Ski day at the cabin!

We had so much fun on President's Day! We went back to join the gang at the cabin Monday morning and decided to build a "kicker" next to the sledding hill. All you snowboarders should know what that is. It wasn't that hard to build and we made sure the landing was extra soft (which doesn't explain why my neck still hurts). Bevan had lots of fun throwing himself off. I took the more conservative approach and only went off a couple times. I don't know how those World Cup Aerialists do it! Being in the air only 2 feet freeked me out! But none the less, I overcame my fear for a few moments. We also decided to hike up the hill and try some turns up above the cabin. It sure made me appreciate ski lifts! The hardy exercise didn't stop Bevan, who made several trips. The "Sunday Ski Club" had already tracked out most of the hill, but he was able to find some turns between the sage brush and juniper trees. So much for the ski resort blackout! We will still ski on President's Day!

Snowboarding Adventure

There's not a whole lot of opportunity to practice snowboarding while working at Deer Valley. We were originally planning on skiing at Brighton on Monday, so we took along some of my mom's snowboarding gear to "give it a try." The subaru looked pretty hard core with skis AND snowboards on top. We watched the "learn how to snowboard" video at my parents house the night before. It looked really easy. Bevan was confident that he would pick it up fast.
The next morning, we arrived at Brighton right at 9 AM. We started off skiing, but soon realized that a week without any new snow and warmer temperatures made for a pretty boring ride. The groomers were nothing special and everything else was hard and crusty. After only about 5 runs, we decided to switch out at the car.
We felt juvenile and rebelious hauling our snowboards up to the bunny hill. I've snowbarded a couple times, but it's been about 3 years. I thought I forgot everything. Talk about re-inventing the wheel! It slowly came back to me as I was practicing my "heel-side" and toe-side" manuvers. Bevan, on the other hand, was not having any luck. At the most he could only pull off heel sliding and falling leaf. We spent almost 2 hours on the bunny hill. The one at Brighton is not the best because it's so narrow and kind of steep. We moved onto Majestic, a slow, intermediate quad chair that rolls you past the terrain park with all the knuckle-dragging riff-raff that should be in school. Needless to say, they were all hucking themselves off kickers and catching air while making perfect s-turns. This did NOT give us confidence. We barely made it down one run and called it a day. As we shuffled back to the car, Bevan vowed he would never do it again. I think that comment was spoken in haste. If we had a patient instructor and lots of padding, we might give it another try. But for now, we're happy to be back on skis!