First skiing experience

Waking up at 7am in the car, before I open up my eyes I heard the people in the car saying "this is not it, we should be looking for visitors parking". I slowly sit up, rub my eyes and open them up big and wide. I couldn't believe my eyes, outside the car were trees covered with thick white snow, there were some buildings and a few cars parked around that area and everything was covered in snow. It was just like what I've always seen in movies. Never before have I seen real snow (man-made snow house in Genting Highlands doesn't count). Car meter panel shows that the outside temperature was 14F (-10C).

The arrival
We are at Northstar Village, Lake Tahoe for our beginner skiing lesson. Taking off from San Jose at 2.30am, we reached Lake Tahoe at about 7am. Northstar is a skiing resort, providing skiing activities and accommodation during the winter. Driving around the place looking for the visitor parking, I found the road to be nicely cleared of snow by those big and wide snow-removal-tractor. Snow were piled to the side of the road.

Snow everywhere

There were parking spaces provided for visitors at the Village (free) and shuttle buses will then fetch visitors into the Village. Visitors are people who are there just to ski or snowboard but not staying at the resort. The buses are very frequent, we saw a bus drive out of the parking lot just as we were turning into the parking lot. Before we are fully dress up with thicker clothes to withstand the temperature, another bus was here again. As the bus was willing to wait for a while, we quickly pack our stuffs and board the bus, then continue putting on clothes.

I had a turtle neck on the inside, followed by a fleece and then a thick 2 layer jacket, the outer one being waterproof. On the bottom part, I had a jeans and then the waterproof snow bib which I rented the day before. I had a beanie to cover my ears and head plus gloves to cover my fingers. :)

At the village, we look for something to eat while waiting for the ticketing and equipment rental store to open. The store opens at 8am.

The ticketing counter, people are queuing up

At the equipment rental store, we were provided with ski boots, a pair of skis and poles. The staff there were really nice, they help people to put on their ski boots. Ski boots are real heavy, and they are very hard and high up to protect the ankle and are totally difficult to put on. Especially when I have that many layer of clothes on me.

Had my ski boots on, couldn't take a side view picture as I couldn't turn my ankle...and it was too heavy to turn my leg

It was really hard walking around with the ski boots because the ankle were locked. Now only I know how useful my ankles are. To walk, I had to lift the whole leg up and not push up the leg by the ankle. Going up and down the stairs were the most difficult part, in addition to the icy and slippery stairs. It was even more difficult with the skiing poles and the long+extremely-heavy-ski in hand. Ski were given based on height, with my height, I got a 153cm long ski. The shorter the ski is, the easier it is to control. And the longer it is, the faster it'll go.

Ready to ski...behind me are all the skiing poles

There were many people there early too, we had to queue up to take the equipments. I was already sweating by the time I got all the equipments ready. We then had to bring along the pole and ski to the cable car area to go up the hill. It was a small cable car like what we have in Genting.

That was when the whole skiing adventure begins. There were no more pictures taken after that because I was busy learning how to ski, attending the beginner lesson we signed up. The lesson lasted for about 2 and a half hours. After the lesson, we had our own time to ski, up until 4pm when the skiing place will close. In the winter, the sky gets dark by 5pm. Although I had the camera in my jacket pocket all the while, but I was so tired and busy with skiing, I had not taken it out for photos. It is also because of the gloves I was wearing, it makes photo taking extra difficult.

The skiing lesson
First, we learn how to walk with the long ski attached to our ski boots. It was already very tiring at the beginning of the lesson as we need to walk up the slope (with the ski), then ski down (more like slide down), walk up then ski down. We learn how to stop by making an 'A' with the ski, tilting the ski a little will maintain where we are, not sliding here and there. We repeated the up and down process many times, instructor correcting us each time we slide down. We were a group of 10 people, so all of us were under this instructor. There were many other instructor around teaching other groups. Snowboard lesson is also available.

Doggie tag

Half way through our lesson, it started to snow. I was sweating inside despite the low temperature, later on, I removed the fleece I was wearing.

Real skiing begins
After the lesson, I was about to try on a higher and steeper slope. I take the chair lift up the slope. Gathering my courage, I slide down. It goes faster and faster and faster and I was trying to stop but couldn't. Guess I wasn't that good with my stopping yet, and I crashed. It takes a lot of energy to stand back on my feet because it was steep and slippery as the ski keeps sliding here and there, and without the help from the ankle (ankle were lock by the boots). Struggling very hard I manage to get back up, ski again and fell again. It took me for like about half and hour to get down that slope, when it should only be less than 5mins to ski down. I fell more than 5 times, sometimes the ski unlocked from my boots and it was even harder to put the ski back on the boots at such slope. By the time I got down the slope, I was exhausted. Stop for lunch.

I forgot where is this location

Food at the skiing area was very expensive. A meal of small pizza and a soda cost $12.xx and it doesn't taste good at all.

After a rest, I was ready to go again. My legs were hurting already, the part just above the ankle was so painful I couldn't even touch it. But I'm not just about to give up, I go back to the slope where I fell many times and I kept trying. I observed how people ski, they ski in 'S' shape to reduce the speed, they make the curve easily by turning both their ski to the direction they want to go. I tried to follow. I found that my left leg isn't cooperating, it never follow where my right leg turn. Each time I tried to turn, I'll fall. After a few more tries, I can turn left but still not smooth coz of the stupid left leg. I cannot turn right. At one time, I nearly sprain my shoulder as I fall hard on my face. Luckily, I can still move my hands, meaning no broken bones.

It was snowing the whole evening.

All the while I thought this was just a symbol of snow or something to do with cold. Do you know that snow really looks like this? I was so amazed when the snow with this shape landed on my jacket

I skied none stop until my friend call for me, saying we should be going back. It was nearly 4pm when he call out to me.

We then take our skiing equipment together, take the cable car back to the Village, return the equipment and take the shuttle bus back to our car. Everyone was so tired, and we still need to drive back to San Jose.

On our way back, it was still snowing. It was my first time traveling in the snow, kinda scary to see things kept flying towards me.

The after ski effect
Wake up with muscle pain on the neck, shoulder, arm especially tricep. Not much on the leg though.

Disgusting big spot of blister above the ankle, not just one but many, consist of various sizes

Summary
Tired, nevertheless fun and is a good experience. Maybe I'm heading back there again before the winter ends to take more pictures, to make a snowman and to play with the snow. Or maybe to ski again... :)