It started off sunny in Keystone, but by the time we got to Copper, it was snowy. I got to put on all my new ski gear. The only thing I had to rent was snowblades and skis. These blades were longer than the ones I had last month. I liked them better, too.
I didn't realize it, but Jeff was skiing around behind me (and in some cases in front of me) taking pictures and video. So all the photos are courtesy of him. Here I am in the morning with my ski instructor in the orange jacket. It was quite snowy but it was about 30ยบ, so it wasn't too bad.
You can see it cleared up in the early afternoon. This was a great view off of the Roundabout run, a green on the western part of the mountain.
Now I am on skis, 130s that were longer than the snowblades. Steve was amazingly patient. He would give me instructions and pointers, then he'd tell me, "Follow my tracks." I would try to remember everything he'd told me and apply it.
He showed me some neat ways to make sure that you are centered and not leaning toward the mountain on a slope. I learned, getting off of a lift, that this is a great way to tip over. Yikes! That was my only fall all day, though I had to take my skis off to get up. Talk about a bug on its back! I'm glad that no one got a picture of that.
Here we are getting to enjoy a little of the view ourselves. I think I spent more time looking at where I was going instead of looking at the super view, but I guess that is the way it is supposed to be! You can see that there weren't too many other people out there. Especially as it got past three o'clock, we had the slopes mostly to ourselves. It was marvelous. I got to practice giant turns without worrying about someone who was fast-moving coming up behind me.
Speaking of which--there was a poor child who was learning to ski. She looked maybe to be four years old. At that age, Steve explained to me, they do not use poles. They do not have the upper body muscle development for the poles to be of much use. So they whiz around on just the skis. A family was up on the Roundabout slope (or perhaps it was West Ten Mile, and they were just letting the little girl go. Either they didn't teach her to slow, stop and turn, or she wasn't doing it. She was zooming toward a stand of trees and a steeper slope at an alarming rate. The mom really sped up to catch her, and in the process just knocked the poor thing over. It was like a cartoon where I expected to hear a bowling ball noise, knocking against the pins.
The little girl had also taken a fall earlier because of a similar issue. She was pretty outraged at being knocked over, and then when the parents announced that they were going to put a harness on her, she howled that she didn't want it! After all of that. Kids are fearless. My instructor clearly disapproved, but his pointers to them (as they collected themselves from their pile-up) were pretty calm. Jeff and I agree... we will let the pros teach our kids.
Just me. Believe it or not, I did not see him taking this picture!
I had a blast. I can't wait to go up again and practice. The Caughlins, who apologized for not getting our numerous messages in time this past weekend, invited us to house-sit for them in early March. So that will be our next weekend, at the latest! We are so excited. I think Jeff is even more excited than me, because now this is something we can both do.
I never thought I would ski again. But I think that it will become something that I really enjoy.
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