Night Skiing Deserves a Quiet Night

Did you know that North Carolina has skiing? Did you know that North Carolina has skiing in late March? Well, I think I'd heard about the first one, but skiing has sort of skipped my mind my mind since I got here. I like to ski enough, but I also like to take a disparaging view of East Coast "mountains." In any case, Austin presented the fine idea of going night-skiing last Saturday, in what I have to only imagine was quite possibly the last ski weekend of the season, and so we headed off to Sugar Mountain.

True to its name, the snow felt like sugar -- you know the kind that you get when it's been sitting out in the humidity for too long? And to get it out of the container you have to start chipping at it with a butter knife or something? Yeah, that kind. Staying on top of my skis as I blithely flew down the mountain at top speeds anyway was thus a bit of a challenge. I also went out of my way to hit any little jumps I could find and get as much air as possible, and I'm proud to say that this resulted in at least four wipeouts, with skis and poles flying every which way. I told Austin that if you don't wipe out at least once, you're just not trying hard enough.