The Greatest Snow on Earth

It's the end of 2nd term, so the kids had an entire day off school yesterday. I've been wanting to take them skiing all season (imagine living in the greatest snow on earth and never experiencing it!). Yesterday was our lucky day. The stars aligned correctly, and by some miracle Sean was able to get the day off and go with us.

(As I put on my ski coat, I pulled off the previous ski pass attached to my zipper. The date: January 1995. Yep, that was 13 years ago, before Jamison was born!)

Earlier in the week I'd called around to find the best deal on learn-to-ski packages, and the one I came up with was at Wolf Mountain. They told us we needed to be there just before 9:00 am, because their lessons were starting at 9:30, and the kids needed to rent equipment.

We left our house plenty early: at 7:20 am, giving us time to fight the early-morning traffic and arrive on time. At 8:45 we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves, for arriving at The Canyons near Park City, previously Wolf Mountain, earlier than expected. Wait a minute...was that PREVIOUSLY Wolf Mountain??! Yes, we realized with a sinking feeling: we had no idea where the current Wolf Mountain ski resort is located. Just one of the negatives about not skiing for 13 years.

I immediately called, and was informed that Wolf Mountain is up above Ogden, kind of by East Canyon Reservoir: about an hour's drive from where we currently were. I felt sick to my stomach as we realized two things: all of the money I'd paid over the phone for those lessons & rentals was either going right down the drain, OR we'd drive to where we were supposed to be, late for rentals, lessons, and the whole day's plans.

By the way, part of the day's plans included Sabra's birthday party at our house starting at 4:00 for 8 little princesses. So we had to be off the mountain by 1:30 or 2:00, tops.

We had no choice, really: I didn't want a day's worth of disappointment and lost money, so we drove to Wolf Mountain. We arrived about 9:45, and as quickly as we could (which was frustratingly slow) got the kids equipped with skis, boots, & a snowboard for Jamison. We went to the ski school and told them who we were. Their instructors were waiting, and told us to be back at noon to pick them up.

Sean & I were impressed with the ski school: Jamison's group lesson consisted of himself, one other lady, and the instructor, and the other three kids' group consisted of the three of them with their instructor. They basically all got private lessons.

We had fun getting our ski legs back under us as we tried out the runs. When they were finished with ski school, we had lunch, then took the kids up to try the real slopes a couple of times.

For anyone who skis, you can probably relate to the memory that the first day of skiing (or snowboarding, in Jamie's case) is not the most fun you'll ever have. However, we were proud of our kids, and excited for their efforts. The younger three learned to snowplow, and are working on turning & stopping. Jamison learned how to stay up on his board (most of the time), and is enjoying it.

It was a successful day after all. The kids wouldn't have been able to stay much longer than we did, for their first day. We came home tired, but glad we'd gone.