Since I've lived in Utah for the past 10 years of my life, you might think that I would be an expert skier by now. Our state does have "The Greatest Snow On Earth" after all. Truth is, I think I can count the amount of times I've been skiing on one hand. My husband, Emery, has a history of bad knee injuries...so he has always been really hesitant about going with me. However, I finally convinced him to come with me when my sister and her husband came into town for Christmas. Ok, I basically forced him to go against his own will...but guess what? He LOVED it!
The two of us obviously had a lack of skiing experience, so we really wanted to find a way to improve our skills on the slopes. When I found out that January was "Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month" and we could get a beginner ski lesson at a super great discount, I knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity. We decided this would also be the perfect time to find out if our kids
would enjoy skiing, so we all signed up for a lesson at The Canyons up
in Park City. It was only $45 per person for an all-day lesson, including rentals and the beginner lift ticket. The child lesson even included lunch...and if you've ever eaten at a ski resort, you know how expensive the food can be!
We drove up to Park City and arrived at The Canyons Resort at about 8am. We took the Cabriolet lift from the parking lot up to the resort area, where we checked in for our classes and got fitted for our rental equipment. Then we dropped the kids off at their classes. I thought they might be a little nervous and not want us to leave them there, but they were so excited to get started...I'm not even sure if they told us goodbye!
Emery and I headed over to our group lesson, which only
consisted of us, another lady and our instructor. It was so nice having
a small group, because we were able to get a lot of one-on-one
instruction. We started out using the magic carpet, which is a conveyor
belt that takes you to the top of the bunny hill. There we were able
to practice the basics, going down at a slow speed. We were all able to
master the bunny hill pretty quickly, so we headed over to the High
Meadow lift to test out our skills. By this time the snow was falling
like crazy...it snowed over a foot while we were there!
We took a break for lunch and ate at the Red Pine Lodge. It was nice to warm up, rest our legs and fill our bellies. But after lunch we were itching to get back to the slopes and keep learning. We took one more trip up the High Meadow lift and once we finished those green (beginner) runs, we went up the Saddleback Express lift to try out some blue (intermediate) runs. The steeper incline was a bit more tricky, but it really helped me to work on my speed control. By the end of the day we were able to go down Kokopelli, which our instructor said was marked as blue, but was actually close to a black. I'm not gonna lie...I got a little scared when I saw how steep it was, but it was so awesome when I got to the bottom and looked up at what I had accomplished.
At 3pm it was time to go pick up the kids. I was so happy to see them both still playing around and having a great time. They really loved their classes and can't wait to try again. That's really all that I had hoped to get out of this lesson...that they would have a super fun time and want to go back. I'm thinking we need to take them to one of the bunny hills soon and spend some more time practicing the basics that they learned, so they can eventually hop on a lift with us and we can enjoy lots of quality family time on the mountain!
Where is your favorite place to ski or snowboard? It's kind of overwhelming here in Utah, cause there are so many resorts to choose from! I really want to try out Alta, because I've heard so many great things about it. I'd love to hear your recommendations...even resorts outside of Utah. I have a feeling this is going to be a new obsession of mine!
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