Ski Utah!

We took our annual ski trip last week, joined by Tim, who has taken a liking to snowboarding. We flew to Salt Lake City on Sunday, March 8, and went to lunch with Ellen before collecting our rental equipment and driving up to Powder Mountain, northeast of Ogden. We were delighted to find our cozy condo located right across the street from the Sunset Lift at Powder Mtn., and we even decided to make a few runs that evening, since the Sunset Lift area is open until 9 p.m. Because it was time change weekend, we even had an extra hour of daylight. After a couple of trips down the run named "Confidence," we decided to take a trail called "Slow Poke" which the lady at the ticket window had told us was a nice, safe trail to the bottom. Unfortunately, we heeded her advice even after she told us that she doesn't actually ski...The problem was not that the trail was too steep; in fact, it was so flat in places that we were poling for all we were worth, and Tim was struggling to move at all (apparently it's a lot harder on a snowboard to move around on flat terrain). Adding to that problem, it became evident after a while that the trail was not actually leading back to the Sunset lift but over to the other mountain, which was not open for night skiing. And it was starting to get dark on the mountain, which is never a good thing when you don't know where you're going. A guy came driving by on a snowmobile, towing a couple of paying guests, and he just blew by us like it was perfectly normal to see lost skiers on the trail after dusk. When we finally reached a parking lot, we decided to take off our skis and try to figure out where we were. Tim ended up going back to the condo and driving the car up to pick us up and rescue us. At that point, we figured we'd had enough adventure for one night, so we didn't ski any more. On the bright side, we did see some pretty spectacular views of sunset from the top of the lift, extending way out over the Great Salt Lake.

Our condo was built into a hillside and was only accessible from the front, as the snowfall had piled up all winter and obscured the back side of it. Our kitchen window, facing the back, looked like this (ignore the reflection of the overhead lights):



Tim's bedroom also was on the back side of the building, so he thought it would be fun to use his window as a "mini-fridge:"



The fireplace was the heat source for the whole condo and provided a delightful ambience to the room.



Never mind trying to get out the back door of the building!



Monday morning we awoke to fresh snow on the ground and plenty more still falling. We had arranged to take a ski lesson, and Tim chose to take a snowboard lesson, so we went our separate ways with our instructors and got lots of good pointers on technique. We did discover that taking a lesson is hard work! All of us were ready for a lunch break after three hours of concentrating on technique, then we went back over to the lifts to try out what we had learned. The fresh powder-snow was fabulous in places where the trail had been groomed underneath, but we found it to be too deep where it was ungroomed. One time I slid into some deep powder and just stepped off of my ski; the bindings were set for easy release, and the snow was just too heavy on top of the ski. It was a good thing I saw where I'd stepped out, or I might never have found the ski! We all felt pretty tired but were really enjoying trying out lots of different trails. Tuesday morning, it was still snowing some and the temperature had dropped to about 4 degrees. Once we got up our courage and put on enough layers to stay warm, we went out to check out the rest of the trails. We went in for an afternoon break and went back out for a couple more hours on the Sunset side. Tim was really getting good at snowboarding and kept pushing us to try harder trails, but we were still chicken!

Here's a picture of Tim coming down the mountain (he's that little speck on the hillside) after we went in Tuesday night and he stayed out for just a couple more runs:



In case you didn't know it, skiing is a "bad hair" sport, and here's proof:






Wednesday morning we packed up and went back to SLC, staying at a suite hotel not too far from Ellen's house. From previous experience, we knew that our bodies would appreciate having a day off in the middle of the week. The one thing that our condo at Powder Mtn. did not have was a hot tub, so we were really looking forward to the hot tub in SLC, but it was out of commission the day we arrived. What a disappointment! We went out to dinner with Ellen and planned our next day's adventure.

Thursday and Friday we went to Brighton. It's about a 45-minute drive from SLC. The way the trails are configured at Brighton, sometimes you have to ski a "blue" run to get to the "green" runs (green ones are the easiest; blue are more difficult). Ben and I have always stuck to greens, but this time we had to be brave and try some blues, which delighted Tim. It turns out that our ski lesson earlier in the week had done some good, and we discovered that we could do the blues without a lot of stress, so we spent Thursday and Friday checking out everything we possibly could, including the terrain park, where we all went through the half-pipe a couple of times (Tim, sitting at the bottom after going first, said, "I never thought I'd be able to say I watched my mom ski a half-pipe!").

We were able to visit with Ellen both Thursday and Friday evenings and even ate Mexican food, something that Tex-Mex fans usually don't do in any other state. We got acquainted with her new puppy, Lily, who is soft and cuddly once she calms down.





We came home on Saturday to rain and temps in the 40's, pretty uncharacteristic for Houston in mid-March, but it warmed up over the next few days and has been a gorgeous week of spring break. Ben, of course, had to go on back to work right away, but I've had an extra week without students. And Tim will start his new job next Monday, so he the week off as well. Robyn left today for her Colburn audition in L.A. Wish her luck!