Skiing in the East

Back in January there was some significant snowfall and cold weather, so I went with a few friends on a little weekend trip to Vejprty, Czech Republic to do some skiing. Summary: the skiing part was a disaster, but the weather on the first day was utter perfection.

We went to the Klinovec ski slopes, which apparently don't really have a lot of bunny slopes, and the ones they do have require some interaction with steep intermediate slopes. Needless to say, this situation didn't go well for me, having been off the ski slopes for 10 years and not really being a great skier back then anyways.

There was another nearby ski area called Bozi Dar that appeared to be a little flatter and more cross-country-oriented. I think that would be more my cup of tea in any follow-up trips.

Vejprty is full of abandoned and for-sale buildings that inspire the imagination and make an American Millennial fantasize about buying / fixing one up. Our hostel owner did just that (minus the fixing part..); a young woman who bought out her family's old, run-down hotel and runs it as a backpacker hostel, and manages it on the side along with her wolf tracking volunteer work. Reminiscent of The Shining? Absolutely. Cheap and warm? Sure. (Very important, as this was probably the coldest temperatures I've ever experienced in my life. Something like 5 or 8 degrees Fahrenheit in the late evenings.)

I sat out the second day of skiing after my first disastrous day, which worked out fine with the weather, which was rather white-out conditions on day two.

I Could Never Swim that Far

In October I went to Chattanooga to participate in my third "Swim the Suck" race. It's a 10-mile swim down the Tennessee River, but no, I was not swimming it. I've been a volunteer kayaker for it, which means I paddle alongside an impressive athlete who's actually swimming it, keep their unofficial time, feed them snacks every 30 minutes of so, and make sure they don't get run over by a motorboat.

This year's weather forecast was absolutely dismal. We were all prepared with rain gear and extra sets of clothes, and we knew what the emergency plan was in case of lightning. When I woke up at 6am the day of the race, it was raining steadily, and I thought about how miserable I was going to be sitting in a kayak for potentially up to 6 hours.

To everyone's credit, nobody chickened out on account of the weather. We showed up, and we were ready to go. And as luck would have it, we were all starting to mill about the starting ramp about 30 minutes before race time, when the sun came out.

And stayed out pretty much all day. It turned out to be an exquisite day to be on the river, as the sky gods rewarded us for our bravery. My swimmer made excellent time, and we were off the river in about 4 hours, with tasty food and libations awaiting us. A few swimmers dropped out due to hypothermia, and some powered through nearly-hypothermic, which was rough to see. But for the most part, it was a great day for a race.