Skiing Under Duress

I did not want to ski today. It was sleeting outside. Everything hurt. Yesterday was no fun. I couldn’t even see the mountain tops. Each limb weighed 1.3 thousand pounds.

“You said you wanted to ski a bunch!” Chris was frustrated with me.

“Yeah, but that was before I was not enjoying it as much as I did last time,” I said, sitting like a log on the locker room bench after the kids skied off to class. It had stopped sleeting and everyone assured us it was snowing on the mountain, not sleeting.

Here’s where I buckled—Sunday, a day that was also a lot of work helping the kids get warmed up on skies and during which time they looked like baby farm animals trying to take their first steps, I said to Chris that my highest hope for this trip was for the four of us to go to the top of the ski express lift and ski down all together. Today was the day Eloise’s class was going up on that lift, so she’d be familiar and comfortable with it when we picked her up from ski school. Was I prepared to forfeit this attainable dream over one crappy ski day yesterday?

UGH I put on my clompy moon boots.

With the correct boot size and skis (this spelling looks weird but google says more than one ski is skis), today was much smoother than yesterday. It was less crowded. The clouds hung around the mountaintops and seemed to catch passing rays of sunshine for a general heavenly glow. We got seated for lunch with no wait time.

We saw Elo-skis on the lift with her class and cruising down the slope we were skiing! She was so controlled and adorable. She’s so tiny! She makes it look effortless. Chris and I show all the effort. We waited in a lift line while the ski guys cleared a jam in the conveyor belt part of the machine. We knew it was serious when he went inside and reappeared with a saw.

“It was a ski!” I gasped as the guy pulled a kid ski out of the works.

“And a leg!” deadpanned a German ski instructor next to me in line, who immediately unstrapped his snowboard and peaced out of the line.

A snowball whizzed by. “I hope that’s not Isaac,” said Chris, turning around and seeing Isaac’s ski class 15 feet behind us in line. “…Of course…”

That was fun though—then we got to see Isaac ski down the same run with his class, doing jumps and skiing through the forest at times.

Chris and I caught a mini lift to the top of a nearby red slope because Chris wanted to level up. As we ascended, I heard Hannah’s assessment of some water park ride in my head: “If the best part of the ride is having it be over, maybe I don’t want to do that again.”

“I don’t want to do that,” I told Chris, branching off onto a blue slope I’d already run a few times.

Chris did it anyway! Well done, Chris! He is still alive, too.

After ski school, we collected the kids and ALL WENT UP ON THE LIFT. WE ALL SKIED DOWN TOGETHER. It was really awesome. It was fun to see how much better they got with two days of ski lessons. Too bad adult ski lessons were full!

The school had an award ceremony for a race. Eloise, the youngest person in her class, did not place in the top three. Isaac, the youngest person in his class, got second and got a silver medal. Eloise cried a little… probably not tears of joy for Isaac… but she got her own medal for finishing the course. Then it was hot tub and dinner back at the hotel.

So although it started under duress, it was worth it to see the kids zip by on the slopes!