Skiing

This past weekend I went traveled up to Vermont to visit my parents and to do some skiing. It seemed a shame that my parents have lived up in New England for a handful of years now and I hadn’t once tried skiing up there.

My ski resume is incredibly short: I’ve been twice. The first time I tried it I wasn’t crazy about it (went with friends in college, didn’t take a lesson, spent most of the time falling down in order to stop). I’ll be honest; the first time I tried skiing I didn’t really understand why everyone seemed to enjoy it so much. The next time I tried skiing was last year and I really enjoyed myself (took a lesson and figured out how to stop without falling down). I even worked my way up to an Intermediate trail by the end of the day. Coming away from that second day of skiing, I made the decision that I would take advantage of my parents being up in Vermont and close to so much excellent skiing (so I’m told).

I made good on that decision last Friday as I headed to Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Richmond, VT with my mom and my husband as ski companions. We got to the resort first thing in the morning, decided to take a lesson, got our equipment and headed out to the mountain by 10 in the morning. I was a nice day, sunny, clear and no wind.

Our lesson lasted an hour and we learned about our skis, how to stop, how to turn and how to use both the towpath and the ski lift. Our instructor, Dick, was a nice guy and even told some awful/great jokes. We all seemed to catch on and after an hour of running up and down the bunny slope (aka the Mitey Myte) we braved one of the “Easier” trails, Sprig o’ Pine.

It quickly became apparent that the “easier” trails here in Vermont were more difficult than “easier” trails found in southern Pennsylvania, but I was able to making it down the mountain just fine (and for the most part under control). With a brief stop for lunch, we spent most of the day skiing on the Sprig o’ Pine trail and then for the last run, my mom convinced to trail a longer (but still “easier”) trail called the Snowflake Bentley. Even this trail was doable and proved to be quite the little adventure.

All in all, it was a good day for skiing and I loved getting out there and trying something new.

My Day on the Bunny Slopes

This past weekend we headed up to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania for a weekend of skiing and other fun things to do in the snow.

Saturday morning we were up early, enjoying the free breakfast at our hotel (me up even earlier for a scheduled run) and discussing the day ahead of us. Our plan was to get to the ski resort early, get our gear and join a beginner's ski lesson so that we would have the afternoon to enjoy the slopes.

We worked our way through the process of buying tickets, getting our ski boots, trying to figure out how to put them on, getting our skis, clumsily carrying them outside, finding the right ski poles and then finally getting out on the snow and coming to the realization that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing.

Prior to this weekend, I had been skiing one time, while I was in college with some friends who had been skiing most of their lives. That day, I skipped the lesson and let my friends "teach me" a few things before they grew incredibly bored and headed off for the hard slopes. The only thing that stuck with me from that day was that I fell down a lot and that falling was the only method I could work out for stopping.

Obviously, this was not the most positive experience I could have had with skiing.

Fresh off the fun we had learning to cross-country ski with my parents, I put the one experience I had with skiing out of my head and went in to this with the mindset of a totally newbie, which let's be honest, I am.

Anyway, we met up with a ski instructor, George, who took us through an hour and a half lesson, where we started out skiing without our skis and by the end we were slowly making our way down the bunny slope in lazy S-shaped turns. We "French-fry-ed" and "Pizza-ed" our way down a mountain and I am happy to report that by the end of the lesson I felt reasonably confident.

With a short break for lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon going up and down the easy slope and Mike and I even worked our way over to the next slope with a mix of easy and intermediate.

It was a very fun day and I really enjoyed learning a new sport. Despite the cold fingers and toes, the long waits for the lift, and the next few days of soreness (what a workout for your thighs and hips!), I had a great time and erased all my previous misconceptions about downhill skiing.

I am really interested in making it back to the mountain one more time before the season ends and definitely going back next year.