Mi Viaje en España: Skiing in the Mountains

Those were some of Jana's pics from Berlin.

So, this week has been pretty good, we didn't go anywhere for the weekend which was nice.

Here are a couple of pictures from walking around Granada:

Also, I decided to cut my bangs! Woo-hoo. Hahaha.

Ok, so Sunday, March 30th (for Jake's Bday) Craig and I decided to go skiing up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (It's really close to Granada, like 40 min in a bus). When people ask me how it was, I blurt out a mix between wonderful and terrifying. I don't ski much, if you even count powder ridge.....hahha, so the mountains were a bit of a challenge for me. But, hey, YOLO. Soo, we went.

We were soo high up, the clouds were below us...it was crazy. It was absolutely beautiful though. When we got there, we started with some of the green runs (there aren't many) because their the easiest, and eventually moved up to the blue, the next level. Red is difficult and black is extremely difficult. I wasn't about that life, considering I spent a fair amount of time on my butt attempting the blue runs. However, when Craig and I got there, we decided we were no matter what going to do the tallest and longest run (in Spain I believe, and it's up there in Europe), which is red the whole way down, so there was no going back for me. Of course, Craig has been skiing since he was four, so I don't know how fair that was, and silly me was like "ohh yeahh I got that we can do it, it'll be a hoot" {inside joke with the fam from a conoeing trip...I should have known at the word 'hoot' that I was in for a rough trip}...the run is easier said than done.

Let me tell you, it is from I think the 3rd highest peak in Spain, and the run is over 3 miles long, and you drop over 1,100 meters in altitude along the way (you know how many football fields that is??). And, I DON'T SKI. (Spoiler alert: I did make it out alive). So, before lunch time, we decide it's time for the decent. (a little explanation of the resort: there's the little tourism city, then you go up lifts to some runs and to the next level for skiing, which is where most of the skiing is done from the top to this middle area, and this run goes from the very top all the way down to the bottom..I'll try and post a pic of the map.) We wanted to go all the way back down to the city area to eat and we were determined to not take the gondala. So, after a few different lifts we finally make it to the very top of this mountain. We can't look down and see our destination, because way down there was below the clouds, and we were way above the clouds. Hmm. Up to this point, I didn't really think much about it, I just kind of was wingin' it. I figured if it was that bad I could butt scoot all the way down the mountain. Well, I forgot one detail in that whole plan, it was a friggin MOUNTAIN. No, I could NOT butt scoot down it if necessary. It was SKI or DIE. Ok, I'm being a tad bit dramatic but still it was rather terrifying. It didn't help that the whole way up there were signs that said: SOLO EXPERTO; MUY DIFICIL. I don't know what I was thinking.

So, Craig looks at me and is like "well let's go!" And I just kind of had to stand there for a while, because the first little stint in this journey was extremely steep. I think I only fell three times during that first little stint, which was just absolutely reassuring (not actually) considering we had an entire mountain to go. But, the run had a lot of diversity, so that helped. Some really steep sections, some flatter more like cross country sections, some uphill and easier downhill. I sure got some practice in.

During that run alone I think I wiped out at least 8 times. And when I say wipe out, I mean completely ate sh!t, or snow rather. So that was great. But, eventually, we did make it to the bottom. The very last stint of the run was complete slush because it was much warmer that much lower in altitude, and it was very steep as well. So, I got to end with a bang. x3. Literally. But, I made it. It took us just about an hour to do the one run (I'm sure my time on my butt didn't help). But, we did it, and I was in one piece. When we finished Craig (who didn't fall at all that day) asked me "aren't you glad we did that?? Now we can say we did it!" and I just looked at him and was like "ohh..yeah sure, super glad, I'm never doing that again.."

We ate lunch and then finished up the day with a couple of the easier runs.

So, in the end, I think I'm glad I went, but I'm also glad it's over...I'm not cut out for falling down mountains.