Not A Washout

Summary of IM session with Julie:
J: What ya doin' this weekend?
Me: Nada. S is surfing is CA, I'm off to Seattle Sunday.
J: Wanna go boarding?
Me: It's supposed to be a torrential downpour all weekend.
J: So what. We're still going. Bring snowshoes just in case.
Me: Game on! I'm in!

So I worked the early shift Friday and headed up to J & W's place in Conway. Unfortunately, they couldn't hit the road until 6pm so I had a 3 hour head start on them. My plan was to get up there, throw my stuff in their chalet and do a bit of outlet shopping in North Conway. After the 3 hour drive, I decided to grab some cheese, crackers and wine and spend the time on their couch with my book instead. It was a good choice - peaceful, quiet and restful.

Later that evening, we checked the forecast and thought, eh, no way we're going to be able to board - too much heavy rain in the forecast. Too much rain even for snowshoeing. Lunch and outlet shopping would be our backup activities.

Saturday morning, I wake up to more quiet. The Ski Chalet has a tin roof and I was expecting to be awakened by loud, drumming rain. Peek through the curtains and it's almost but not quite a blue sky. After a brief discussion and look at the radar, we decide we can get a few good hours in before it starts to rain heavily. Off to Attitash!

And so we had a great 5 hours of boarding. While I'm a more conservative boarder, J likes to push the envelope and talked me into doing every trail at Bear Peak. Double black diamonds and all. On one run through the mogul field, I let J go first. Made it look easy on a board. I head down, got 4 or 5 nice turns in and then rammed the nose of the board into one of the moguls. Flipped head over heels, landed on my feet (and board) only to nail yet another mogul directly in the side. Head over heels again. (Very reminiscent of my boogie boarding thrashing at Big Beach, Maui.) I landed so hard on my head I had to scrape snow out of the vents in my helmet. While sitting there in the snow, cleaning my helmet vents, catching my breath, I watched J down below. Sure enough, she did the same cartwheel. Soon I heard her laughing. Two of us, sitting in the snow, picking snow out of our helmet vents, laughing hard. Totally fun.

By 1:30, the rain started. We were pretty toasted anyway so met the others for lunch at the brew pub. Awesome day - fun boarding with friends and then some good food and beer. Made it all that much harder to leave Saturday evening in order to catch my flight the next day for Seattle. Blech.