Our Family Ski Weekend

This past weekend, the four of us drove to wild, wonderful West Virginia to the annual Troop 688 ski weekend at Canaan Valley.  This was the first time that the ladies had joined David and me; Mary is not a skier and doesn't enjoy getting cold, and Sarah had not previously been interested, but this year announced she wanted to try to learn snowboarding.

Confidentially, I had low expectations for her snowboarding adventure; I thought that despite the 90-minute lesson, the repeated face-plants into the snow, and a little snow down the parka, would quickly turn her interest into tubing or just watching TV at the lodge.  How little credit I gave her!  Sarah gamely strapped into her snowboard, and I caught up with her at one point during her lesson, as she was maneuvering quite impressively.  After her lesson, over lunch she enthused about the experience; after lunch, she and I headed to the bunny trails and lift to ski/snowboard together.

During our first run together, she impressed with how long she was able to stay up before catching an edge and tumbling over; I managed to catch this particular run on video:

We then made a second run together, to the two bunny trails that make the long loop from the top of the bunny lift to the bottom.  Not only did she stay upright coming off the lift, but she completed the top leg of the trail without falling, and nearly made it to the bottom of the second without falling as well!  This with only one 90-minute lesson: color me impressed!

However, the next time wasn't as fortunate.  She elected to try the broad trail that runs directly underneath the bunny lift; it turned out to be a bit steeper than she had expected, and she lost control and fell nearly at the bottom, bruising her left knee and taking her out of snowboarding for the rest of the afternoon.  Before the weekend was over, though, she did say she thought she'd be back next year, and I certainly hope so, as it was a special time skiing with my daughter.

David, of course, continues skiing and trying to win races among his fellow Scouts.  Their favorite trail to do so winds from the top of the mountain to the bottom, and is called Timber Ridge.  Once, I tried to stay caught up with him on Sunday, and this was the result:

David is the skier principally in the frame, but several times his speed takes him far off or around his friend John on the snowboard; once, he soars up through a wooded cut-through onto the bottom part of a black-diamond trail, Gravity, that I finally mastered this weekend; he is next seen as the rocket shooting through the frame in a tuck, and well off into the distance for the final sprint to the finish.  By my rough back-of-the-envelope calculation, he's averaging about 18 mph on this run...not Olympic speed, but fast enough for his little 14-year-old heart to get a thrill.

Despite Sarah's injury we all enjoyed the weekend.  It's nice to get away as the four of us and to try new things, again continuing with the theme of 2013: there's gonna be some changes!