if she gets injured.\u00c2\u00a0 But Felice exhibits a confidence, and an ability.\u00c2\u00a0 So, after skiing for an hour in the bright sunshine of Portillo, I suggested we take the Roca Jack.<\/p>\n
Oh, I figured we’d wait till day two.\u00c2\u00a0 Or three.\u00c2\u00a0 To ride Portillo’s most legendary lift.\u00c2\u00a0 But the snow was up there beckoning.<\/p>\n
At first Felice said no, then yes.<\/p>\n
Because of avalanche danger, Poma of France had to design a new kind of uphill transportation for this steep slope.\u00c2\u00a0 They named it Va et Vient (French for "come and go").\u00c2\u00a0 And refer to it as a slingshot.<\/p>\n
You stand on a flat.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the person on the far end yanks on a rope and brings down the lift.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is the weirdest contraption.\u00c2\u00a0 A cable with five round discs suspended from poles, that you place between your legs and then let the whole contraption drag you up the slope.<\/p>\n
They call it a slingshot lift for two reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 One five man contraption goes up while another comes down, in a jigback arrangement.\u00c2\u00a0 And, they go LIGHTNING FAST!<\/p>\n
The first time I put Felice on the end.\u00c2\u00a0 Since those on either side disembark first, which is easiest.\u00c2\u00a0 And disembarkation is perilous.\u00c2\u00a0 For the lift stops high up on the slope.\u00c2\u00a0 Not in an area that’s flat, but on the steep hill itself.<\/p>\n
And I’m conversing with the gentleman from Boston next to me as Felice starts to freak.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s losing the disc.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s holding on for dear life.\u00c2\u00a0 I encouraged her to just hang on, we were more than half way there.\u00c2\u00a0 And then it got really steep.\u00c2\u00a0 Far beyond thirty degrees.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you fuck up here, you’re in serious trouble.<\/p>\n
But we made it!\u00c2\u00a0 Felice let go, and slid off.\u00c2\u00a0 TOWARDS THE ROCKS!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh shit, STOP!\u00c2\u00a0 But she did.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I inched her away from the protruding boulders and we surveyed the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Towering craggy edifices.\u00c2\u00a0 One we were hugging the side of.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, we started to swoop down.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not exactly swoop, but I linked turn after turn first in the bumps and then through the death cookies and into the frozen crud.\u00c2\u00a0 I got no bitching about the skiing, but when I suggested we take the Rock Jack again, Felice declined, strongly.\u00c2\u00a0 The Va et Vient had been just too harrowing an experience.<\/p>\n
When we were riding the Juncalillo chairlift…I brought it up again.\u00c2\u00a0 I got a firm no.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided not to push it.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after ascending the La Laguna lift, which deposits one at the bottom of the Rock Jack, Felice stunned me and said she wanted to go up again.<\/p>\n
And there was no one waiting.\u00c2\u00a0 But by time the lift got down to us, two snowboarders had arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are almost no snowboarders in Portillo, but whatever you do, you don’t want to ride the Roca Jack with them.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they tend to go SIDEWAYS!\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody’s arm to arm.\u00c2\u00a0 And if one person fucks up…<\/p>\n
But there were only two of them.\u00c2\u00a0 I let them take the far side, and Felice and I took the near side.\u00c2\u00a0 Me on the end.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured it would be easier for Felice in the middle, since she’d found the end so rough.<\/p>\n
And we’re going up.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s occurring to me that Felice was right, the end IS harder.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m holding on.\u00c2\u00a0 To the very top.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereupon, I let go.\u00c2\u00a0 Planning to slide backwards, turning in the process, and then end up sideways and ultimately skiing out of the way.<\/p>\n
But in the process, in the ADVENT of the process, something strange is happening.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve lost control.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m twisting.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m falling.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m starting to slide down the Roca Jack BACKWARDS!<\/p>\n
And the Roca Jack slope is the kind that you can’t arrest your fall, you might slide all the way to the bottom, at least halfway.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, for every two feet the lift goes forward, it goes up one.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s STEEP!<\/p>\n
