Deer Valley

I went skiing on Thursday with my brother. I had been kind of nervous about it this week. You see, previous to our trip this week, it had been over 12 years since I had been skiing. Couple that with the news about the actress that died from complications of a seemingly minor fall, my reticence might be justified. It wasn't. We had a blast.  

We thought it would be wise to go on the bunny hill first to see if we remembered how to ski after all these years. But the bunny hill was populated with practically all children and ski instructors or parents. My pride got the better of me so I said we should just take a real run and find out the hard way. Skiing is like riding a bike. Both my brother and I were amazed at how quickly we got up to speed, picking up pretty much where we had left off so long ago.

I was surprised by how long I lasted up there.  I was expecting more of an aerobic experience which would have knocked me out pretty fast.  But it was more like resistance training.  The first run down I was worried about my feet and legs cramping up, but once we got to the bottom and I tightened all the bindings on my boots I was fine.

It was a beautiful day on the slopes.  The snow started getting a tad slushy as the day wore on, which lead to my only fall, which wasn't too bad.  I was going a little too fast and my ski caught an edge in the slushy snow.

We lasted about five hours before our legs threatened to turn to jello. It was nice then that our lift tickets had been given to us rather than buying them ourselves. Skiing is an expensive hobby, but especially so at Deer Valley. The lift passes there go for $80 each! We rented our gear from Outdoors Unlimited at BYU for considerably less than I would have imagined. While renting our stuff, they had a board that listed the conditions at the local ski resorts, with some comments about each place underneath. For Deer Valley they said if you could afford the lift passes, then you could afford to own your own gear.

I like skiing more than tubing or sledding, except for the cost. I have the hardest time with climbing back up after a sledding run, even on relatively small hills. If only they had lifts for sledding! But then, that would increase the cost for that activity as well.