Vail Day 9 - Pepi's Surprise

Pepi is a Vail legend. An Austrian who moved to Vail in 1962 and established a gasthof, restaurant and ski shop. With a full week of skiing under the belt it was time to drop the skis off for an overnight tune up and what better place than Pepi's Ski Shop just across the covered bridge a short walk from the hotel.
Besides Mason got his skis tuned at Pepi's a couple of days ago and Jim had spent a small fortune there fixing boot problems.

The Covered Bridge with Mountain Haus beyond.

So I dropped my skis off at Pepi's last night and picked them up on the way to the gondola this morning.
Jim and I headed up the gondola alone. Mason had forgotten his lift pass and didn't realise until the gondola staff scanned him and came up blank. It looked like it might take him a while to convince them he was legit, so he told us to go on ahead.

Top of the gondola Jim clipped into his skis and took off towards MTE. I did the same but not feeling the familiar clunk of boot into binding, I glanced down to see a 2cm gap between the back of my boot and the binding heel piece.
Somehow during the tune up process Pepi had changed the binding to accommodate a ski boot about 3 sizes bigger than mine.

On closer inspection I noticed the binding torque setting had been changed from 11 to 6, and a small plastic cover which had long been missing from one of my bindings had been replaced.
So had Pepi been overly zealous and done all these things in addition to the tune, or did these skis belong to someone else? The skis were identical brand, model, length and colour to mine.
I headed back to the gondola and ran into Mason and Claire. Mason being a man of many talents was able to re-adjust the binding so my boot fit and I was away.

The day was overcast, very flat light, and the snow a little firm underfoot. Conditions called for a cruising kinda day.

China Bowl

Mason, Claire and I did the usual rounds of groomed greens and blues. Mason did a bit of filming and discovered that my skis are too stiff and I need to get softer ones. Apparently I can't bend them. We swapped skis and even he had some difficulty bending them and he's got 20kg on me. So it looks like new skis are on the agenda...not this trip though.

Mason spent a lot of time and international roaming mobile phone calls trying to locate Jim while Claire and I waited.

After lunch the sun came out and the turns started to feel a whole lot better...I still couldn't bend the ski though. Claire headed down, Mason finally caught up with Jim to blast down Blue Ox a double black diamond that was mysteriously groomed, and I did laps on Avanti until 4pm.

I took my skis back to Pepi's so they could check the bindings and make sure Mason had set them OK. Pepi's staff kinda acted like I'd made it up, certainly didn't offer an apology, but at least they double checked the bindings and made some minor adjustments. They were adamant that the skis were mine.

Jim's theory: Pepi's staff mixed my skis up with their rental equipment and cleaned them up and got them ready to rent out to a giant.

Masons theory: UFO's came down and messed with the bindings. Jumping the shark I think, even if there have been UFO sightings recently around the Vail region.

My theory: Pepi's staff are clueless.