Skiing was Great!

Tim, Mike, Jessica E., and I had a real experience of "THE GREATEST SNOW ON EARTH" during the recent Utah ski week. Actually only four and a half days - but what days they were!

We were blessed with cold weather and blue skies the first two days, but because of a recent snowfall of four inches a few days earlier, you could ski anywhere, even between the groomed runs, which means tree skiing! The resorts felt much different when you could go virtually any direction and be in decent snow.

During that second day we tried a new area called Powder Mountain, out past Snowbasin. It was worth the longer drive and we had a great day. Jessica skied her first black diamond run and you should have seen the glow on her face! Tim and Mike were roaring down the tree runs and yours truly was "carving 'em up"! Lots of pix on Facebook!

At Mass later that evening, we heard a homily about "transfiguring moments" and the priest actually used the analogy of skiing a black diamond run for the first time as an example of a grace-filled experience which reveals the love and glory of God!

Then the snow came...we skied at the Canyons in a blizzard and had a blast. As the visibility worsened, the snow got better and better! The mogul runs softened up and we skied some pretty interesting stuff off the top of the highest lift, "Ninety-Nine Ninety", representing the altitude of 9990' at the top! Jessica manged to pull off two "firsts", first mogul run (thanks to me for taking her on an ungroomed powder bump run) and her first deep powder run (thanks to Mike for leaving her behind). But she survived and thrived! Way to go, Florida girl! Must be the new skis!

The next day, our last, was at our favorite, Solitude, where we remembered Aunt Paula (Solitude was always her favorite) and skied as many runs as we could using the express lifts. Burned our legs out before noon, but kept skiing anyhow :) You should have seen Mike and Tim blasting through the moguls. I mostly stuck to the groomed once the powder areas were skied out...until the end of the day when Mike had the bright idea to take me down Milk Run, a double black off the back side, er the dark side of the mountain! I felt like an old man, thrashing around in the deep stuff trying not to kiss the trees...oh, well, it WAS beautiful in there. Thanks, Mike! We'll try it again someday!

Next year in Colorado! Hope to see alot of you there. Keep the dates free - February 27 thru March 6, 2010. Begin thinking about which half of the week you can make it. By splitting the week we can give more people a chance to come.