Feeling like one million...

On both February 17 of 2009 and 2010, I passed an important milestone in the ski season by breaking the 1,000,000 vertical feet skied. You see, measuring skiing is hard and I choose vertical drop as a yardstick. This year, I'd love to do better than last, which already was a personal best at 1,743,781 feet, and shatter the 2 million mark. We'll see if I can do it, but I figure that every day that I'm on skis gets me closer to that goal.

This is no reason for me to stick to easy runs and just rack up more vertical the easy way. When I ski alone, I always push myself on the hardest possible terrain, skiing non-stop and trying to stay “smooth and soft” on my skis at all time, something much easier said than done. This is how I've kept on learning and improving through my early 60s... Now is still time to try harder, pack up as much skiing as I can while the body wants to do the work and before I become a septuagenarian!