Feb 15, 2012, Kendall Oxy-Ski-Don

    It only hurts when I laugh.  No pain no gain.  Yeah it hurts, but it's a good kinda hurt.  And a new one...Nothing hurts when I'm pointed downhill.

    I was going to just climb Kendall Knob, and come back down, but the siren call of someone else's skin track drew me higher up and further in.  Thank you to the folks climbing high up onto Kendall yesterday.  I know the skin track wasn't too difficult for you to put in, with only an inch or two on a hard crust, but I was able to follow your adventursome-ness into new territory for me.  Not being invited, and since the route began looking admiringly too gnarly, I quit following when your track began to zig zag steeply up the ridge.

    I transitioned, fed Anna, the mountain dog, and me, and worked my way down through the old growth trees to a gentle cleared slope that was just a fabulous meadow skipping area.  I wished for more time to do a second lap, but no genie appeared, so I had to head down.  Going steeply through some more big trees to Commonwealth, I fell and re-injured an old shoulder tear.  After picking up the pieces, and making it down to the basin proper, I could barely move that arm.  Poling was really tough. 

    But once on the Luge Run, in the grip of gravity, the pain vanished.  Some might call it adrenalin, or say that I was just focused away from the pain.  But I call it magic! Way better than ibuprofen, and much more exhilarating than any codeine derivative.  Ski therapy, Anti gravity medicine, Oxy-Ski-Don.  If I could put it in a capsule, I think a pharmaceutical conglomerate would pay for it. 

    Of course, if I could just ski better and crash less, I wouldn't need to think so much about pain killers...