Falling on camera

This past sunday KXLF's sports reporter and myself drove 2 hours into the pioneer mountains to visit Maverick Mountain ski area. We were there to do a story in which I learned how to ski. This is one of several ski areas across the state of Montana that is currently offering a "learn to ski in 3" promotion. Hence why we went there for the story. This means for one price you get 3 days of lessons, rentals and lift tickets. So anyways we got there and everyone was of course super nice because we are in Montana. I actually found out that the owner of the place also graduated from the University of Maryland when I was talking to him. They let us first ride up the chair lift all the way to the top without ski's so we could just get some good video of the views. And it was gorgeous up there. Just wasn't one of the clearest days ever but it was still really pretty. All the way at the top it's only black diamonds so didn't ski that at all and had to ride the chair lift back down. We were the only one's doing that because honestly everyone else just ski's down. All the skiers going up said hi to us though and waved at the camera.

Once I did get some ski's on it was interesting. Learned the basics and did the bunny hill. I then rode up some rope lift thing. That was probably the most difficult part of the day. I really just didn't understand it at all and was having a horrible time being pulled up hill by hanging on to a rope. Then I rode up the chair lift half way and attempted a green run called easy street. Of course when I got to the top of the chair lift I got off the chair started to ski down away and fell. Don't worry Shane (sports reporter) got it all on camera. Now my first time skiing was only a couple of weeks ago and I didn't even try a run then it was just learning on the bunny hill and some hill that was larger than the bunny hill and fun to ski down but was a straight shot with no trees and was not an actual named run. This time I did a run. It was a good distance but it was more difficult. There were places it turned and that I was scared if I picked up too much speed I wouldn't be able to turn in time and would go flying off the mountain. At those moments I fell on purpose to avoid death or injury. And yes of course those falls were caught on camera. I love embarrassing myself on camera. Not really but trust me I will for this story. Even just watching how I am skiing I look ridiculous. I have the poles going everywhere and I never move my ski's out of the wedge or "pizza" formation. I was too scared of going to fast. Now the pizza is when you put your ski's together in the shape of a wedge or triangle or pizza slice with the tips almost touching each other. This is how you slow yourself down and it's also your brakes. When you have your ski's straight it's called french fry. So I was told I never french fry. Maybe if I go again I'll be brave enough to french fry more often. But yes this whole glorious adventure was caught on camera and I'm currently turning it into a 2 part story that will air during sweeps (which is February) I'll also be sure to post it on youtube along with my other videos that are currently there. I have uploaded some pictures from the ski place on to my twitter and facebook if you want to check that out.

Anyways I'm going to go get ready to cover a story at 7:30 so I'll be getting home around 9:30 or 10 tonight and promptly going to bed since I have to wake up at 6 a.m. to cover another story early tomorrow morning. Yay.