![]() ![]() I was thinking we get day passes as it is not that much more expensive and will give lots of flexibility. The bike park closes at 5.Ī day pass is $35, a 4 hour pass is $30. We will shred as long as our bodies and bikes last. This will put us at Bryce by around 10 so we should be able to get some first tracks in. We will depart from Echols at 8:30am on Saturday May 7th. This Saturday the snow has been replaced by fresh dirt () and we should be greeted with great weather. The last time I was at Bryce it had just snowed 3 feet and was 65 degrees. The crew has been working hard this spring to get the trails in perfect shape, they have reworked all the jumps and berms. The day will be filled with a short lift ride followed by blisteringly fast descents down one of their many trails. There are about a dozen of us on the tour - parents, children, even grandparents.The time has come, Bryce Mountain Bike park is opening for the season this Saturday May 7th! Come shred the new and improved trails with us! Bryce mountain bike park takes advantage of the resorts ski lifts to allow riders to focus on the downhills. I can just hang as I glide along the 10 lines that crisscross the mountain. I’m looking forward to the zip line tour. I spend the next two hours reading a book and trying not to be too self-conscious about the mud tracks on the front of my white T-shirt. There are stains, dirt and bruises where you really shouldn’t have stains, dirt and bruises. I try to stop, and before I know it, I fall forward and land on my stomach. Horst suggests that I take a break from turning and ski straight to a point where he’ll pick me up in the buggy. I’m still turning too quickly, and I feel myself getting tired. Horst arrives, hands back my wayward pole and goes back to helping me turn. Eventually I propel myself to the meeting point. I can’t get momentum, and the fact that I’m down a pole is throwing off my confidence. Horst sets off to find it, instructing me to meet him farther down the hill. One of my ski poles has gone AWOL, apparently out the back of the vehicle. And here I was thinking I’d have an advantage being an intermediate snow bunny.įinally, we arrive at the top of the mountain. “Sometimes we have more problems with the skiers,” he says. “I think the lesson here is that my ski habits are not so good,” I tell Horst. I’m pivoting too quickly, taking the weight off my uphill foot. The goal is to do it slowly, incrementally, in a large loop, during which you’re supposed to push off with the ski poles. Different: It hurts more without the layer of frozen precipitation. You know what’s the same in grass skiing as in snow skiing? My first tumble occurs at about the halfway point. I ski, Horst shouts encouragement, and then he picks me up in the buggy. It’s kind of like when your parents help you learn how to ride a bike: euphoria as you’re set free, followed by panic when you need to stop. He holds me in place, jogs a few steps with me and lets go. We hop into a red 4-by-4, which Horst charmingly calls “the buggy,” and ride a short distance up the slope. Widen your stance and angle your upper legs in to slow down. Keep your weight equally distributed on both legs. ![]() I imagine that I look like a Transformer. Pep talk over, I don all the equipment except for the skis. (If you want to do it, you have to be a little “hard core,” he later explains.) Horst says he’s had problems with visitors who come to Bryce in groups for a zip line tour and then casually decide to try their hand - foot - at grass skiing. Now there’s a mandatory introductory lesson for grass skiing that Horst teaches, he says, to about four to six people per week. More people used to try it before the resort began offering a wider array of less intense activities, such as the zip line, hiking and tubing. Horst introduced the sport to Bryce in 1976. Bryce, about 40 miles southwest of where Interstate 66 meets Interstate 81 in the Shenandoah Valley, claims to be the only place in North America offering the activity. ![]() Horst tells me that it’s one way competitive skiers stay in shape over the summer. We chat as he readies my equipment: ski boots, ski poles, elbow pads, knee pads, helmet and the skis themselves, which look like a cross between a rollerblade, a snow ski and a tank wheel. Meeting Horst, a genial German transplant who came to Bryce in 1966 and has been there ever since (the ski school bears his name), puts me at ease. If a less-than-30-second tube ride has left me this white-knuckled, I can’t imagine what grass skiing will do. I confirm that, yes, the colored-bottom tubes are faster. Back up I go, tugging the tube behind me. ![]()
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