Blog: Fourth Pure Ski Trip

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Fourth Pure Ski Trip - Sunday, February 28, 2016
Pure had our annual engineering ski trip at Heavenly resort in South Lake Tahoe this weekend, and about 200 employees attended. Once again I took ski lessons Saturday morning. I forgot that I took the novice level lessons last time, so this time around I again requested the novice level. However, one co-worker who was in my class last year was in my class this year as well, and overall I felt like my class this year built on what I learned last year rather than merely repeating it.

I definitely improved my control. I found that I was having trouble making right turns, whereas my left turns were generally fine. I think the three main reasons for my bad form were: not always leaning forward in the boots, not shifting my weight when making turns, and my right foot being lazy and not doing as much work. The instructor, Ian, told me to consciously keep focusing on making my right foot do what it needed. Additionally, regarding stance, he reiterated the fact that I should always been leaning forward to maintain control of my skis and thereby my speed.

In this year's class, we focused mainly on turns and using "skidding" to control our speed. The instructor taught us that we should be leaning forward but mostly standing straight ("tall and forward") when going straight, and then crouching a little when turning in order to help absorb the impact.

After the class and after I had practiced my form on the green run a few times, I decided to try the California Trail blue run again. I was definitely making the widest turns there compared to everybody else, and I fell a few times, mostly when trying not to build up too much speed and not crash into other people (it was a little crowded). Were I in a competition, I would've been awarded no points for speed and even fewer points for form, but at least I was able to mostly turn where I wanted to go and control my speed to the point of not just barreling down the mountain. In other words, I have a while to go before I can do a blue run comfortably, but it was my best blue run to date!

This year we stayed at Harrah's, and the rooms were quite nice. It seemed like every room had a double bathroom! I was rooming with Maciej, and unlike the past two years, I didn't get the room to myself due to my roommate not being able to make the trip.

Friday night, Pure had the South Shore Room at Harrah's booked, and we had an awesome dinner with salad, sliders, tacos and ice cream. A rock band, Hairballs, starting playing an hour into the dinner, and people were definitely rocking out on the dance floor. On Saturday, breakfast was provided at the hotel and dinner was provided at a nearby lounge, but for dinner a small group of EngOps people crashed a nearby cabin owned by a friend of Chris'. We had salad, mashed sweet potatoes, steak and salmon - definitely better than pizza!

Due to traffic, the bus ride back to Mountain View ended up being just over 6 hours instead of 4.5. I'm tired from the long weekend, but I had a lot of fun and will most likely want to attend next year's trip as well.