Until yesterday we have only skied with the boys on Silverlode and the magic carpet. Going all the way to the top is a big adventure when you are 3.5 years old. Skiing down is even bigger, as it is 7 km back to the bottom. Doing it with two 3.5 year olds alone is pretty big too. I wanted to try, and the boys are tough enough to do it, if we pick the right day and conditions. Yesterday was warm, sunny and everyone had had a good sleep. I was worried about loading the chairs with the boys as they are old and don't really slow down, unless you ask them to slow them. The boys can't load themselves, so we shuffle up to the line and I scoop them up under my arms to get them on the chair, but if they dilly dally or fall over things get hairy. I was also concerned about the cat track on at the bottom of Rino's Run where it is narrow and people are skiing as fast as they can to get to the lift. One unexpected turn by one of the boys and smack. The boys were pretty excited about going to the top, loading mother lode was fine. Once we got up the views were beautiful and the boys were pretty excited about how high they were.
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| Not everyone you ask to take a picture is a pro, but hey, we are on top! |
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| Cole with the views from the top of Granite looking east, Trail and the Columbia River way down in the valley |
From the top we headed for one of the only green runs up top, Silver Sheep. You access Silver Sheep by a long cat track across the top. Usually no problem for an adult to slide all the way there, but apparently not for little kids. In the hundreds of meters of flat section I had to skate and push one kid, turn around and repeat for the other, again and again. Eventually I figured out how to pack us all up together like a train and push us. Phew! Once we got to the top of Silver Sheep we were all good though. Cole was skiing much faster than Grayson, so he kind of took off, and I just hoped that at some point he would stop and wait for us. Grayson was having a mellow speed, chatty day, stopping and talking all the way. We were headed for Paradise Lodge for a snack and luckily Cole stopped high enough to wait for us so we could actually duck in. The deck was packed as it is on a sunny day, especially retro last weekend days, when we haven't had any good sunny spring skiing all year. Snacks, hot chocolate and beers all around. I was wearing Connie's old one piece from the 80's and a crazy wig.
We finished our tour of the mountain with a ride on the Paradise chair where we barely made it on the chair in time for it to sweep around and scoop us up. I was on but the boys were hanging until I hauled them up. Yikes. Our last run was 7 km back to the bottom on Rino's Run. The boys were tired, Cole was still skiing really fast and Grayson was slow and falling and stopping a lot. Eventually I would just scoop him up and ski really fast to catch Cole. To be fair Cole was stopping and waiting lots and doing a good job. They were getting at the end of their rope a bit right before we hit the top of Silverlode, but once we were there they knew where they were again and how much further they had to go. We missed the Dummy Downhill, but still had fries and a beer on the deck for the deck party. Yeah we did it!
