Skis, Steamboat, and Hammer Schlagen

A big theme of this blog has been "I love Denver" and while that is true, sometimes it gets a bit frustrating to always be the new kid.

This weekend I went to Steamboat with one of my closest friends here, Morgan. We threw all of our skis and boots and snowshoes into the back of her truck and got the heck out of town Friday night. Currently, I still rent skis for the season and came to fully comprehend this weekend how little I know about skis. And skiing, for that matter.

Now I'm not new to skiing. I've skied since I was five, minus that decade-long break during high school and college. The conversations people were having about snow conditions, equipment, and the myriad of ski pass choices were mostly beyond what I could understand, but slowly I'm picking up the language and then quietly asking Morgan what the heck people are talking about.

For instance "flat light" is the formal term for what I called "holy crap, I can't see the topography of the snow and I might die." What they call powder skiing (for which there is a different set of skis), is skiing in usually about 1 -2 feet of fresh snow, but sometimes up to 4 feet. Unheard of on the east coast, I thought powder skiing was great at 4 inches.

One of the guys we stayed with took a look at my skis and said they had "a sick cut." I have no idea what this means and have a sneaking suspicion he may have been making fun of me. When people say things like that, I pretty much just nod and don't really respond and hope they don't think I'm being rude.

But although on any given day I have no idea what I'm doing, I've gotten pretty good at accepting that I'm new and asking for tips, pointers, or explanations whenever I can. One of the guys we skied with used to race in college, so I gladly asked him for help on ski form. I quickly realized that the last time I had a ski lesson was to learn how to go from "pie" to parallel and I had no idea what my form should be. You may shocked, but turns out I was skiing all wrong. A few tweaks later (actually use your poles. Keep your shoulders facing downhill) and it was amazing how much more in control I felt. My friends ski pretty fast and up until that point, I had felt like I was on the verge of a wipeout at any given moment.

The conditions on the mountain were actually pretty poor. Its still early in the season and there were rocks and ice all over the place. After a few runs, we decided to head down to T Bar, the local hangout at the bottom of the mountain. It was here I learned the best drinking game ever. Hammer Schlagen. Those crazy Germans decided that beer, hammers, and nails all belonged together really well and invented a game of skill/dumb luck.

I recognize this picture is blurry, but the objective is to hit the nail with the back of the hammer. You go around in a circle and the last one to get theirs in has to buy the next pitcher. It provides hours of endless entertainment and was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, until we ran out of nails.

Weekends like this always leave me wondering "how can I convince Berger to let me move to a mountain town and work from home" but I'm also happy to be back in Denver (more importantly, sleeping in my own bed) where the temperature will be topping out at balmy 10 degrees today. How kind of Denver to prep me for my week in Alaska!