So here's my story from skiing the other day.
My friend Jeff and I have been skiing nearly our whole lives, and we tend to ski pretty fast and agressively. The conditions at Hunter Mtn last tuesday worked out great for this - basically just powdered ice, no slush anywhere, freshly waxed skis, and a pretty empty mountain.
Part of the skier code is that anyone in front of you has the right of way - basically, it's your responsibility to avoid the person ahead of you if you're overtaking someone. Usually we're pretty good about this because it's in everyone's best interest. We don't do stupid shit like bombing through crowds of people or ski classes or stuff like that...keep it on the black diamonds, and stay out of the body shop. But just like driving, sometimes people are retarded and unpredictable, so even though this guy's been making a consistent set of turns for a while, he might just suddenly decide to hang one way wide just as I'm trying to pass.
So I go by this guy at Mach 20 and unsettle him a little bit...sorry pal, you're also supposed to look uphill before you traverse. No big deal. We bomb a few more runs and not gonna lie, I doubt there was anyone skiing faster. We were in a freakin groove and aiming to pile on as many runs as possible.
The main chair is a 6-person lift, and about 3 hours and 17 runs into the day, Jeff and I get on with two random people on the left and one random dude on the right. A minute or two into the chair ride, the guy all the way on the left says something about some asshole who cut him off earlier, and the other guy goes "Oh yeah! I saw that! There were two of 'em, and they just blew by on either side of you."
"Yeah, that was it. One of 'em was a litte shorter than the other I think."
Then the guy to my right, who wasn't with those two, leans over and goes, "I think I saw those guys too...right on this trail here. They weren't even making turns, just going straight and completely out of control."
"Yeah! XXXXing assholes. Probably can't even make turns. They shouldn't even be on this mountain, they're gonna kill someone if they keep doing that shit."
"I came *this* close to chasing them down to the lift...if I saw them in line, I was gonna take off my skis, go friggin stand on theirs, and keep 'em there til I could find a ski patrol guy. Hell, I mighta slapped 'em for good measure. XXXXing assholes."
Keeping in mind, the whole time, Jeff and I are just sitting there in between all this, not saying a word. They continue for another minute or two, and Jeff and I are lookin at each other like, is this really happening? Is this some kinda setup, where they're "telling us without actually telling us"? Or are they completely clueless that the two assholes they're talking about are sitting right between them? My jacket's bright friggin blue, pretty recognizable...
They finally run out of complaints and curse words, so Jeff and I kinda laugh and shake our heads like we can't believe that these two guys could be such assholes. I ask the guy to my right if he'd skied the west part of the mountain yet, got a couple recommendations of some other stuff that was pretty good that day, etc. Jeff is kinda making small talk with the guys to his left. We get off and say bye to everyone, have a good day, etc...and they go their separate ways.
Needless to say, that kinda killed our motivation...took it a little easier after that. :laugh:
We still have no idea if they realized who we were or not. It was wayyy coincidental to get brought up out of nowhere with us on the chair, but then again, the one guy didn't know the other two, and it's not like they had time to coordinate something if they were tryin to punk us. Friggin weird.