Jan 19th, 2010 3:16pm

I had such a good time skiing a few weeks back, when the opportunity to go again presented itself I jumped on it.  So this last Friday after work, Alek, Kellie, Cupp and me headed back up to Sunrise.

This time we weren't going it alone.  Kyle and 2 of his friends Anhill and Harry were going to meet us up at Alek's cabin.  We would also be putting in a full day plus night as the mountain would be open from 4:30-9:30 or until people started freezing solid.  Well... most of us would anyway.  Some folks had already decided the bar in the ski lodge was a better option for the evening.

Once everyone arrived, we decided to spend the night in the most preparatory way possible - drinking a case of beer and playing Super Mario Wii.  While absurdly fun, the decision proved to be less than sound in the morning.  Fortunately, skiing is a good motivator and everyone managed to packed up their gear and get moving without too much herding.  We arrived at the mountain just after 9 for and geared up for the day.

I spent most of the morning with Alek and Cupp who was snowboarding for the first time.  We would meet up with Kyle, Anhill and Harry later.  Kellie opted for the half day and would be chilling up at the lodge until ski-school started.  Cupp did really well that morning and went from the sliding down the bunny-hill to actually snowboarding on the main mountain in just a few hours.  Learning to board/ski is rough work though - so while he and a few others took a break, I took the opportunity to get a bunch of solid runs in.

I spent the remainder of the day alternating between hitting hard runs on my own and skiing with various packs.  It wasn't long though before the day was over and we headed into the lodge to eat and throw on more clothes for night skiing.  They only shut down for about a half hour so by 5:00 we were back out on the slopes.

This was what I was here for - skiing at night and I wasn't disappointed.  Even though it was getting really cold, there was no wind and the lights on the mountain made everything look absolutely incredible.  Only a few runs are open at night but it was enough - especially since I spent the bulk of it running down the ski-park.  Harry and I kept one upping each other run after run until we were both shooting off of the full 12ft ramp and making it past the flat-top.  Unfortunately before I could get any pics or video of this, we got the call that Cupp broke his hand.

I don't think anyone was surprised.  Cupp is kind of injury prone and he was worn out long before dark.  He kept saying each run would be his last.  Eventually he headed out on his own and that's when he took a hard fall on his arm and broke the boxer bone in his right hand.  We decided it would be best to wrap it up for the night and get him to the emergency room.  So we called it a game and headed out for the Showlow hospital.

In the end it was kind of fun.  Brian wasn't injured too badly so we left him there with Kellie while the rest of us grabbed some food at Wendy's.  He eventually got his X-rays and a temp cast/sling and we made our way back to the cabin to warm up and dry out.  Everyone was pretty wiped and crashed out early.  Alek and I stayed up for a while playing one of his his psychotically complicated board games, but even this didn't last long.

We packed up early the next morning, cleaned up the cabin and went out for breakfast before making the long drive back to phoenix.  They will have night skiing again in a couple weeks - I think I'm down for another round.