When Dan climbed out of the Astro an hour or so after sunrise, before he had a chance to open the front door, Cleo pawed across my face to follow him out. I escaped with my eyes intact, but I had paw prints on my face. I forgave her.
We were in no rush to get to the mountain considering our hungover state so we head into town to a place called “Mix” in search of breakfast burritos. The small café had exactly what we were after and sitting at the high top outside in the sun was the icing on the cake. The burritos went down well, as did Dan’s coffee and my smoothie. The sun was slowly warming us up into action.
We left the breakfast table and walked round the corner to the Peace Surplus store to hire skis and board. This was a much cheaper option than hiring on the mountain. As we approached, I realised this is where I’d scored my old ski boots for $20 (which I later had to give away because of van space). A sweet outdoors store with cool people, we were all set with boots and blades without delay. While we were trying on, I got talking to a British guy who had a five year old who was dressed nearly exactly like Dan with the same yellowish pants. Stanley, the five year old, was pretty impressed with himself that he had the same style as this strapping young man. All he was missing was the black beanie. By the time we’d signed our waiver forms, Stanley had found a black beanie and donned it, chuffed that he was now even more like Dan. The boys high fived before we walked out.
One more stop before the mountain, we pulled in at Dark Storm Brewery (where Kev and I had got drunk off very heavy beers), tasted a few and bought three growlers in big cans for sustenance on the mountain. Now fully equipped for the snow, we drove up to the Snowbowl, Dan following me to the carpark right by one of the runs. Kev and I had seen people tail gating here and I was keen for the same set up. Dan put snow in the esky to keep the beers ice cold, settled Cleo in his van and after donning our gear, we skied/boarded a short way down the mountain to the ticket office.
Upon presenting his driver’s license, Dan got a free pass thanks to his birthday and while I was being a smartass and said it was my birthday by association, I paid $60 for a half day pass. Our timing was spot on, the afternoon session started at noon and we were right on. Huge price jump from the $30 full day lift ticket on offer thanks to the online deal, but it was Dan’s birthday so it didn’t matter.
It was Dan’s first time on a board in two years but once we shot off the top of the mountain, you wouldn’t really know it. He was straight into “buttering”, twisting, turning, flipping and jumping as soon as we were off the lift. I tried to adjust to the new skies and boots which both felt heavier than my previous rentals. I’ll blame my first stack on that. I went for way too much on the first jump that presented itself, got a massive amount of air and landed square on my ass with my skies in an awkward arrangement. Dan saw the whole thing from behind and approved.
My day continued in similar form. The snow had turned mostly to slush thanks to the recent warm days so I couldn’t get the speed up that I had before and it also put me off balance. I had quite a few offs, but not nearly as many as Dan, but he was allowed to since he was going for way more than me. He makes me want to trying snowboarding, it looks like so much more fun than skiing. Every chance he got he was hopping bumps and flipping through trees while I watched on in awe. Every time he fell on his arse, he was right back up again looking for his next trick.
After a few runs, we stopped for a beer break at the car where Cleo took joy in running around the carpark while we drank beers and played some tunes, trying to get as much warmth out of the sun as possible. Dan was super happy to be boarding again and wouldn’t be disheartened by the slushy snow. Considering the sun was out and we pretty much had the whole mountain to ourselves, we were both fairly chuffed. About an hour and a few oatmeal cookies later, we were back to the lifts with not much time before closing.
The sun disappeared behind the clouds making the last few runs cold, but they were the highlight. I landed a few jumps with style enough to satisfy my and Dan went all over doing a heap of tricks. I couldn’t believe he jumped back into it so easily when I couldn’t even go four days before losing my touch!
We resisted the temptation to get one last run in and retreated to the cars after a failed tree run. I was grateful to get my feet out of the heavy ski boots. I think I did myself an injury on my lower left leg thanks to that first jump. We drove back down the mountain to the hire shop and returned our goods then drove around the corner to Brews and Cues. This was a pub Dan had been kicked out of a few months ago when he had altitude sickness which was mistaken for drunkenness. The whole episode had resulted in two people being fired and the owner lavishing him and his mates with a free night of pool, food and drinks.
It was a sweet little local bar with half a dozen pool tables (one of which we occupied) and board games. Dan warned that he would cream me at pool to which I offered no resistance since I have little talent in that field. We started with cocktails (margherita for me, bloody mary for him) and appetizers of sweet potato fries and pizza bread while we hit balls across the table.
We used our dollars to play decent songs through the jukebox and I switched between extraordinary talent to zero ability while we played pool. I managed to win one out of the four games, conceding the wins for the birthday boy. After a round of beer, we ordered burgers that neither of us got very far through since we were so full of beer but we gave it a good go. We snuck in one more round of cocktails before happy hour ended at 7pm and by 8pm we were ready for retirement to the vans!
We considered driving just one van to camp, but in the end I decided I was sober enough to drive so we both filed out of the carpark back towards the forest. It was snowing on the way out so we knew we were in for a cold one and a layer of white on the ground in the morning.
We shared our camp with one other car, maybe a rental, but they’d at least enjoyed a fire before retreating into their Audi SUV. No need for a fire thanks to the snow so we snuggled up in Air Force One. Still not getting enough of our card games, we had enough energy to stay up long enough for me to destroy Dan in one round.