As we have done for the past several years we ventured into the mountains for the annual family ski vacation. This year hasn't exactly been a great year for skiing but we lucked out with some fresh snow a couple of times during the week.
What's different this year is that my sister now lives nearby so we hooked up with them on the first Saturday at Keystone. We put in a full 3 runs on the bunny slope, had lunch and called it a day. Actually, that's a slight exaggeration as we did move over to a true green run just before grabbing lunch. Jeanette and I took the kids back to their condo after lunch while Bartee and Chad had an afternoon of fun on the mountain. This worked out great for me because it tired Bartee out early in the week. He's a maniac on the slopes and I have a hard time keeping up. Now that the kids are just as skilled as he is, I can't keep up with them either.
Just for some sympathy and to give you an idea of how crazy Bartee is about working out, I have a little side story for you. The other week while he was traveling for work, he ended up with a hotel room on the 9th floor. While staying there he avoided the elevator and took the stairs regularly. Since he was missing the gym and his routine workout, he decided to come up with an alternative. Here's what he did...
* Walked down the 9 flights of stairs. * From the bottom walked up 1 flight and back down. * Walked up 2 flights and back down. * Walked up 3 flights and back down. * Walked up 4 flights and back down. * (you get the idea) * Walked up 9 flights and went in his room to grab a drink. * Walked down the 9 flights of stairs. * From the bottom walked up 8 flights and back down. * Walked up 7 flights and back down. * Walked up 6 flights and back down. * Walked up 5 flights and back down. * (you get the idea) * Walked up 1 flight and back down.
Needless to say his legs were still sore about 3 days later, but he did say that it was a great cardio workout. I bet!
We decided to take it easy on Sunday spending the morning at the Breckenridge sledding hill and dog park, having lunch at the outdoor crepe shop and spending the afternoon shopping in the outlets. It's the first time we've endured that many hours at the outlets but we did walk away with some deals. We all agreed that Eddie Bauer was our favorite. I scored a spring jacket for $11 and Bartee got a new winter jacket for about $30, if I remember right.
The next five days we hit the slopes hard, alternating between Vail and Beaver Creek. By Wednesday, we all had our ski legs back. At Beaver Creek, we enjoyed a lunch time photo shoot in the snow:
At Vail we enjoyed live music and some appetizers after skiing in a slope side restaurant:
The last 2 days of skiing were at Arapahoe Basin and Breckenridge. This was my first time skiing at A-Basin and I tell you, I'm a bit of a fan. That Saturday was literally the perfect day for skiing. Wind was minimal, sky was bright blue and the scenery was phenomenal. It's a small mountain with not much terrain, however it is tucked deep inside the valley. The mountains just jut out of the ground and reach up for the sky. All the more stunning on a bright and sunny day because of the shadows that are cast. The resort feels less commercial and more personal. The BBQ smells coming from the mid-mountain restaurant are amazing. My mouth was watering and I don't even eat meat! The lifts are a bit rickety and few. Some of them don't even have lap bars, which made the kids *very* nervous. The entire day I was in a state of awe at the beauty, for real. Sometimes when you live by the mountains you take the beauty for granted however on this day I did nothing but appreciate the jagged edges of the land all around me. The proof is in the number of photos I walked away with from that day.
It looks like the COO and Vice President of A-Basin was as enamored with the views as I was on Saturday.
Within the past 2 years Vail has added a vertical tracking feature to their pass so that at the end of the day you can log into a website and see how much vertical footage you covered. Sanjay became a little obsessed with checking his numbers. :) We all increased our footage each day through Wednesday, then after that it slowly decreased each day. The rest of the family covered more vertical than I on all days except for the last day we skied and that's only because I took it upon myself to make sure that I beat out Sanjay and Priya. Here's how I secretly did it: Priya was cold and needed a break in the warming hut, so I took one more run! Then Daddy took Sanjay down a double-black which ended up taking them a little more time to complete, so I went ahead and grabbed one more run to outdo Sanjay as well. It was fun to point it out to them later what had happened. They were able to rub it in all week and now it was my turn. In any case, they are both better skiers than me and have been since last year. This year Sanjay made a lot of progress and Bartee tells me that he has a hard time staying ahead of him. I'm a little worried about what the future holds for Sanjay and skiing. If neither Bartee or I can keep up with him and he's 8 years old, will he want to ski alone? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Bartee was so tired at the end of the week that on the last day I found him asleep at 8:12pm next to Sanjay in bed. The lights were on and the kids were each sitting up in bed reading. We are all wiped out as we usually are at the end of this trip. Look at this, even the cat has had enough and she didn't spend one single day on the slopes. :)
To recap our vacation, I made a video that I should share as well. The song is one that we heard while on the shuttle bus back to the parking lot at A-Basin. It is "How 'Bout You?" by the Yonder Mountain String Band. It will forever remind me of the 2012 ski vacation.
