Las Leñas 2

The terminal at the locutorio internet I went to on Tuesday was abysmally slow and I was too tired to bother posting last night.

Got up a bit late today and thought I'd missed my shuttle. However, it drove up around 8:20; I was tempted to go back to bed and nurse my twisted knee but thought I'd try and see what I could do. Two runs and I'd had it. Riding itself wasn't the problem, it was the sharp bend when getting up and my rear foot in and out of the binding. I was not in the mood to try goofy the rest of the day. I stored the board and went looking for the Las Leñas merchandise store. It wasn't open yet but there were a couple things I'd pick up tomorrow. The thought of spending the next six hours just sitting around was too much to bear. I stopped in to the farmacia downstairs and bought some 600mg Ibuprofeno tablets. I went to one of the open air patios and followed one tablet with an espresso chaser.

I headed back to Marte because the two runs I took on the east face of the mountain had crap snow; unforgiving chunkiness.

Today there was no guard handing out waivers but instead a Poma lift was operating. I'd never been on one of these. I'm not a fan of T-bars and this looked worse. A bit jittery at the beginning but I found it easier than a T-bar. At the top, on the way down, at the top, on the way down, at the top and on the way I got some incredible shots.

The soreness in my knee had quickly fading. Yes, I know masking discomfort with medication is wrong and that this may be soft tissue injury. However, I'm not doing anything I don't normally do (I'm not taxing myself any harder than normal) but I can't wait 2-3 weeks for this to fully heal. I don't feel pain, just soreness. (ed note: three days later and the knee is fine.)

I have mixed feelings about Las Leñas. On one hand, it's quite different from your typical Canadian resort. Another Canadian I met on the chair today had an interesting perspective. The resort managers merely provide you the means to get to a location, what you do at that point is up to you. As such there are no more than a handful of named runs. The lack of trees to clearly demarcate them makes it rather pointless (viz. the south mountain of Sunshine, near Banff). It's nice to have these types of choices available. On the other hand, getting to those starting points is a whole other issue. Most of the lifts are doubles but the way people line up for these is rather odd. Unlike the extreme conformity and protocol with bus stop lines in Buenos Aires and taxi stand lines at Mendoza airport, couples enter, single file, into separate though side-by-side paths but there isn't an explicit singles line. The result is kind of like trying to get served at a Chinese bakery, ordered chaos. You get your egg tarts eventually but not without at least a couple people butting in front of you.

Well, that was Tuesday. I need to break some bills and the bank here closes in 30 minutes. Later today from Mendoza, Las Leñas 3: The Off-Piste Day.