AT Skiing during snowier times

Hi all:

Yesterday I hit the Sunday River slopes for a day of uphill skiing. And when I say a day, I mean one run. Sunday River, although a fun mountain that holds a ton of wonderful memories for me (it’s where I learned to ski when there was a 2-person chairlift at Barker and  a t-bar at Southridge), it’s not an ideal skinning mountain. But with the lack of natural snow, we had to find trails with the human-made stuff. Other mountains like Mount Abram (Greenwood), Black Mountain (Rumford), and Saddleback (Rangeley) offer uphill skiers dedicated uphill skin tracks through lovely woods. The Sunday River routes follow the regular ski trails so it’s a bit less pleasant skinning up with speed demons bombing down.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and it felt like spring skiing with the warm temps and intense sunshine. My skinning partner and I started at the base of Barker and headed up Lazy River, which is the trail offered to AT skiers. At one point we ran out of snow so shifted left to another trail. This trail was steep and steep makes me nervous. Not only was I contending with a change in the vertical, but the pitch was icy, covered only by a very thin layer of snow. This is when uphill skiing becomes a full body workout. I stomped my skis, planted my poles and a few times, pushed my body up the mountain using the strength of my arms, not completely certain that my skins would stick. In truth, I was scared.

Looking back, I’m not totally sure what I was afraid of – falling backward, sliding down the mountain, I suppose. Much comes into play here, right? I didn’t want to fail, I was more than a bit outside my comfort zone, and it felt like all those downhill skiers were watching these two crazy uphill skiers; I was on display and didn’t want to screw it up (in truth, I’m sure none of those skiers cared, saw me, or gave a second thought to the two people walking up the hill). Both physical and mental hurdles are tough to surmount and in that moment, I had control over conquering both, but leaning in was a choice I had to actively make. So instead of turning back and giving up (I was tempted), I decided to shift my mind, rein in the fear as best I could, and step strongly and confidently one ski at a time. Ultimately, I made it over that pitch and up to the summit. You know that feeling of achievement, of conquering fear? It feels really, really fabulous. And that’s exactly what I felt.

Happy adventuring,

Uphill