How do you feel when approaching a new hill?
I remember the first time I skied Blackjack, we drove up to it and the resort’s hill is rather imposing. The run entitled Shanty Girl faces you as you drive up to BlackJack’s main lodge and years ago when I was a less experienced skier I recall thinking whoooaaaaa.
Shanty Girl is one of the Lodge’s more challenging runs. It starts off with a good drop ski it over on the right side and cut across to the left side. The right side of it has a longer and steeper drop. The drop transitions to rather flat stretch where I tend to tuck and head to the left of the run. You really need to tuck on this because there is very little pitch to this section.
Keep on the left side and the last section is a steep drop again to the flat and the chair. Watch out towards the bottom as people skiing the neighboring black run may be heading with some steam to the same chair as you.
As I noted, the run looks imposing from the bottom. However, even the first time I visited Blackjack I noticed it does not look so intimidating from the top, in fact it is rather a let down.
However, Shanty Girl has a sibling named Shanty Boy which has no flat but is pretty much a steady pitch downhill. Blackjack uses Shanty Boy for its racing.
It’s funny. When I skied Monarch Mountain, I did not ski on anything hotter than an intermediate blue. Still, those runs had sections that were steeper and longer than the most of the black runs here. However, none of those runs bothered me in the least. One thing for sure, I was moving a lot faster than I do around here.
Isn’t that it though? More head games than anything.
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