I’ll get to the cats later. Read on if you want to join me for some epic skiing!

I LOVE the first ski-day of the year. It’s a re-birth. A catharsis. Motivation and milestone and all around YAY! I’m back on snow, sliding, speeding, working those muscles and feeling the frosty air on my face and in my lungs. My dog Xena and I have a tradition. First day of skiing it’s just the two of us. I get half a dozen runs in at Mt Hood Meadows, then we hit the trail at Bennett Pass for some ski-joring. See the clip below:

Ski-joring: Man and Beast connected by a tether. Man skis, beast pulls. It’s SUPER fun, but warning skiers: you actually work HARDER. At least I do, because my dog makes me ski faster than I would without her!

Oh, that’s just my boot you hear squeaking.

Next clip is that nice flat fast cruiser run off the top of the Shooting Star lift at Mt Hood Meadows. Heather Canyon, which was closed, is on skiers left. Great warm-up to the season:

And I need to get A LOT of these runs in before March 16. That’s when we leave for three days of snow-CAT skiing with Big Red Cats in British Columbia. Want to come? Sheila Hamilton and I are taking a crew up there with Deek Heykamp of Next Adventure and it’s going to rock! I’ll try to deliver fresh pow-pow for us. In the mean time, get up on the hill! I look forward to cutting freshies with you in March!

Happy Turns,

Matt Zaffino