Good Time to Ski

Is there ever a bad time to ski? Actually, yes, but that’s another story.

We did some skiing last week, and had a blast. The conditions were good, not great, but good. The weather turned out nicely, not too bitterly cold like it’s been, and it was even sunny for much of the day. Plus, it rained cats and dogs for the next two days, ruining the conditions. This is a complete bummer for a number of reasons, but at least we managed to squeak a day of skiing in. Last year we didn’t ski much at all because, as you can imagine, we were just getting initiated into the cult of hockey and couldn’t afford to jeopardize our standing with our cult leader, Mr. Hockey.

It’s all so silly in retrospect, but since we seemed to practice so much, we didn’t want to tire ourselves out before practice. This year, we are not as cultish about things, and we decided to go for it. It helps that there’s this great deal at the mountain, and our friends were organizing a day at the hill. S6 has $10 lift tickets on certain days of the week, and at that price, how can you not go? We have practice on that day, but I figure we’re old pros at this hockey thing and can afford to be a little fatigued at practice. Plus, it’s only a game, right? (yeah, right).

The plan was to meet around lunchtime and hit the hill. As usual we were late, and our friends had already been skiing for two hours. We met in the lodge, ate a quick snack, and then hit the hill. One of the boys who came is N’s age and they seemed to hit it off, which I was happy about. They are comparable in terms of skiing abilities, so it worked out beautifully. A had a contingent of girls to hang with, so the ladies took, the boys took off, and I was left to ski by myself. I love when that happens.

We skied for several hours and at some point I found myself getting weary. Granted, S6 is a tiny hill, and you can only do so many things before it gets rather familiar, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. At some point, however, I wanted to take a break. We had to be at the rink, so we called it quits about an hour before the hill closed, which in the past would have been unthinkable. We usually skied until the hill closed, but again, we were tired, and our friends were ready to roll.

I will say this, it’s an adventure in itself just getting all that gear into our car. We had skis and boots for three of us, plus hockey gear for two of us, not to mention three people. Crazy. Then again, if our lives weren’t crazy, it would just mean we never made it out the front door.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to fimonfabre for the pic.