2011 Ski Season Wrapup

2000 Ski Nautique in Garage

Shhhh! The boat is sleeping!

I guess that means another ski season has come and gone, and, you know what? I'm OK with it. There are things about winter that I absolutely love, among them crisp air, cozy interior living, mulled wine, scented candles, holiday spirit and Christmas music. Falling snow still makes me happy, just as it did when I was a kid- the only difference now is that it affects traffic. However, we have snow tires on one car and A/T tires on the 4X4 so bring it on. Coat everything in a blanket of white. Simplify the landscape. Absorb the little noises made by civilization so that we can hear what we've been missing all summer: that true winter quiet.

I like to think of the holidays in a fairly agnostic sense, as more of a winter celebration than anything else. Christmas is quite a mix of different religious symbols and traditions anyway, so it makes sense to think of it this way. Bring on the huge (real) tree, the tacky decorations, ridiculous light displays, and the egg nog. I love it all. Let's ALL enjoy the season and let's be tolerant of anyone's interperetation of the holiday. I'll truly miss it all once the new year begins.

Cold weather also means more time for other hobbies like guitar, which is a good thing.

2011 was an amazing year for my skiing. Despite injury and re-injury, I made great strides this year. If anything, I put some miles on the 22, 28, and 32-off loops on my slalom rope. The latter two were mainly used during free-skiing but there was quite a bit of that! I'll summarize the year with bullet points:

Injuries:

• Horribly Broken Rib first set of the season in March, at Swiss Ski School. Armpit meets boat wake. Skiing resumes late May.
• Broken rib re-tweaked around the 4th of July, laid me up another few weeks
• X-ray in July confirms rib healing well, skiing resumes

Ski Milestones:

• 22-off completed a handful of times over the summer
• Got 3@-28 at some point
• Beth completed the course at Swiss
• Discovered how great 32-off is for free skiing. Amazing to be able to read the whole side of the boat on every turn!

Equipment:

• Still on 2009 D3 Custom X 67.5" Slalom and 2009 D3 Custom X 43" trick. Love them both dearly
• 2004 Animal front binding on Slalom still solid. D3 wrap on the trick will be replaced with a binding that will allow a more forward position on the ski.
• 2008 ML candy cane switch rope and handle still going strong, I always keep them out of the sun
• Arm-Guard on handle replaced this fall after 3 solid seasons with the original model
• New addition: Full 4/3mm sealed wetsuit. GREATEST thing ever- pretty much has replaced my drysuit, that's how good it is. Highly recommended.
• 2000 Ski Nautique still going strong in our 6th season of ownership. Lived at the lake house full time this summer. I love how punchy this motor is and how fantastic the wake is for trick and slalom. Put about 45 hours on it this year, mostly pulling mile-long free ski runs up and down the lake over and over and over. We love this boat. The boat received a full compounding, polishing, waxing, and re-pinstriping by me this spring. Looks new. Replaced riser gaskets, plugs, FCC filter, impeller, oil pressure sensor as well.
• Deep-sixed one very nice set of polarized Ray-Ban aviators this year. Replaced with my 3rd set of Oakley Gas Cans.

Ski Schools:

• Swiss Ski School in March
• Seth Stisher clinic in August
• Bennett's Ski School in November

Events

• Malibu Open 2011 in Milwaukee

Documentation:

• 2 GoPro HD Hero cameras purchased this summer
• One only lasted about 2 days before I mounted it to the front of the ski with heavy-duty velcro AND a safety tether, and both methods failed to keep the camera on the ski over the wake. Deep sixed
• Second camera now has floating backdoor accessory! I absolutely love this camera and the quality of the video that comes out of it. Truly amazing, highly recommended.
• Wrote 21 blog posts this year and took tons of video
• Relaunched the website on a new platform to mixed reviews. Brought back the forum, and, I am now working on importing our 10,000 old forum posts and user accounts into this website. Should be awesome.

Friends:

I met more local ski buddies than ever this year, which will ensure lots of skiing for next year. If there's anything constant about this sport it's that you need people to do it often. Hoping to be able to easily ski 2 sets during the week, minimum, next year. Should be epic.

Next Year:

Can't wait for next year. Based on progress made this year, along with (hopefully) no injuries and lots of new ski buddies the skiing should be off the chain. Big time. Once I import all of our old forum posts, the site will be just as strong of a resource as it was before, along with having the BEST group of users you could ask for.

Have fun and be safe this winter. Hoping to kick out a few posts this winter so stay tuned!