And I won’t say it’s quite like seeing a car accident in slow motion.\u00c2\u00a0 I was already in process.\u00c2\u00a0 But…what lay in the future?\u00c2\u00a0 People?\u00c2\u00a0 Rocks?<\/p>\n
And then I realized Felice was sliding right next to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Was she going to be able to stop?\u00c2\u00a0 And then, just like that, I dug in an edge, and so did she, and way high in the Andes we were looking at each other when I suddenly realized what had happened.\u00c2\u00a0 When I let go, as the instructions had stated at the bottom, Felice had TOO!\u00c2\u00a0 She hadn’t ridden in the middle yet.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t know you were supposed to let those on the end off first.\u00c2\u00a0 As my skis had slid backwards, they’d run into hers, I’d lost my edge, that’s what caused my fall.<\/p>\n
And my upper back ain’t feeling that great.\u00c2\u00a0 And I asked Felice WHAT WAS UP?<\/p>\n
She told me she just LET GO!\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t think the lift would stop!<\/p>\n
Hate to tell you, I played the male.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably every other one she’d ever skied with.\u00c2\u00a0 Hadn’t she read the SIGN, saying to wait till those on the end got off first??\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t she hear me ask the person next to me if the lift stopped at the top?<\/p>\n
Getting no response, I turned towards the hill.\u00c2\u00a0 I started going down.\u00c2\u00a0 But, while I waited for Felice at the bottom, I noticed my knee was a bit tweaked.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, THIS is good.\u00c2\u00a0 My very first day in a FREAK ACCIDENT?\u00c2\u00a0 That…WASN’T MY FAULT?<\/p>\n
This is the kind of stuff that doesn’t bring couples together.\u00c2\u00a0 We went back to the room, I put some Traumeel anti-inflammatory gel on my knee.\u00c2\u00a0 We went to the dining room.\u00c2\u00a0 I could barely speak.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt bad for Felice, yet, I felt BAD!<\/p>\n
But I was ruining the day.<\/p>\n
So, eventually, I sucked it up.\u00c2\u00a0 And we went back out.\u00c2\u00a0 To the Plateau side.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the sun shines in the afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 And when we got to the Condor slingshot lift at the top of the El Plateau lift, Felice said no go.\u00c2\u00a0 I told her it was her choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually she rises to the occasion.\u00c2\u00a0 But NO WAY!<\/p>\n
I dropped it.<\/p>\n
We skied some gentle slopes.<\/p>\n
And then, I asked Felice again.\u00c2\u00a0 But she misunderstood me.\u00c2\u00a0 She thought I was referring to the third slingshot lift.\u00c2\u00a0 Las Vizcachas.\u00c2\u00a0 The one that takes you up right under the rocks, the one nobody was riding, because the snow was so junky.\u00c2\u00a0 Cut up and frozen.<\/p>\n
I told Felice that the skiing was easier over by the Condor slingshot.\u00c2\u00a0 Then Felice said, almost like Butch Cassidy, it wasn’t the SKIING she was worried about, but the LIFT!<\/p>\n
She was game.<\/p>\n
We walked over.\u00c2\u00a0 I made her get on the end, so she could get off first, unrestricted.\u00c2\u00a0 And, when the lift stopped high on the slope, just under the rocks, Felice let go and started sliding STRAIGHT BACKWARD!\u00c2\u00a0 Funny the little skills you get from skiing every day that others are clueless to.\u00c2\u00a0 I foresaw disaster.\u00c2\u00a0 But then Felice turned her skis sideways, she stopped.\u00c2\u00a0 Now all we had to do was make our way down.<\/p>\n
I let Felice go first.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after she linked about ten turns and was halfway down the slope I figured I’d better push off.\u00c2\u00a0 And the snow was HORRIBLE!\u00c2\u00a0 An inch of slop on top of slabs of ice, laid over bumps.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t watch Felice anymore, I had to PAY ATTENTION!<\/p>\n
But when I finally reached her, I got no complaints.\u00c2\u00a0 A few comments on the lift, but the skiing?\u00c2\u00a0 NO PROBLEM!<\/p>\n
I’ve told Felice that’s the mark of an expert skier.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone who can make it down in the junkiest snow, the worst conditions possible on the steepest of slopes.<\/p>\n
I told her today, SHE QUALIFIES!<\/p>\n
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Felice hadn’t skied in ten years.\u00c2\u00a0 Not since her father died.\u00c2\u00a0 It just wasn’t the same.\u00c2\u00a0 He loved the life.\u00c2\u00a0 Loved to hire an instructor, beat the lines and take a long lunch at Mid-Vail. But I told her it was a deal breaker.\u00c2\u00a0 That unlike her exes I wouldn’t push her, I wouldn’t yell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-8d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}