Skiing, Technically

We felt like our grand experiment last year was pretty successful: after one ski season, lots of trips to Sundance, and several lessons, everyone in the family felt comfortable skiing and enjoyed it to some extent.  But since not everyone loved it, I knew that it was a gamble to invest in another ski season.  But I also wanted to take that chance now when it was still pretty fresh in everyone's minds/bodies, and go ahead and determine whether we became "a ski family" or not.

So, we went for it.  We bought season passes again and then scrambled just a bit to rent equipment because ski shops have been running out (we probably waited a little too late to rent this year - next year we should rent in early November).  But we were excited to be able to rent from a sporting goods store in the mall, and we found out that the younger kids are so much happier with their equipment since it's better quality than what we rented last year.  Eliza and Luke even wore their boots around the house!

Sundance opened in early December and we decided to go ahead and head to the slopes on a Saturday morning since we wouldn't be able to go as a family again for several weeks.  Poor Cat was stressed about finals the next week but decided she could afford a few hours to get out with the family.

There was some fresh snow and it loked beautiful!  The parking lot wasn't too crowded, which was great.  But since it was so early in the season, there wasn't enough snow for most of the resort, so literally one run was open.

It took 45 minutes to get everyone suited up and make our way to the lift, a few more minutes to get clicked into skis, and then we waited in a moderate 15-minute line.  We got off on the first stop (the only one working) and headed down the mountain.  We only had a couple of small falls and everyone made it down the mountain successfully, and had fun!

But by the time we got back toward the bottom of the mountain, the kids deided they'd actually rather hang out at the handle tow, and Cat agreed to take them there.  I figured Ben and I would wait in line at the lift and the kids would join us shortly, which might have worked since the line was ridiculously long at this point and there was plenty of time, but the kids ended up just staying up there.  So Ben and I waited for 45 minutes so we could do another short run down the bottom half of the mountain, doing the same thing that everyone else at Sundance was doing.  At least it was sunny and beautiful out!

Cat took this picture of the boys, putting their faces in the snow at the handle tow.

I was hoping that after some time at the handle tow, the kids would decide they wanted to do a little more skiing, but I was wrong.  They were done.  By the time Ben and I did our second run, the kids had decided it was time to go home.  Which means we got everyone up early on a Saturday morning, spent over an hour to gather gear and make preparations, 20 minutes to drive to the resort, another 45 minutes to put everything on after we arrived, 15 minutes to wait in line for the lift, and skied together for about 5 minutes.  Maybe less.

Is it too lofty a goal to hope that we can double our ski minutes next time?  (And yet, I'm still really glad we did all of that and got out and did something!)