I didn’t get much sleep last night and I woke up 3:30am local time raring to go. There is a gym in the hotel that’s not your average hotel gym, it’s a serious gym with every machine possible. I needed to move around and since it opened at 5am, I went down and actually used machines I haven’t used in years. That was a fun vacation thing to do.
Great snow conditions. A real treat to ski on groomed trails.
After breakfast we loaded two buses with all 90 of us and went up the mountain to Sovereign Lake Nordic centre. Our ears started to pop as the altitude changed but it didn’t take me long to acclimatize.
It took a while to get all the guides and skiers organized. But finally the new guides got a 20 minute tutorial on how to guide. After the clinic, I set off with my fast skier to do the five km course. We bumped into another skier who my partner used to race with at the Para-games. Two visually impaired skiers took off and I skied on my own. This is not what I imagined my guiding experience would entail. The whole day I was in awe of how much snow there was. I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere with so much snow. They’ve had almost 300 cm since late October! Evergreens are such amazing trees being able to take the weight of all the snow. Sometimes I would stare so long upwards that I’d loose my balance and almost fall. Also with all the snow, it was blissfully quiet out on the trails.
So much snow!
After lunch I went again with my partner and our friend and did the five km loop again. It was a lot faster in the afternoon. After I finished I could tell my partner wanted another loop and I felt good but I told myself not to go too hard on the first day. Instead, I recruited a fast looking guide and he agreed to take my partner on a fast loop.
I started to get achy after sitting on the bus for 30 minutes. As soon as we got back to the hotel, I went for a gentle swim and sauna which helped my body feel very relaxed. Fun talking to all the Norwegians in the sauna. Though the conversation had to end because I had my limit in there. (They got in before me and stayed on!) The evening ended with trivia night. I’m so tired that I couldn’t stay up long enough to see which team won. I’m too tired to re-read this draft. I apologize for all the mistakes.
Blissfully quiet out here.