It was a beautiful morning visit to Wildcat, what with the freshly groomed trails and the super fast quad to the top of the Mountain.  Just as I got off the lift, a maintenance man walking to his snowmobile greeted me and soon I was to take my first ever run beside a “sled”.  Yes it was true, Rob, as I was to learn his name later on, was headed down the mountain on his “sled” to work on snow making equipment and somehow we got into the same rhythm you see in the movies, where two skiers are turning in parallel and in perfect synchronization.  Don’t worry, he never got too close, but for several minutes we were both turning at the same instant – it was an eerie but elating feeling to actually hear and see a snowmobile following my every move – what a rush.

 

It was then that I felt doubly glad that he was with me as half way down the run I felt a sharp pain in my lower back - gee, I thought, the second day of my trip and my body is showing sign of age – would I have to cancel my trip only on my second day?  I literally could not take a turn without a sharp paid in my lower back so .... after a 5 minute rest, and directions from Rob to the easiest run down,  I did snowplow turns and stood very erect (it helped somehow).  Was I going to have to stop this adventure so early into the trip?  Heck no - this just meant I could not do a lot of skiing this day.  I resolved that instead of a lot of runs on a couple mountains I would do one on many.  So after two great long runs, taking in the wonderful vista across to Mt. Washington, I was off.