Full Moon Ski Adventure with the Rec.

So a lot has been going on recently; when doesn't it? I had a split weekend and on my day off I adventured with a group of people with the Recreational department to Roosevelt. From there we skied over to Tower Falls with a moon so full that it could have been a full moon but wasn't quite there.

Two people skied off and lead the trail. Then followed myself and Steve with Walt and Jasmin (Yasmin) directly behind us, then followed another Steve, Jocyln (Spelling?) and Andrew, the Assistant Rec Cordinator. The four of us, (Steve, Jasmin and Walt) gained distance on the other three, but I was caught up in a fullish moon with soooooooooo many opportunities to take pictures, that the four of us had split into two groups; me and them. I was caught up in so many pictures that I wasn't trying to rush myself at all until the unfortunate situation happened.

So, for those who haven't cross country skied before, there are different style boots to that of the downhill skier. There is more leeway and comfort in "X" country ski boots. If you have them too big, like myself, the next couple of days will hurt to walk. When you walk/ski, a boot/shoe will indent upon the knuckles of your toes, mine being the "Big Toe". With shoes not much will happen, with ski boots a lot will happen. When I say "A lot" I mean pain will occur. A quarter mile in I noticed this pain in my right foot but shrugged it off. A mile in I noticed that it was occurring in my other foot and felt like this was not a good thing but that it couldn't get any worse.

I passed Calcite Springs after taking numerous amount of photo's just after at a pull off when I was greeted by Andrew. Andrew and I skied all the way to Tower which was all of 10 minutes. Irregardless, we had nice conversations between the two of us and at most, it was a very peaceful experience. We met up with the two that led the team that was just leaving Tower and got a quick group photo in before they made their way back to the van.

Andrew and I walked down a path where we met Steve, who in turned joined us after I guilt tripped him into leaving me behind before. I snapped some photos of the frozen waterfall while Steve and Andrew talked about previous experiences at Tower. Walt and Jasmin had seen the waterfall and headed back while we were at the outlook. The other Steve had made it to Tower as I was leaving. Knowing that I was the out-of-shape slow skier, I decided to head back and not wait due to the fact they would all catch up, as they did.

Leaving Tower was a little bit of work...It was mostly uphill for us for the first 1/4 mile, after that, it was mostly down hill. The adventure back to the Rec van was much quicker than that of the trek to Tower.

We made it back to the van where I had just fallen over out of exhaustion where Jasmin decided to take some photos with my camera of me laying down on the snow. Steve said I fell but I know it was more of a collapse for humor and rest.

On the way back to Mammoth we were lucky enough to see a fox sprinting down the road as if it were running from something. There was nothing chasing it. Some times animals need to jog too.