So we’ve started a new family hobby. A few months ago I signed up for an ER conference up in the mountains at a ski resort. When we started looking into skiing as a family and started adding up the cost I began to have visions of taking out a second mortgage. Besides the lift tickets (that run 100$+ a day) we also needed to rent skis/boots/poles, and I was the only one in my family that knows how to downhill ski so at least a day of lessons if not more for everyone else. Again the costs were beginning to quickly get out of hand.
So we started looking at other options. Clint and I have gone snow shoeing many times and love it…ie its basically hiking in the snow and we love hiking. So we decided that we’d probably snow shoe at least one day…but what else could we do.
And yes we are kind of dorks but we really enjoyed watching the Nordic skiing last year during the Olympics. We were beyond impressed and so we started looking into that. And that was actually reasonable as far as cost (15$ for a trail pass-free for the boys, and rentals were 10-20$), so in essence we could cross country ski for 3 days as a whole family for less than one of us could downhill ski for a day….SOLD!
Clint and I took a day last month and went and learned how to cross country ski and fell in love. A couple of weeks later we took Leighton for lessons and spent the day learning (Caedmon learned how to ride in a sled…he says it’s hard work). And so we were ready to spend a week at a ski resort cross country skiing.
The conference was great…I learned a ton but also loved the schedule, we were in lectures from 7:15-9:40AM and then again from 4-6PM. Clearly designed so people could spend the majority of the day skiing. And we totally took advantage of that time, one day we snow shoed and the other two days we cross country skied.
The boys did great. Granted it wasn’t hard for Caedmon, he had a pretty cush ride in the sled that Clint and I alternated pulling. He told me at the end of each day “I work hard mommy”. I’m not sure how much hard work he actually did, as he spent a good portion of the time in the sled sleeping….
Leighton totally rocked it. We snow shoed over 2 miles the first day, cross country skied 3 miles the second and on our last day cross country skied over 5 miles. He never once complained which is amazing for a 5 year old. He giggled and laughed and only took his skies off once to climb a steep hill (I won’t mention it but Clint took his skies off on that same hill to make it up….mind you I was pulling Caedmon in the sled at that point and I made it up while pulling the sled….but we won’t mention that).
I really enjoy it and so does everyone else. It’s something we can all do together, even at different abilities, and have a lot of fun and get out and spend time in the beauty of creation. We don’t have to wait in lift lines, wear helmets and worry about hitting trees (The ER part of me…) and everyone comes home tired but overjoyed.
We are already looking forward to our next time out.
Hiking Mommy 