Graduation Day

January 27, 2008. Graduation day from Morse Mountain! After dealing with the crazy lines and yard sales that sometimes litters the slopes of the beginner trails at Smuggs for the past two Saturdays, Lauren and I decided to offer a new alternative to Ty and Ally yesterday. We took them on up to the *big* mountains at Smuggs -- Sterling and Madonna. There was just a bit of trepidation at first (which I now know had nothing to do with skiing and everything to do with a fear that we wouldn't go to the Fun Zone for apres' ski), but once we got through those first 10 minutes, it was an awesome graduation.

We spent the day on the mid-mountain lift chair (Madonna II), which, if you look closely at the trail map, doesn't offer any beginner routes back to the base. Nothing but intermediate and expert trails. I really wish we'd brought the video camera with us -- both Ally and Ty ripped right down a number of different intermediate slopes and never missed a beat. Tyler even managed to run through the slalom course three times -- setting a new personal best of 81.7 seconds. One of my favorite moments was when he caught the very last gate and crashed through the finish on his first try... he came up in tears and I thought maybe he'd hurt himself. Nope. Just mad that he'd missed a gate. I love it.

I was mentioning to someone the other day how great it is to have the kids latch on to something like this -- if they stick with it, we're going to have some really great family vacations. And beyond that, how fun it is to teach kids. When you compare them with a teenager or adult trying to learn the same thing, the differences are striking. The adults have some level of fear, they worry about whether or not they will look silly, and they tend to try to advance too quickly beyond their real level. The little kids that are out there (not just mine) are so great because they are just having fun -- no real cares or concerns. They accept your instruction and can't wait to take on the challenge.

I also said to Lauren last night that when we first started taking Ally and Ty with us, I had a little feeling of 'woe is me' at the thought of exchanging my tree and bump runs for fun and games with Mogul Mouse. But it has really been just the opposite. I still enjoy my *grown up* ski days, but watching them progress so quickly has been awesome. And after yesterday, I suspect we are not too far away from the woods and the bumps.