Winter Weather Ski Trip
Prior to our most recent ski trip we somehow had avoided any adverse weather on the slopes. During February break last year (2018), I had a t-shirt on while at Attitash. On our recent 2019 MLK day trip, the string of luck ended. We were forewarned of the “polar vortex” days in advance so we got out the ski bag and examined the inventory and Cristin ordered an entire box of hand and foot warmers. In our discussions I came to realize that the person who grew up skiing in Pennsylvania and Colorado was much more serious about properly outfitting for the cold than I was. I think half of the cold experienced as a New Englander from a “Yankee” family is due to actual weather. The other half is due to the fact that you just put on a bunch of clothing and deal with it. We ended up leasing skis for the season for the girls at a local outfitters which is turning out to be a good decision. There is none of the rental hassle and the equipment is good quality and the kids can get comfortable on the equipment. Given the last minute we also bought a bunch of warm items at the store as well which made the Amex card run pretty hot. We headed up Friday after the usual routine of waiting around for Cristin to file something last minute because that is when the highest quality legal products are produced, or so I am told. We stopped for a Subway dinner and hit a supermarket somewhere just shy of the NH border and continued on to the condo we had rented for the second time. Cristin is not so big on the rise and shine aspect of skiing but ceded to a 7:30 wakeup which got us to King Pine in time for me to run the girls down the slopes three times prior to their lessons. After lunch we skied as a family doing the usual succession of 10 minute King Pine round trips and caught one of the last lifts up only to watch Ellie land a hard faceplant on the way down. Cristin likes to tell me how her father says that falls always happen on the last run but there are some “chicken and the egg” problems with that statement. The Cambells brought Elvio’s over for a fun dinner and we hit the hay when the impending snow storm was just starting to arrive. Around 18 inches were expected with some weird weather conditions which were to bring sleet at the top.
Sunday we headed to Attitash and the girls had yet another lesson while I skied by myself in the fresh powder. It was absolutely fantastic and the best skiing I had experienced in 20+ years. It reminded me of all those days at Stowe as a kid skiing the front four, particularly Liftline which wasn’t quite as steep as the other three so the moguls stayed put. We had lunch with the Cambells and headed out in the afternoon to ski with them. It was clear that it would be tough to ski as a group so Phoebe headed off with them and I paired off with Ellie. Eventually we crossed paths and the girls managed to convince Ellie to go down a black diamond trail which I was hesitant about given the snow conditions but she managed to do it even though the moguls were waist to chest high on her. It was a fun day slogging those trails and a testament to my year straight of hard biking that instead of waking up the next day unable to walk, I didn’t feel at all out of sorts. We ate leftover Elvios for dinner and watched parts of the two conference games which, despite being mired in play reviews, were both strongly affected by missed and bad calls from the refs leading for the pundits to call for even more scope in what can be reviewed. Brady played well but the best part of the night was a terrible call against Chiefs back Chris Jones for “roughing the passer” which was completely without merit. This led to some hilarious threads on twitter including one noting that only Vidal Sassoon is allowed to make contact with TB12. We had planned to go back to King Pine on the way home Monday but a high of 2 degrees with a “feels like” in the negative teens forced a last minute decision to go to Kahuna Laguna. This was followed up by a trip to Dairy Queen for lunch and we were on the road and home around the kids’ bedtime.
