Girls first skiing

This week Laurel's brother Jay came up from Wyoming, and we took advantage of his skiing instructional skills and put the girls on skis for the first time in their lives. We went to Crystal Mountain, over by Mt. Rainier. Both girls did great!

Here, Jay & Annelise contemplate the conveyor belt in the beginner area:

Here's a picture of Simone getting her first bit of sliding in, on the training slope:


Here's one of Annelise on the training slope:


Annelise--naturally--took to skiing like the proverbial bat out of hell. Simone is much more tentative about being off-balance however, and I was a little worried that she wouldn't have fun.

After they got used to sliding on their skis and 'snowplowing' to stop and steer, it was time to tackle the ski lift up to the bunny slope. My dim memories of ski lifts were that they were pretty challenging, and guaranteed to make you fall at some point. But we had a pretty decent time of it, all told--they actually slowed the thing down to let us get in place. Jay told us later that Annelise loved the lift--loved being up in the air. Simone didn't love it, but she did just fine.

Now, the bunny slope had two grades on it--a fairly short, steep one right down from where the lift let off, and then a longer, more gradual slope down the hill. On the steep part of the slope, my fears for Simone were realized--she was scared and very angry that I would lead her into such a dangerous place. She wiped out a couple of times.

But to my delight, the second part of the slope was gradual and long enough that 'Mo was able to get herself under control and up to a speed that was comfortable and fun. She made a couple of lazy loops, and could pretty much stop at will. By the time we got to the bottom, she was very willing to get back on the lift and have another go. After all the driving we had to do to get there, and all the preliminary practice, we only got 3 runs in, but on the third run 'Mo didn't wipe out at all on that first, steep slope.

So--it looks like we're going to be able to do family ski trips once in a while--very cool!