Some of us went back to Tahoe Donner for an “easy ski” before the drive home in the afternoon. I was the only stride skier of my teammates and coaches that were there that day. But Coach Larry’s wife Nina is an excellent skier and agreed to be my buddy stride skier for the day.

My other teammates and coaches headed back to the Euer Valley for their ski. Been there - done that yesterday. One of my teammates Ron described the Crazy Horse trail a couple days earlier as having a nice gentle downhill section. OK, let’s go!

But for every down hill section there has to be an up hill. Indeed, Nina and I found our way up the Sundance trail and then made the turn onto Crazy Horse. Oy, more climbing up the edge of hill looking down into the Euer Valley.

Meanwhile, the wind was whipping up pretty good from an approaching storm. I’m not complaining because we need the snow. But the wind got up to about 20 MPH and the snow was drifting over the stride ski tracks. They were useless going up these hills anyway.

I started to worry. Will the downhill be as gentle as Ron said? Will we get blown off the mountain first? You get the idea. I stopped often to drink water and eat a Gu every 30 minutes or so. If it could get me through 20 km of skiing yesterday, maybe it could get me up the hill in a gale wind.

Nina is a very happy and optimistic person. “Look at the view!” She yelled out.

“You mean that dark cloud over the pretty mountain over there?” I responded. “Hey we’ve gone kinda far. Do you think we’ll cross Interstate 80 soon? Maybe we could hitchhike back?” She the cock-eyed optimist and me the sarcastic realist; we kept each others spirits up during the climb.

Finally started heading down hill. It was a mixed blessing. From my previous posts you know that downhill skiing on stride skis is a “growth area” for me. I did pretty well however I did take one fall. I could feel it happening so I just rolled forward with it and landed on my shoulder. Nina said it was spectacular.

I told her I just wanted to get back to the lodge. She looked at the map and said, “This way is quicker but it’s steeper downhill.”

“Hmm. Let’s go the other way.” I said.

Needless to say, we made it back but our “gentle ski” took over 3 hours and it wasn’t so gentle. Not very smart. Maybe they should rename it the Crazy Horse’s Ass trail.

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