We’re killing a few minutes waiting for Felice’s medication to kick in.\u00c2\u00a0 The doctor said her laryngitis was just viral and she came this far to ski, so she should, but to lay low this morning.<\/p>\n
It’s another sunny day in paradise.\u00c2\u00a0 It was supposed to be snowing all day, according to snow-forecast.com, but I guess that shows that science is fallible, at least weather forecasting!<\/p>\n
Yesterday they closed the Roca Jack.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of falling rock.<\/p>\n
The Andes are the mountains you’ve dreamed of.\u00c2\u00a0 They tower in front of you the way a parent towers over a toddler.\u00c2\u00a0 To say they’re imposing would be an understatement.\u00c2\u00a0 And, the sun hits the peaks, they warm up, rocks start to fall, and to save our lives, they close the lifts.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that Felice minded yesterday’s closure, she still hasn’t gotten the hang of the slingshot.\u00c2\u00a0 And on Monday she lost a ski coming down the Roca Jack and it went…well, essentially all the way to the bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to ski down, retrieve it, then ride back up and ski down to her with it.\u00c2\u00a0 Her body wasn’t injured, but her pride was a bit damaged.<\/p>\n
So, with the Roca Jack closed and the sun beating down harder than any previous day we started exploring some newly softened slopes on the lower mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 You see Portillo is completely above treeline.\u00c2\u00a0 You can ski ANYWHERE!\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming the snow isn’t rock solid, which is what the off piste stuff had been on Sunday and Monday.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to ski the aspects, as they say.\u00c2\u00a0 The slopes facing the sun.\u00c2\u00a0 Portillo is two ridges, and in the morning the sun softens up one, and then in the afternoon shifts over to the other.\u00c2\u00a0 And riding the lift, I saw a short shot that was just laying in the rays.\u00c2\u00a0 I implored Felice to go for it.\u00c2\u00a0 And she skied it like a champion, even bridging the gap where the two slopes met without incident.<\/p>\n
So then, I told her we should ski down to the lake…<\/p>\n
Yes, there’s a giant lake in front of the hotel, between the two ridges.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only half-frozen right now, you can’t ski across it.\u00c2\u00a0 But the slopes come right down to it.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to traverse just before you hit the ice, avoiding a plunge to almost certain death.<\/p>\n
Now once you commit, there’s no turning back, there’s no other way out.\u00c2\u00a0 And on one hand I’m worried about testing Felice’s limits, but on the other I know she can do it.\u00c2\u00a0 So, she agrees to make the short climb to the ridge, to the pristine corn snow.\u00c2\u00a0 But before we push off I tell her two things.\u00c2\u00a0 DON’T ski below me.\u00c2\u00a0 And DON’T fall.<\/p>\n
I debated telling her the second, fearful of freaking her out.\u00c2\u00a0 But I didn’t want to have to say I TOLD HER SO at her funeral.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, as we skied straight towards the rocks, Felice was anxious.\u00c2\u00a0 For thinking of her adventure on the Roca Jack the day before, she could see in her mind’s eye losing a ski.\u00c2\u00a0 And being FUCKED!<\/p>\n
And when we got to the rocks, Felice was paralyzed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because from there down…well, you could see nothing but the lake.\u00c2\u00a0 The slope fell off so steeply you couldn’t see the middle.<\/p>\n
Now’s when you’ve got to talk them into it. You’ve got to be light, and breezy.\u00c2\u00a0 But to tell you the truth, I was a little caught off guard.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t realize from the lift that it was QUITE this steep!<\/p>\n
I pushed a few feet forward, over the precipice.\u00c2\u00a0 From this point, you could see the slope.\u00c2\u00a0 I told Felice to make two turns and come down.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve got butterflies.\u00c2\u00a0 Once false move…<\/p>\n
And being able to see the slope didn’t help Felice much.\u00c2\u00a0 She couldn’t believe it was this steep, and that at the end she had to abruptly turn and traverse out for more than a quarter mile.<\/p>\n
I waited below.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching every linked turn.<\/p>\n
And then I led the traverse, fearing that Felice would be frozen and unable to move if we stopped for too long.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, after rounding the curve signaling the end of danger, I waited, and she never appeared\u00c2\u00a0 My heart sank.\u00c2\u00a0 But then she showed up.<\/p>\n
She told me she almost cried.<\/p>\n
But I told her she’d skied it perfectly.<\/p>\n
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We’re killing a few minutes waiting for Felice’s medication to kick in.\u00c2\u00a0 The doctor said her laryngitis was just viral and she came this far to ski, so she should, but to lay low this morning. It’s another sunny day in paradise.\u00c2\u00a0 It was supposed to be snowing all day, according to snow-forecast.com, but I […]<\/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-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-8f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","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=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}