Snow Season 2011/2012 - Done.

Another snow season draws to a close, this time it’s a bit early due to several reasons.

Mother Nature hasn’t been that nice to the southern ski areas at this point in the year. We had a very mild winter with lot of rain which kept snow bases thin and most of the difficult terrains bare. Reflecting back on the season I came to realize that I didn’t ride a single difficult trail this year, which upsets me a bit, but alas.

One of the main reasons I cut the season short this year is due to my extensive riding plans for the 2012 riding reason which include a SS2K attempt in early March, Moonshine Lunch Run in April and various other rides through out the summer. Prepping the Vstrom for these trips became a priority over the snowboarding.

The nail the sealed the coffin, however, was a back injury that arose during my weight training a few weeks ago. While doing squats one evening I felt an odd pain in my back when completing my last rep on a set. The next morning the pain was very intense in my lower back and was not relieved by the next day. After seeing a chiropractor it was determined that I have a degenerative disk in my lower back that I had aggravated to the point it was causing muscle spasms. After a few adjustments the pain diminished but my lower back strength has dropped off. In fear of re-injuring my back while snowboarding before the SS2K attempt, I officially packed up the board and gear for the 2011/2012 season.

It was short season for me, but I still enjoyed each and every trip. I started the year at SugarMountain on some borrowed gear following the play off game between App State and Maine. That was the only time I made it to Sugar for the year. At that point, the only trail open was the upper and lower flying mile.

Josh and I and made a trip up to Beech Mountain a few weeks later. The only trails open there were Upper and Lower Shawnehaw. The cloud cover was thick, add in the snow blowers and the visibility was horrible. We made the most of it and enjoyed our day.

My last trip was over New Years with the home town group. We only rode at Beech that weekend but we had a great time. Please feel free to go back through the previous posts to see photos and more details on each trip.

As far as the bike are concerned, Dad and I are very busy! We have both bikes down at the moment as we are wiring up GPS units, radar detectors and doing the usual maintenance. I’ll be sure to post more details on the upgrades when they are complete!

UPGRADES!!!