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Archive for February, 2008

Snow Camp 2008

by on Feb.12, 2008, under Ashley Bingle

Every year our church’s Youth Group goes on a ski trip, for the past three years it has been to Winterplace, a resort in Flattop, West Virginia, which also offers snowboard and ski-blade rental, along with snow tubing. I was privileged enough to attend two years in a row, and was very excited to learn that this year we would be going on a different weekend and therefore get to stay an extra day. I ended up renting a snowboard all three days, although only two of the other nine girls went snowboarding, and they only went the first day. I also had some difficulty remembering how to work the bindings that strap your feet in, and with standing up, but I eventually figured it out.

Because I didn’t take a lesson this year, I had to try to remember the lesson I had last year. I ended up learning to stand up on my toe-edge first, which means you are facing uphill, which is not good because you have to turn around to see where you are going. Everyone kept telling me to turn around and look downhill. I finally figured out how to get started on my heel-edge pretty well on the third day. Some of the veteren boarders in the group allowed me to tag along occasionally and on one of my last runs they took me down one of the green slopes that I had slid off the edge of on the first day and I didn’t fall at all! I even beat them to the bottom!

snow blowersI had fun the entire time, even on the bus, which we were on for more than 30 hours total over the weekend. There was also only snow on Saturday night when we were waiting for the bus so we could go back to the hotel, so the snow machines were going a lot. The temperature on Sunday, which was our third day at the resort, was down to 7 degrees when we got up and never got above 14 degrees. Lots of the kids were complaining because of the cold, but I had a really great time this year at snow camp.

Also on the third day, before lunch, I went on a run with Shaun Hartsell, the Youth Director, and fell several times, quite a few close to the edge of a drop-off into a ravine. On my last fall of that run I fell back on my left hand an wrenched my shoulder. I did not think that I had hurt it all that bad, but since it was so cold we ended up going into the lodge then so that we could warm up. Later, after we got home, approximately three days after I hurt it, I decided that it actually did hurt pretty bad, so we went to the doctor on Thursday. We found out that I had not broken anything, so that was good, but I had to take anti-inflamatories for a week and wear a sling. I was also banned from physical exhertion for two weeks, and so had to miss basketball in PE, but in the long run, I think I would pick snowboarding over basketball.

This post is a little bit late, and a little bit long, since I got back on January 21st. Part of that is because of my injured shoulder, but mostly it is because I’m still, three weeks later, so wound up about it that I just can’t get my thoughts straight enough to tell all I want to. Anyway, Snow Camp was super great, super cold, and super fun!

Ashley

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