12/19/2023
Ian and I loaded up Cai and Emery for our first day of skiing of the season. We got out the door by 10:30 and up to the Stevens Pass by noon.
First in the morning, I had gotten up before everyone else to get Magnus off to daycare. The day before, Magnus had had a hard time detaching from the family to go to daycare as Cai and Emery stayed home lazily on their first Monday of winter break. So on this day I got him up and out with "bar car" for breakfast and back by 8:45 to start making the bagels and packing all the bags.
We have a ski station setup in the laundry room to help us manage our ski gear and use in anticipation of the season.
Finally driving away hoping we remembered everything we set off with light rain falling.
When we got to the pass we were pleasently surprised by new pit toilets at the end of the parking lot. By the time we took care of business, ate lunch got our parking spot in the upper lot and all got into our gear and got on the snow it was about 1:30.
We started on the magic carpet, per Emery's request and to my benefit as well. What I took away from my end of season ski day with Peter last spring mostly came back to me.
After about an hour of both Emery and me falling and learning to get back up Emery was almost admitting that she was ready to go up the list and ski down Daisy. I figured better for me to get up there and try to get down sooner than later too.
On our way to the lift "Smile Emery!" She's not excited yet.
When it was out turn to cross the red line and get ready for our lift, Emery did a great job hustling up and watching for her seatRiding the lift was beautiful as ever, even with the snow/rain mix coming down.
No problem getting off the lift for Emery or me, but even that first slope down felt a little daunting. We all skied close(ish) together to start. Emery needed to go to the bathroom so Cai said he'd stay with her and take her down Tye Creek to go direct to the lodge. Ian and I sking down together at my pace. Cai texted us that Emery ended up loving the steep part on Tye Creek. Ski girl was back!
Ian warned me of a steeper part of Daisy that I should try to let myself take so I didn't stall out on the flat part that followed. Ian went on ahead and as I gained speed, my pole knicked the snow unexpectedly and I lost the balance I had and took a weird tumble that sent explatives into the air and knocked my head back on the snow pretty good. I just laid there looking up at the sky realizing I was ok and then appreciating that "big" falls can happen and I can still be ok. My legs were at weird angles so it took me a second to get my skis parallel again and standing back up. I was able to get myself down to meet Ian at the slow sign and we got down to the bottom again. We figured we had one more ski run we could fit in before we had to head out at 3 in order to get back to pickup Magnus in time.
Ian and I enjoyed riding the lift again together. It was as if we'd come up by ourselves for the day <3
We took Tye Creek and amazingly there were grass bits sticking up out of the snow. Ian encouraged me again to let myself go fast because of a longer flat part at the end. My skis clipped a tuft of grass and I fell again - this time much softer. But I decided to take it a bit slower until I got more of the hang of it all.
All in all it was a good first day skiing.
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