Bonking Bigtime for Beginners

If you like to have fun outdoors, we've all had that experience of the calories out exceeding the calories in: aka 'bonking'. Pushing through this is part of the price of admission. Last winter Andrew McLean gave me and Mark McGurl a little tour of his backyard and coming back from the backyard was, as it often is, a bit more lengthy than the pleasurable and sunny ski there. While we enjoyed 5-10" of fresh power skiing down into a very nice valley, we had to work to enjoy the 15-25 mile per hour gusts along a several mile long ridge back to our re-insertion point. Fortunately Andrew came well armed, with hot tea and some of those little jelly bellies which I've got to remember to get this year. Unfortunately, Mark, while quite the hale fellow, neglected to even eat breakfast, and by now was definitely feeling the over/under on his calorie deficit. We were lucky to be well equipped and while the final run back down the Canyons was a bit sloppier even than usual, it was a great time. The kind of great time you find brings you back for more, even when you swore you'd never do it again at the time. I think we might even get Mark's brother out there this year....