The first thing I recall is being on skis, at a somewhat flat part of a trail, which I believe was around mid-mountain, or close to the bottom of the ski area.  I saw my buddy, Lenny; he had apparently arrived at this flat spot meet-up place already. As soon as I arrived he took off, and it seemed a bit curious because he went off to the right and somewhat back in the direction we’d come from before.  So I paused for a moment to evaluate the situation, wanting to stick with my buddy but also not really wanting to hike up the mountain if it could be avoided, since obviously gravity was our friend and there were chairlifts.  However, in the interest of not delaying or abandoning the ‘group’ I went off in the same direction he did, with the intent to catch up with him in order to regroup. At first the trail was quite flat, so the pushing with the poles and skating with the skis worked well, just gliding quite easily, even if it was slightly uphill, it was gradual enough that it wasn’t much effort. But then the slope became steeper, so skating and pushing became tougher, and at the same time the trail had become congested with other skiers who got to this section and obviously slowed down.  Where I’d normally look to ‘power-up’ this small slope, I couldn’t in this case because so many others were clogging the path. I adjusted my technique to a side-step approach, so that I could take a step when the space became available to move into, then hold my position and relax in the waiting for the person ahead to move again, rather than slide back down or exert a lot of effort to resist sliding down.  That worked well enough.  I got up to another flat section, and then it was like I had arrived at one of the mountain day-lodges.

Now, however, it was like it had become summer time; there was either much less or no snow at all.  I recall skating along, then arriving at some concrete.  I decided I would not just ruin my skis in order to hasten this attempt at ‘catching-up’, so I popped off my skis and put them off to the side, where there was a large wooden structure which was like a corral; it had an overhang, plus some slots which appeared specifically designed to hold and keep skis separate from each other. I also noticed some yellow tape draped across, which I figured was to keep the skis against the wall so they didn’t fall and get damaged. I picked up my skis and put them together in the traditional sense, using the spring-loaded binding heel-piece brakes on each of them to interlock the skis base-to-base.  I put them against the wall, noticed they were orange, then realized my poles were still loose. I gathered them and tried to use the wrist-strap to hang them on the ski tips.  Then I turned around to head into the lodge.  I saw my dad off to the right who apparently was on a golf course which bordered the parking lot, about to tee-off for the back-nine of his round of 18, and it seemed like I had the opportunity to play in with his group, but I decided to go into the lodge instead.  I thought I might be able to catch up with him later if my business in the lodge was quick enough.

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