a little time on the hill

Living in a ski town has some perks.

We can be weather snobs and only ski on the best weather days.

We can hoard the powder and get first tracks after a storm.

We can avoid the crowds and lift lines by skiing when it isn't busy.

Not to sound snobby, but I have to remind myself of these things when it is snowing on September 11th.

And June 11th.

I'm not lying, or joking, or hallucinating either.

Anyhoo, here are a few highlights from the last couple of weeks.

Hunter is in a locals' "Learn to Race" ski program and the level of instruction is amazing.  At almost eight years old, he can ski anything - and ski it well.

He gets to participate in a few races this season and just finished his first one this past weekend.  He has a highly competitive coach.  All the other teams did their best skiing down the course, but Kathleen wanted the competitive edge for her team, so he made all the boys take off their coats and race with just their shirts on top!

They raced against their age group, not each other - but he won a gold medal for this race.

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We also typically have a lot of visitors during this time of the year.  Our dear friends Gary and Christine came from South Dakota to ski for a few days.

Although our house is a 90 second drive from here, they convinced me to drive an hour to ski here.

I brought my big six year-old Sauce with me (because he is still free to ski).  We skied some tough stuff and he did so well.

Here we are on the gondola.

Snowbasin has a lot of gondolas and one tram, affectionately referred to as "the beer can."  It goes up to the top of a run called "The Olympic Men's Downhill."  It is the run just to the right of the tram in the picture below.

Note:  I didn't take this picture and when we were there, the rocked up part of the run was covered with tall moguls.

Because it is a tram, you are able to take a ride to the top and if you chicken out decide not to ski it, you can take the tram back down again.

When we got off, there was a line of adults waiting to get back on.  A woman watched Sauce throw his skis on and get ready to take off.

She nudged her husband.  He looked up and said, "HE'S gonna ski this?  Holy Sh**!"

A proud moment as a mother, I must say.

Here's a view from inside the beer can tram.

That's sauce in the bottom of this picture.

At the end of the day, Sauce begged to go to the terrain park.   I see more broken bones in our future.

 

Lastly, my sister was here visiting this weekend and we went skiing Sunday afternoon in a storm full of fresh snow.