Skiing

I went skiing for the first time and took a beginner's lesson. I was doing okay in the beginner's lesson until my friend egged me to go on a slope with higher difficulty. After many protests I relented and went, after all what could go wrong? Aah famous last words!

So I am waiting in line to get on the lift and my friend gives me instructions on how to sit on the lift and how to jump off it. Cool, not so difficult, except when I need to jump off, my ski's get entangled and lo and behold I am stuck. The lift operator reacts immediately and stops the lift and helps me off. Wonderful, a great start!

I start skiing in a halting manner and I ended up skating on the outer edges. Arrgh. Since I am skating down in a halting manner, I have enough time to notice others going by.

I see kids probably of 4-5 yrs age coasting by without any ski-poles and my jaw drops wide open. Awesome! That did wonders to my already sinking confidence. Nevertheless I was determined that I could do this and became resolute to finish this.

Yeh, things went downhill literally from there. Multiple falls, slamming into a tree, struggling to get up, refitting the skis on, took me 45 mins to get down hill. No broken ribs or any other injuries. I didn't go back up again as it was time to go. I will back to conquer the slopes.

Belay On!

Belay On
On Belay

Climbing
Climb on!

The four communication phrases that have been a regular exchange during rock climbing. Earlier in the week, I had gone for my second visit. I had to take the belay test. I took the test with a random lady as a climbing partner who turned out to be not so random after all. It was the usual commands, check, harness, carabiner and the fall test.

Aced it! Turns out that the lady was my colleague's friend who was supposed to meet us. Cool. There are 4 of us now and I start climbing. An easy course marked green 5.6 grade, made it up pretty quick. Next one was 5.7 grade, it was alright, kind of cheated in a place or two. The third one was a bitch! It was 5.8 grade, and one had a stretch a lot.

It was one of those routes were the wall starts leaning towards you creating a ledge impression and you need your upper body strength to push your self up. In the first attempt I did some quick moves to get to the ledge and then my arms started to scream, my palms were sweaty, it wasn't gonna be easy trying to reach into the chalk bag to get rid of the sweat, but held on. The arms started to scream loudly and I loose a footing and I fall...

I am dangling in the air, as my climbing partner has me covered, damn I almost had it, I had almost reached over the next hold , damn , I yell "take" and I get lowered. Alright time for another try.

This time I forget to pull the quick moves and I am hanging off, with my arms screaming like a the howl of the strong wind, I fall.. Bah! Another time

Time for a break then climb another route. Attack of the pink happens! It is a 5.7 grade climb and the route is marked in pink! If you are scratching your head wondering what's with the attack of the pink check this.

All in all a couple of climbs it was good. The knots are perfect, I should get some rope from the guy next time to practice on my own different knots.

Rock Climbing

So made it to the local rock climbing place, took the basic course as refresher again. I was able to tie the knots fairly easily. I struggled last year with the knots when I tried them. Itz kind of weird that I was able to get it right on the first time after a year's time. I wonder if somethings that you learn just get etched in your mind that you struggle with it the first time but you do it well a time later. I guess its like how you learn to ride a bike and you never forget.

The instructor seemed like a cool guy and laid back and us (3 of us) let try stuff out, rather than go through a whole drill of lecture. The usual communication of what to do before climbing, checking the harnesses, the knots, the slack etc. Did a couple of climbs, falls and belaying. It was fun. The muscles of my arms were burning after a couple of climbs. I will probably come here more often than just a week since there are guys from the office who come here regularly.

Time to go digging for information on ropes,knots for starters. Wikipediaaaaaa.com!

Dude the expedia ad , with the whole expeeeeedddddiiiiii ddot COOOM! ruined it for me! I was humming wikipedia in my head like that, arrrgggh!